I was raised in the lie and I think maybe had one wrapped present in my whole childhood. I don't think that in itself is necessarily damaging to a child but the hypocrisy of hearing your parents pushing the "we don't need a special day to give presents" line is. I remember being on the field service once and the householder bent down and asked me (I was a child) if I felt that I missed out because of not having christmas and birthdays. My mum was glaring at me and I knew what to say: "oh no, we get presents at other times". But that was a lie.
Do you know what really sucked? As we got older, we used to buy anniversary presents for our parents but they never bought us presents. Kind of the wrong way around, don't you think?