Keep the magic or he should grow up now

Then you should have removed your child from that school.

Especially the small homely ones in my experience. May the odds be ever in PP's daughter's favour...

Since when do kids believe everything they see in a film? Do you really give them that little credit for intelligence?

I loved watching the Little Mermaid as a young kid, but I never believed that it was real. And I certainly didn't need to believe it in order to enjoy the film. The same went for Oz, Dumbo, Willy Wonka, Pinocchio etc...

I think he probably knows. I never had that conversation with my Mum as I worried my stocking would stop!
He probably just enjoys the traditions rather than believes in them anymore. I wouldn't say anything.
My DS is Year 8 and I haven't said anything to him, I know he knows.

I agree!

I'm also a bit surprised that that poster thinks going to a private school means a child won't be bullied. Independent schools can be brutal for bullying.

All these naysayers. Well at the cinema I've seen Wicked, Moana is on this month. Grandchildren have loved both. I'm sure there's parents out there explaining that there's no such place as OZ, and Te Fiti, Maui, Moana are an invention. As for Willie Wonka, well that's beyond the pale.

My response to misquote Charles Dickens is "Bah humbug" to these misguided sanctimonious realists. And "God bless you one and all". To the magic makers. 💖🎅🌟

This is how my parents did it, and I never felt that I missed out, or that Xmas wasn't special.

When I hear about kids questioning whether Santa is real and the parent really trying to convince the child that he is, and saying that you don't get presents if you don't fully believe, I do start to wonder who exactly the whole pretence is for.

Another one thinking he surely doesn't actually 'believe' and just wants your Christmas traditions! You could try involving him in it, take turns to set up the elf? I began getting my mum stockings from about 6 or 7 when I realised she was doing mine (I remember finding it strange before then that she was left out when she'd been much nicer than my brother) But both our stockings were officially from Santa until I moved out

Sundblom

But Haddon Sublime did shape his image as a jolly fat man in Coca Cola advertising.

Yeah, if it need be said, there’s cheer and charm and sense of place and connection to shared pretenses like Father Christmas, and enjoying all those things doesn’t demand maintaining a literal belief in myth.

The daughter isn’t old enough to get it yet, but I can’t wait to introduce her to the Lord of Misrule tradition in a few years’ time.

Imagine how heartbroken he would be if someone started to bully him cause he thought santa was real. He'd be upset. This is better coming from the parents.

I agree with this. And I think that, in fact, it stimulates imagination in hopefully a positive way to do "make believe," knowing that you are essentially acting a out a play.

"The English tradition of personifying Christmas dates back to the 15th century. In the medieval period, the pagan Saxons honored the Frost or Winter King, who was associated with Odin. As Christianity became more dominant, this figure became associated with Christmas. In the 1400s, he was known as Sir Christmas, and later as Captain Christmas."

He then merged with the Dutch Sinterklaas and now Santa and Father Christmas have become interchangeable in our minds.

Btw, it is a myth that Coca Cola invented the red robes, although at one point he was sometimes in green and sometimes in red.

You can be a bit more nuanced about that. Santa is a cultural construct made from many sources, only one of which is the Christian legend of St Nicholas of Myra. There’s also something rather obviously Odinic about a bearded wanderer visiting houses to judge whether the inhabitants have been virtuous or not, for instance.

Christian religious authorities have violently resented Father Christmas for being secular/pagan/fun since at least the fifteenth century.

We told our autistic 11 year old that belief can be a matter of choice, it's not always about what you consider the science says. Don't get into discussions with people at school about whether Santa exists, just keep quiet and keep your own council. You wouldn't and shouldn't quiz a religious child on why they believe what they believe and we all understand that different people believe different things, so this is not a discussion you need to have.

At home we gradually brought them in with a nudge and a wink but without ever sitting them down and telling them it's lie. You can't take back bursting the bubble whereas if you don't confirm, they can hang onto the choice of believing as long as they need to - sometimes long after the science is stacking up against.

Put him in charge of the Elfie tradition, get him to move it about and create scenarios. He then learns the truth gently, and the tradition carries on (or not because it's a pain in the butt having to keep moving the flipping elf about).

He might start questioning who puts the work in for the rest of the stuff too if you are lucky

Oh come on! The red-jacketed Coca Cola Santa who lives at the North Pole is absolutely nothing to do with the Christian saint (Nicholas or Claus). He is an entirely secular and commercial figure.

One of the reasons why we as a family have had such fun with continuing Christmas traditions is because it has always been ‘make believe’ - a fantastic story to tell and read and follow and all become children in playing our part in.

We never tried to insist that Father Christmas was real, any more than any of the other role plays my dc revelled in over the years were real. But role play and suspended disbelief is fantastic fun and one is never too old for it.

But if you encourage your children to believe in Santa, you are nonetheless encouraging them to believe in a Christian saint. There aren't separate Santas catering to individual belief systems.

Because it's ridiculous for a child on the cusp of puberty to still believe in a fairy story and we wouldn't think it was cute if it was any other fairy story. Unlike most religions, it's very easily disprovable and any child over the age of 7/8 should see obvious holes. It indicates that they a) Have no understanding of cultures other than their own and don't realise that different countries have different magical beings who bring gifts on different days, or don't even celebrate Christmas at all, b) Are unaware of the large parts of the world where many children are living in absolute poverty, yet Santa won't even be dropping off a decent meal for them and b) Have a seriously shaky understanding of physics, time and distance.

All normal and adorable when you are 5, not in the slightest bit when you are 5 years off sitting your GCSEs and should have a bit of understanding of the world, and you'd expect in a fee-paying school they would have a really good grounding in the basics, including scientific method, by the age of 11.

Playing along with it for fun or the benefit of younger siblings is one thing, but genuinely thinking it's a real thing is worrying and I'd be concerned about my child if they did.

It’s an opportune point to share that one of my happiest Christmas memories is that of stridently, aged four, upbraiding another girl for believing in Santa, only for the whole classroom to fall deathly silent at my exasperated outburst. In retrospect, I believe I gave the rest of my class the gift of scepticism that Christmas.

Jesus Christ. Lighten up!! It’s a bit of magic at Christmas time, why are you using it as an excuse to have a dig at a school?!

My kids are 21, 19 and 14. They've known for years that it's not real, yet we still have to out the plate out for Santa and the reindeer and watch the norad Santa tracker. We just all love Christmas!🎄

My son is ten.
He thinks it's Santa buying all the presents because he knows/thinks there is no way I could afford them 😂
It's such simple child logic