Controversial approach to Santa

I’m with you OP, Santa has become a massive global conspiracy - I found an app years ago that simulates photos of a reindeer being in your own living room ; then Santa is being tracked live around the globe… and then there are the bloody elves cluttering up my shelves.

it’s all madness.

And this is why kids are crushingly disappointed when they find out he’s not real.

My dc2 has had a very toned down Santa experience - we might see him at the school Christmas fair, we write a modest list and letter, a few gifts arrive in a stocking and that’s that.

My dc lost his beloved nanny age 3 near Christmas and his grief was made very real because he knows Santa is “very very old and has been bringing presents to kids for over a hundred years” - my dc wanted to know why Santa doesn’t die? Why did his nanny get sick and why did her body stop working, when santa never died? What is magic and how does it work? And in the next two years it carried on: Why can’t Santa do magic to bring exactly the presents he wants? Why can’t Santa bring him a million pounds? Do all the poor children get a Santa visit - why not, are they bad, is that why they are poor?is Santa like God - is God magic? Is Baby Jesus magic?

I have told him Santa is a fun thing to believe for little kids and we don’t have to take it very seriously, just have fun like we do when we pretend to be Batman or Harry Potter. If we think about it too hard it makes no sense so the best thing is just to enjoy it, and think about the important things like maths and spelling and recycling.

Exactly. The OPs SIL is batshit. Her DC are getting to the age where they stop believing anyway - probably have done already and are just keeping up with the pretence because they think it means more presents.

Therefore, if the OP wanted to 'do Santa' it would be she who should be worried that the cousins would 'ruin Christmas' for her DC because they'd be falling over themselves to tell their younger cousins that Santa isn't real and it's just Mum and Dad.

But at 2 and 3 they're too young to either believe, think they're missing out if they've been brought up without Santa (oh, the horror, call Social Services straight away ) or ruin it for their older cousins by not knowing about Santa.

As for 'the magic', why does everything these days have to be such an over the top performance? People come up with all these endless things that they 'have' to do and then complain about the work, the cost, the waste and the stress. Just why? It doesn't mean you love your DC more or they have a better Christmas if you tie yourselves in knots over all this crap for one day.

At that age, many kids find the concept of Santa frightening anyway. Being made to interact with a stranger in a costume. Then finding out that the stranger will creep about in your house in the middle of the night, but honestly, it's nothing like burglars or monsters under the bed.

At 2 and 3 years old, your children wouldn't grasp the concept of Santa anyway. It's not until children reach 4/5 that they really grasp it. At the moment it works because, your children don't understand what Santa is or the meaning behind it. However, once they become more aware, and especially once they start school, they will hear about Santa or Father Christmas. It's then, they will understand, and will ask questions - is this from Santa? Why don't I have presents from Santa? Etc. Then you will need to think about your approach. Are you going to tell a 5/6 year old that Father Christmas isn't real? Or that it's something some people believe in but others don't? I think your approach isn't wrong, do what works for you but do be prepared for questions once they become older.

I've always thought the santa thing was bonkers. I never did it with my kids which drove my parents mad and there was a lot of pushback. I told them , in the end, it's a fun massive game of pretend and we don't ruin it for others. I was wholly relieved when they and their cousins and peers aged out of it, it was a massive stress for me, the conflict it caused, but I remember being devastated when I found out my parents had lied to me for years. I was a very serious child. My children are too! We are all ND.
Lots of religions don't do santa and that's accepted so having a secular reason is no more unacceptable.

And SO revered in Greece and Russia,. Might even be their patron saint. Though the giving of St Nicholas gifts for children is usually earlier in December, IIRC

Surely it's as simple as ''Different families have different beliefs''? Just like different families have different house rules, religions, family setups and all sorts.

My children are 10 and 13, and we've never done "Santa". They have always known who the presents are from.

Some parents and children at school mention "Santa", but we have always said that some people believe in the existence of Santa, just in the same way that some people believe in the existence of various gods (which they learn about in R.E.), and they have never really questioned it further.

You don't have to make Santa the main approach but I have some magical Christmas memories from when I was a child believing. However since having my own, I was aware that I wanted the appreciation to whoever bought the gift over an imaginary man!
Everyone has their own Christmas traditions but seems a little sad your kids might miss out on visiting Santa's grotto and things like that when they get older and other children talk about it.

You just tell them the truth... kids can cope with their friends having different beliefs and customs.

When we started importing all things American, I'm afraid. It was always Father Christmas in our house.

I 'm not a great fan of Christmas these days, but I do remember the magical feeling of excitement I had as a kid on Christmas Eve, waiting for and hoping that Father Christmas would come. It's a bit of a shame not to let your kids experience that magic in my opinion, but then everybody has their own traditions and attitudes towards the whole thing.

And the joke/ utter hilarity is…?

