Controversial approach to Santa

Exactly.

My now adult DC is trying to replicate their childhood Christmases for their DC despite having been brought up knowing that Santa wasn’t real. I like the description as a bit player as knowing Santa is not real, not bringing presents etc doesn’t even stop playing along in some capacity if that is what you want to do.

My parents were quite like you (they were quite religious) and never pushed the idea of Father Christmas either way. We got stocking and understood it was a traditional thing originating from Saint Nicholas dropping gold coins down the chimney. They never said he actually delivered the stocking gifts but they didn't say he didn't either. It just wasn't a '"big thing".

I admit that I never believed and nor did my sister but we made our own minds up. My sister was actually terrified of men with beards so she definitely didn't want to think one was creeping into our house at night!

We experienced lots of Christmas excitement. The excitement was about the gifts and traditions, not the funny man in a red suit. I don't feel we missed out at all. In fact i sometimes think it was beneficial because we never had that crushing realisation that the magic wasn't real after all. We didn't spoil it for anyone else by announcing the awful truth!

My husband was horrified with my parents approach, like most posters on the thread, so we struck more of a middle road path with our own kids, laid it on a bit more thick about the tradition of stockings without being too literal and let them make their own minds up over time. They admitted they gradually worked it out but enjoyed maintaining the fiction. We still all have stockings on Christmas morning, adults too!

I don’t know why you think that not being big into Father Christmas means that you don’t put effort into making Christmas special. I figured out Father Christmas pretty early and plan to take a similar approach to the OP with my baby, that I won’t make a big deal of it and not do anything to extend belief beyond his natural scepticism. But I absolutely plan on making Christmas special for him. We’ll go on light walks, spend time with friends and family, get him involved with the Delivery Joy campaign, bake together, decorate the house, develop traditions so he has the best time. There doesn’t need to be an imaginary man delivering gifts to make it magical. I think that part of the reason I’ve never stopped loving Christmas is that I’ve never had the disappointment of the loss of Father Christmas because he was never a big deal anyway.

Part of the reason that I stopped believing fairly young is that we always had Christmas morning with family friends and their Santa worked very differently to ours. Father Christmas just gave us small stocking gifts and gave our friends everything in stockings I could have climbed into. But the joy of that tradition of sharing Christmas morning with loved ones is something that I would never replace with a few more years of belief in something that wasn’t real anyway. My friends’ mother died two years ago and the happy Christmas memories of her pouring orange juice into champagne glasses every year so we could pretend we were drinking Bucks Fizz too is the opposite of the joyless Christmas you think I might have had

Well that was needlessly aggressive and explained precisely nothing.

I’ve seen threads on here by mums getting worried because their kid is starting senior school and still believes in Santa. I wouldn’t have wanted the issue of working out when or how to tell them or if there would be tears and upset. I never said a cynical he’s not real, I just didn’t actively partake in the Santa stuff so it was never a big deal. I’m very much of the whatever is working in your own family mindset.

I never made Christmas miserable for my kids. We had decorations and lights and fake snow and glitter. We’d have Christmas music playing and stockings and presents under the tree. I’m not sure what my kids were missing out on just because Santa was a bit player in it.

Yes, I can’t imagine my dds or Gdcs missing out on that huge 🎄Eve excitement.

At DD’s house we’d put a few carrots in a dish on the patio, so before going to bed one of us would chew one and scatter a few chewed bits around the empty dish.

Then in the morning we’d say e.g. ‘Goodness, what a mess! But at least they didn’t poo in the garden…’.

Yet more LIES, as the misery-guts killjoys would have it…

Bollocks to that.

There’s a difference between pretending Santa exists and gives you presents and watching a Disney movie. We didn’t do the Easter Bunny no, (does the Easter Bunny give out eggs? Easter eggs were given by me and granny). The tooth fairy was done a couple of times but they sussed that one quite young, just like I did as a kid. When my kids asked me outright if santa was real I said he was in their imagination if they wanted him to be, I just wasn’t going to say yes to a direct question.

Weirdly, my autistic sister is mad about Xmas and goes all out. Her son is still little but profoundly autistic and non-verbal and it’s not clear how much of it he takes in/ignores. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I didn’t know I was ND for many many years. My diagnosis followed DD’s.

My mum says there are lots of things they just did because it was the done thing at the time - not talking about death to young children, Santa as a magical being rather than a character etc. (I wasn’t christened until my sibling died which I suppose is another ritual that was followed because society deemed it necessary.). DH and I have been a lot more mindful of how DD experiences the world - death is a fact of life, there is magic in nature, some people believe different things and it’s right for her to choose her own beliefs rather than be forced into them. We just followed her lead and answered in an appropriate way when she had questions. Nobody that knows and loves us has had any issue with it - it was the rest of society that lost their shit over our “clearly joyless life”!

