You should only be the messanger and
leave the task to Jesus. After all he knows what he is doing.

Your views are much the same as
my parents were as I was growing up. You sound just like my dad all of
those yrs. that I debated with him about the importance of letting a child
be a child and allowing them to have that happiness that Santa brings.
Now my dad has gone home to be with the Lord and I now see all of the
things that he was trying to say when he use to say that allowing a child
to believe in Santa is basically lying to them! That is really awful
about your friends mother teaching her that Jesus is just a fairy tale...
you keep trying to help her see that he's not!!! You seem like a good
friend to her and she's blessed just to have a caring friend like
you.