100 % lying and that stupid elf on shelf nonsense too is even worse! Are people that bored that they need to do all this to try and be "fun"

I think everyone has to do what is right for their family. However it still makes me smile at the wonderment in my kids eyes leaving out a mince pie for Santa and carrots for the reindeers. They cottoned in quite early but it was a magical time.

Of course it's lying to your kids. It's really convoluted lie. A white lie perhaps, but a lie nonetheless.

In your opinion …

We do not do the santa lie either, my kids just see santa as a Christmas character, like the easter bunny lol Its no big deal I don't know why its made into such a big deal! They still get the family time and gifts so what's the big deal over 1 day ( that's now a whole stressful expensive retail season )

What will you say when your children question why Santa visits other children but not them? I'm absolutely not judging or criticising, i'm just curious. I know your children receive presents but at some point they will likely wonder why theirs don't come from santa but their friends présents do.

There’s nothing controversial about this OP. We did something similar, we were more committal than you because we did refer to the stocking coming from Santa but didn’t make a big deal of it, in my mind it would then be much less of a drama to say ‘yes it’s really mummy and daddy’ when he asked if we didn’t make it too elaborate. I asked outright at age 4 and was told the truth, so I was imagining DS would be similar- something he believes in for a short while when very small.

Just be prepared that if you don’t come down either side of the fence, your kids might make their own minds up in ways you don’t expect 😆 DS is nearly 7 now and his 100% the most fervent Santa believer among his friends, despite us doing the least to perpetuate the belief. There is no Santa costume so shit that it will shake his belief. At our village fair last year, Santa was extremely skinny with a homemade beard held on with visible elastic. While all his friends looked pretty cynical (and voiced that they knew he wasn’t the real Santa because his beard looked like it was made of cotton wool), DS has stars in his eyes at meeting ‘the real Santa’ and still talks about it, he was on a sort of wooden sleigh that someone pulled down the high street with their 4x4 and I think that made it particularly memorable. Not a problem for DS when Santa had gained 5 stone when we saw him in the shopping centre a few days later. I even tried to gently tell him that the santas you see out and about aren’t real because I was worried he would get teased as none of his mates seem to think they are, but he thinks I’m talking bollocks so I’ve left it.

Same with the Easter bunny, who I have TOLD him doesn’t exist right from the start. Multiple times.

It’s a funny one for me because I can’t remember ever believing in any of this stuff, and thought it all sounded fishy from the start. But as I think DS would be desperate to believe in it all no matter what stance I took, I’ve actually really enjoyed experiencing it through him.

I totally agree, it’s not lying to your kids, it’s making an event magical for them with alot of effort and days out/traditions for it. Kids believe and get excited because of it! I love being the one to make everything magical for my daughter, I couldn’t imagine not bothering and making effort for her

I didn't say it was "the" most wonderous and magical element of Christmas, it's just "one of" them, especially for younger children. As we grow up we gradually grow appreciation for different aspects of it.

There's no better version of Christmas you can create by excluding something that brings so much joy and replacing it with nothing.

Why does OP need to wait until her DC are at school when she was raised the same and has her own experiences of school, including Santa visiting? She knows what it's like because it was her own childhood.

Clearly wasn't that traumatising since she liked it enough to plan the same for her own DC.

I'm sure her kids will be fine seeing Santa at school. Kids are perfectly able to cope with other people believing different things, or celebrating things differently and able to enjoy things that they don't necessarily do at home. What are you expecting to happen?

Gezzzzz....Santa is the main man!! 😆 It wouldn't be Christmas without him in our house

That's interesting. I wondered why that might be and so I did a quick search on Google.

So, apparently, Christmas celebrations were banned in Scotland (and in the rest of the UK) by Cromwell. With the return of the monarchy, Christmas festivities returned in England but not in Scotland, as the Presbyterian church was a very powerful influencer and Christmas celebrations were frowned upon.

When Christmas eventually became "a thing" in Scotland, it was influenced by the American celebration of it and thus Santa was adopted instead of Father Christmas.

There's an interesting article here on the origins of the Scottish Christmas. in Scotland: History, Traditions &… | ScotlandShop www.scotlandshop.com/tartanblog/scottish-christmas-traditions History of Christmas in Scotland

I was surprised to learn that Christmas Day only became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958.

I mean to each to their own but id avoid my kids being around yours at christmas time, I am a big believer in the magic of Father Christmas, the tooth fairy etc my kids are little for such a short time and I want the magic to feel so real for them. I still remember waking up christmas morning as a child seeing these impossible size presents KNOWING santa had been to visit, struggling to sleep with my little brother wondering if we could hear santa on the roof, it was a feeling I will never forget and I will cherish forever and I hope that my kids feel the same when they grow up. Now im grown my parents still spoil us and I get to spoil them back, I dont get the whole 'i want to take the credit', there's plenty of years of adulthood (hopefully) to take the credit for gifts