To think this is a really weird thing to do with presents?

Think you’re putting too much thinking into this.

many countries it doesn’t exist two piles. Are you telling me we didn’t learn about appreciation and that British adults did?

@ITSSSSCHRISTMASSS My SIL is like you, so thoughtful and generous with gifts, takes her a lot of time and effort. It's really important to her. I'd feel absolutely awful taking her name off the presents for no real reason! Not that I could easily anyway as she gets personalised sticker labels for them

100% agree. Love thrives on a two way street.

Kids brought up to be indulged and not expected to appreciate or acknowledge the love, thought and kindness of others, can grow into adults who expect to be indulged and not show appreciation. They don’t make great partners.

😁👍. I remember those little stationery sets.

I don't think I'd have the balls/appetite for chaos to write in Sharpie on the gifts, though.

I'm curious: are these extremely young children? Do they not wonder why they don't receive anything off family and friends, like other kids do? Do they not themselves give presents to others? I can only assume they're about 2-4 years old with this going on!

Very weird! In this family (for 3 generations now) only relatively little things in stockings are from FC/Santa - everything else is from parents, aunts and uncles etc. and if not there in person to be thanked, they must be thanked some other way.

In my day that meant the dreaded letter writing!! At least one side of the thankfully small lined sheets from the children’s stationery set we invariably received.

We give everything from Santa in our house.

DC are small though so wouldn’t be writing letters anyway, it’s us who thank people. Also, at their age it’s only extended family who buy for them - they all know we give everything from Santa. Also, family don’t actually send gifts, they only transfer money anyway and ask us to choose and wrap. They want to contribute to the day and spoil the kids but they don’t want to give a specific gift. When DC are a bit bigger and understand about Santa (around age 8ish), we will start to give things from other family members and from us too. I really don’t think toddlers would think very much about which Auntie had bought something anyway and the DC will know everyone contributed once they’re a bit bigger and have lovely memories to look back on.

its really not about saving money - we actually spend a fortune on gifts from us in any case and have no of the extra few sprinkled on from relatives, but they want to contribute and be included in the stories when the DC are older and that’s fine by us. We also send money to other DC in the family.

Well it’s one way to avoid having to cajole your kids to write thank you cards .

pretty crass .
not sure I like it.
or what it’s teaching.

on other hand. If the kids aren’t anticipating gifts from you they won’t be missed so it’s a good swerve 😆

christmas magic is about Santa. Family members and friends can buy presents whenever they want they don’t need a certain day to do so. In fact I’d say it’s more commercial than magic. I find no magic on the aunty my son sees once a year to buy him a present that he doesn’t need. It’s the magic for the buyer not my son. I don’t want this person to buy him something but they insist they must. Oh well, many times this magic ends up in a school donation

My opinion on this is that you create whatever magic that you want for your child with your own money. If I am kind enough to buy a gift for your child, I want your child to know that it was me that gave them the gift and to acknowledge that.

Bit cheap of you - expecting others to fund your idea of magic.

My sister in law used to do this! She would tell us not to bother putting a label on our present because they would come from Father Christmas...

Haha “love language” I love it. This is very much me, I love buying presents for people, my DDs are the same. It is definitely a way I show love. I like to think about gifts for people and treat them when I can.

I got a lot of presents from Santa and I believed til I was 11. I think some kids who like fantasy and maybe are a bit naive will not notice the inconsistencies, others who are more questioning and factual will probably stop believing earlier either way.

I disagree. I remember getting lovely gifts from my aunt as a child and the fact that I knew she’d chosen them for me especially made me feel very loved.

Also when I realised Santa wasn’t real it wasn’t such a blow as I knew my aunt would still buy me her lovely gifts.

I still adore my aunt and choose her very thoughtful gifts at Christmas, partly because I remember how carefully she thought about me each Christmas

I know there are at least ten ways to 'do' presents and Father Christmas, I know there's no correct way... but I still think that's fucking awful.

I'd be secretly hurt if I had given a gift for her to take the tag off and say Santa had given it. I really enjoy giving presents - I spend a lot of time and care (and sometimes hard work>money) thinking of what the recipient would truly love to get, wrapping them creatively or prettily... and even though I'm not expecting a bloody award or a thank you card, I feel like it's me showing them 'evtheria clearly pays attention to what I say/knows me!'.

I guess it’s because we know it’s nice for them to receive, put up and look at. It shows them we appreciated the gift. We love them, so a few minutes out of our day to send a little card makes sure they feel the love. That’s what I’ve instilled in the kids. To spare time in your day to show people you appreciate them, especially people who live alone, as we all may be one day.

That's nice, but I think you're a dying breed.

We always do. Especially to older relatives. Send them a little card. It only takes a minute to write and post.

I feel really uncomfortable with the approach of telling kids Santa brings ALL the gifts…. Lots of kids living in poverty won’t be waking up to much under the tree next week, and to then hear from school mates that Santa has bought them a bike etc

Nobody writes thank you letters any more. Even when I was a child a phone call was considered adequate. Now it tends to be the parents taking a photo of the child with the gift.

YANBU. Typically, Santa delivers presents on people’s behalf. So that kids can thank the people who bought them and think of them when they use them.

I still use gifts given to me as a kid by now deceased family members and it’s lovely to think they chose them for me. The books have their messages inside.

IMHO it’s disrespectful to rip messages off gifts other people have given.

I used to feel a bit sad at kids’ parties when I’d bought a really thoughtful gift based on the interests of that particular child. And the parents just let them rip open all their presents unsupervised, without knowing who they were from.

I used to tell my kids to leave presents brought to parties until we got home. And then make sure we wrote down who’d given each gift, so they knew what to thank them for. I used to take photos to share when they were playing with or wearing the gift. I see it as appreciative and respectful. Gifts should be thoughtful, rather than any old thing. And it shares the love back for the thought to be appreciated and valued.

A friend of mine is asked to buy stocking fillers for his nieces. He's not allowed to buy anything plastic. It has to be wooden and educational so he has to go to quite some trouble to find these things and then gets no credit afterwards.

I mean maybe the X box was a bad example because really if a kid is old enough for an X box they're probably at the very least coming out of the stage where they believe in Santa anyway.

I don't know. Like I say, we do some from Santa and others from us/family etc. But I just don't get why people get sooooo wound up about other families doing things differently? It's one day a year, for a few short years when kids are small. So plenty of other opportunities through the year for "credit" and "gratitude" and "etiquette" around giving/receiving gifts when they're small and then after those few young years, it all goes "normal" anyway when they don't believe anymore.

Just seems like some people are totally over thinking it or looking for reasons to get worked up at other families.