Controversial approach to Santa

Neither of you 2 are unreasonable, her kids are growing up and she wants to hold onto Santa this year. Maybe next year will be different.

That would be a problem for me, can you imagine Christmas Day…

DD ‘Look what I got from Santa cousin’
DC ‘Who’s Santa’
DD ‘he brings our presents on Christmas day’
DC ‘Mum, did Santa bring my presents’
YOU ‘Hmmm, what do you think?’.

… Yes, your not invited to Christmas 😆

This post makes me a bit sad, before everyone piles on and tells me otherwise and how unreasonable I am. I think a lot of the magic of Christmas is around Santa and the excitement of children believing in Santa.
As a child I remember we used to listen for the sleigh bells (I could hear them). Leave out a mince pie and a carrot and just enjoy the excitement and anticipation.
To not see that through your own child's eyes would be disappointing for me.
However, everyone has to do their own thing and what suits them.
I am reminded of Caroline Ahern in the Royale Family when she says 'Well, Christmas isn't really for children is it'.

Your kids your rules but if you were my SIL I would want to do Christmas separately.

please try to ensure as they get a bit older they don’t ruin it for others

www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/holidays-saints-religion-tombs-burials

Like others have said, you're in the minority and it would be a shame for other kids bubbles to be burst early if your little ones said there's no santa. Cant see why they would however if they've not been taught anything about Santa, not that he doesn't exist but more just avoided mentioning so can't see they'd go round vehemently saying he's not real.

Other kids believing in Santa, whether he's Father Christmas, whether he brings a stocking or all the gifts, or fills shoes with sweets on the 15th, or gifts are open on christmas eve, is a lovely part of childhood in all nations that have the Santa folklore, and I loved it as a kid and still do as an adult. I wasn't taken to see Santa though in a shopping centre etc, but he was very much more real and magical for that and I remember the excitement on Christmas eve thinking maybe this year I'd glimpse him. It's an old bit of human nature to tell stories and believe in magic.

Each to their own though of course!

However you do Christmas will be fine.

As kids get older they'll say stuff like all Johnny's tree presents come from Santa, or Santa brought Sarah a bike, or Jamie puts out a pillowcase for his presents, Mary gets a shoe full of sweets on the 6th December - but no stocking at Christmas! Etc, etc. Just explain different families have different traditions. Which is what your SIL should be doing to her DC...

The magic for me these days is trying to stay awake long enough to deliver the stockings without being caught by my teens!

It’s how most of my friends were raised too but seems to be hugely controversial on here 🤣

You could tell them the wonderful story of st Nicholas, who was a real person and how he became what we know as Santa who embodies the spirit of Christmas.
What happened to his bones is also an interesting story for when they are older.
I always say to my child that things are true to those who want to believe.

What exactly is your concern about pretending Santa has bought a few gifts OP?

I just googled the question prompted by this thread and AI absolutely blows the myth apart in brutal fashion.

Tbf though if a kid is old enough to have unsupervised access to the internet and is capable of googling they can handle the truth.

Alexa, on the other hand, totally buys in to Santa.

Ps the bigger under the tree presents aren't from FC in our house either. In my house your letter to santa is to tell him you've been good & to ask him to fill your stocking. We try and avoid lists of stuff you want but allow requests for small/silly things, for example both my kids have in the past requested blu-tac 😉, chocolate coins, and one this year wants to write bubblegum.

We didn't bother with santa either really. They went to 'see' santa twice when they were little mainly through the guilt others made me feel. They have always had one present from santa and that's it. I've never made a fuss of it.
I think it stems from me not wanting to focus christmas as a purely gift giving time of year. So we focus on family days out and time with family instead.

I think it's fine to do things differently, as long as both sides are respectful of the others views. Surely not all presents in SILs will be from Santa? As I always find that weird, as to me Santa only brings small/cheap items. If you are doing stockings anyway, couldn't you still go and just do these when they do theirs? No need to comment.
As for grandparents, I would also mention to them you would prefer the children to know they bought the gift and thank them properly so to say it is from them.

As others have said, I think you need to be aware that they might hear things from friends at nursery and school, so need a plan in place to work around this. Though lots of people do, as in my daughter's class there is a Jehovah's witness and the parents accepted that for the second half of the autumn term she would have to go to an older class most afternoons when they were in the lower years to avoid doing the Christmas play. She also had to be given different activities and taken out by a TA at various points too due to what the class were doing. Clearly her parents would have explained to her why and she accepted it, and the teacher did give some kind of explanation to the rest of the class why they didn't join in.

Everything we gave our children was from Santa (it still is but they are adults). SIL didn’t want to do Santa at all. We still had wonderful Christmas’s. The cousins were similar ages and we just taught them to respect each other and it wasn’t really a problem until they were about 8/9 and by then they were beginning to suspect anyway.

My DC did take the truth quite hard though and in retrospect, I should have sat more in the middle and given Santa less of a role in our celebrations.

What issues does it sound like I have?

My kids are 2 and 4, we haven't particularly focused on Santa either way. I have no idea what they believe about Santa but I highly doubt whether either of them would be capable of saying anything about Santa which might ruin the magic for a 9 year old.

Either the OP's SIL is vastly overestimating the conversational capacities of toddlers, or she is actually worried about the OP ruining the magic for her kids.

We did similar, OP, but it gets hard when Santa seems to be the religion you’re not allowed to say you don’t believe in. We didn’t tell our kids he wasn’t real, but didn’t indulge in the belief. We still do stockings because who doesn’t want a load of stuff at the end of their bed when they wake up?

No one would care if a 5 year old told another 5 year old there’s no god, but heaven forbid they tell them there’s no Santa!

It’s not that controversial
I find the whole idea of Santa really odd tbh and struggle with the lies we have to make up and go along with!
i know this will grind gears as it’s Christmas magic and all that stuff but it really is personal choice in each family
I have a big thing about being honest and truthful so that’s the issue with it all for me

Google joins in the fun and doesn't actually commit one way or the other! Or the speakers in the house don't anyway!

Are they aware of father christmas at all? From books, tv shows etc? Its quite hard to avoid unless you are really determined to not expose them to it, which would be a bit of an odd choice in the UK given the cultural significance.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your approach but some people do care about their children having a few years of innocence/believing in the magic of it, and you won't be popular in a couple of years if your 5 year old tells peers at school that santa doesn't exist for example.

Pretty much exactly the same here. Probably how most kids were brought up in the 80s?