Because if you say to your 6 yo, "The elf is just a toy that the parents put out and we don't want to," they go into school and tell all their friends and then you have to face the wrath of the Elf Mommies telling you your child has destroyed "the Christmas magic" forever.

Father Christmas and Santa are two different characters. Father Christmas wasn't associated with gift giving until we merged the two.

I mean you’re allowed to do things how you see fit, but ‘Santa’ is everywhere: films, tv, adverts, on the radio etc - I’m not sure how you can avoid mention of him? Your kids are still very young so haven’t noticed any of this but they will - and whilst it’s your choice not to ‘do’ Santa, many families do play along with the fantasy so it would be equally unfair for your kids to spoil their fun by saying he does t exist. I guess it’s a bit like religion, I guess? We just have to respect that others have differing beliefs and traditions. “Some people like to create a fantasy of Santa for their kids. We don’t, and that’s ok, but other people’s way of doing things is ok too”.

I still talk about Father Christmas to my kids and they’re 23/20/17! 😂

Oh gosh, why does everything have to be so complicated and difficult nowadays? You don't mention Santa to your children; they haven't got some terrible infectious disease or anti-social habits that means other children have to be separated to avoid contamination.
If the kids do meet on Christmas day and difficult conversations begin about sensitive subjects concerning reindeer and chimneys, and you are called upon to clear up any misunderstandings, could you just say 'In our house, Mum and Dad do the stockings', and leave it there?

OP I don’t think it will be an issue for much longer. I taught in a junior school and in my experience most children stopped ‘believing in Santa’ by the age of 8 or 9 even if they kept up the pretence at home. When I was teaching year 3 (7-8) I trod carefully around the Santa topic, but in older years I would assume that the kids had it sussed.

Yeah - guy in my work is Muslim but he does a secular version of Christmas/Santa and his kids get presents. He told me his parents did the same for him and his siblings.

He drinks alcohol and eats bacon though so not sure he is a shining example of a Muslim to be fair

We were never told Santa was real, and Christmas was magical. We still visited Santa and knew about him, but knew it was a lovely bit of make believe. Conversely, I got to see all those kids who were told he (and fairies, and the Easter bunny etc) was absolutely real feel devastated when they found out he wasn’t and angry their parents lied to them.

I think it’s much weirder to lie to your kids for years because you’re worried the world won’t be so magical otherwise. If you don’t find the real things in our amazing world magical then you aren’t looking hard enough at them!

I grew up in a country where the story goes that good kids get presents, bad kids get thrown in a sack by Santa's helper and taken to Spain for a year's hard labour 🤣

Thankfully we were far too old to fall for that by the time we moved there. Horrific. Well behaved kids though!

We took the approach the Santa just delievered the presents - that presents were from people that loved and thought about our children and family. Presents were never from Santa, not even stockings.

It's interesting you say that, as reading this thread I have been wondering from some of the comments - especially around the aversion to "lying" - if there isn't a kind of ND/NT divide in attitudes on this.

I guess it is much easier for NT children to kind of grasp the (admittedly subtle) distinction between make-believe and lying. I guess that could explain the divergence in attitudes as to whether it is fun and richly traditional, or a negative untruth. One is more of a social construct approach and the other is a more literal view.

Mine was horrified by the idea of a fairy taking her teeth. One of her best friends was terrified by the idea of a stranger breaking into their house (chimney or otherwise).

Had she wanted to believe, we wouldn’t have stopped her. We just didn’t encourage it.

It didn’t “fade away” for either me or DH. I was quite traumatised by finding out my parents had lied to me (I’m ND and had suffered sibling loss which was not discussed with me, so I appreciate that this won’t be everyone’s experience). Being forced to continue the lie for my younger sibling was deeply painful for me.

The truth is, I think a lot of children half realise it isn't true but still want to preserve the magic and partake of the tradition.

Plenty of otherwise very astute children seem to have a willingness to go along with it without the usual whys and wherefores. I actually think that's quite nice.

It's good for children to realise that sometimes there isn't any need to point everything out - like when they reach that age when they know not to say they can smell a fart.

I never believed in Santa because my sister had worked it out by three and there is three years between us. Christmas was still magical and fun. Also none of this weird pressure to continue to keep the fabrication alive until 10/11 like some parents I have seen on here.

I think I’m a bit like you OP and you underplay Santa/Father Christmas but certainly don’t avoid the idea - I don’t think that’s sustainable with friends/TV/xmas shows and books etc

i think you can refer to it with it being obvious that it’s not 100% real - I say things like it’s just part of the Christmas magic.

I would be very clear with my two that some children believe completely in Santa and to not say anything that makes them doubt this as it makes them happy.

We do the same OP. Santa/Father Christmas isn’t a thing in our house. We have presents, stockings, festive magic and we enjoy it just as much as our friends who celebrate Santa.

It’s pretty normal in my friendship group. Early 30’s with under 5’s.