Anyone else decide not to do the whole "Santa" thing?

[NowImFound]

Just that really!

DH and I don't want to bring up our DC thinking that there's a "Santa Claus."

DMIL thinks I am awful!
It isn't really heard of either, is it?
So I thought I'd come on over to MN and see whether there's anyone else not doing the whole "Santa" thing.

We aren't scrooges, I promise! I love Christmas - just not "Santa."

even in the most rural area where there is no ethnic diversity in the school there will still be differences maybe some don't do Santa, some Santa does stockings etc

I was bought up a christian we did Father Christmas but all main presents were from a relative friend and needed thank you letters, I worked it out by about 7 but the year after my parents told my then youngest sister 4 he was not real as she was petrified of him when we went to a grotto ( back in 1970's when shop grottos were brilliant) and didn't want him to come to our house

my DD is 9 I know she doesn't believe but she pretends she does, she thinks it is an heredity role a bit like the monarchy and of course several members of SC family are also Santas as 1 Santa can't be everywhere and the ones you can visit are not real just his representatives, I think the penny dropped when the naughtiest boy in class got the best and most presents from SC

But I think this is bloody cruel if I'm honest. Let poor little children have a dream for goodness sake. Childhood is the only innocent and magical time a person ever gets.

It's cruel not to tell your children a lie. Really.

I didn't like being a child much. I vastly prefer being an adult. I stopped believing in Santa at five and was bewildered - not traumatised, but genuinely very confused - that adults kept lying to me about it even when I told them I knew the truth.

Lévi-Strauss wrote an interesting essay on Santa disbelief as initiation ritual. Some adults don't like it when a child doesn't 'know their place' and play out the role of the gullible innocent, I guess.

(Not saying that all parents who do Santa have this attitude - just the ones who have such strong reactions to the idea of other people not telling their own children he's real).

I've heard of other children being upset when they discovered it was a story. I think a very literal child or a child who has implicit trust in everything his parents say, might be upset.

We did a light version of Santa. So there was a lot of excitement about it when they were tiny and as they got older it was done a tiny bit tongue in cheek. They wrote their letters and we put out the carrot and cake and santa delivered stocking presents but we didn't do a big song and dance tracking him and egging them on and bigging up the story. It was just a nice bit of magic to add to the season. The idea of using santa as a deterrent to bad behaviour is simply baffling to me. They sort of gradually stopped believing without any big conversation about it. We still do xmas stockings from santa.

It helped that the school was utterly secular and no one expected everyone to follow the same traditions (my dd told me age 6 that her friend Jane celebrated Hannukah for Christmas).

Christ. He's likely to have a full on mental breakdown when he realises God is questionable if he can't cope with the idea that FC isn't real. Immaculate conception totally believable but St Nicolas not?

You been at the eggnog?

(my dd told me age 6 that her friend Jane celebrated Hannukah for Christmas) - which I'm sure would have driven Jane's parents crazy if they heard it :)

He's likely to have a full on mental breakdown when he realises God is questionable if he can't cope with the idea that FC isn't real.

nice thing to say about a 10 year old. Have you been at the eggnog?

This has confused him about what he believes. This isn't influenced by my husband and I, this is something that we leave him to figure out himself. The whole Santa thing has thrown him!

Maybe he needs a bit of emotional guidance then OP, his reaction sounds extreme.

Like other pp I believe that a bit of magic is wonderful in childhood and should last as long as possible. You’re only little once.

Childhood is the only innocent and magical time a person ever gets.

Actually a lot of people have much better adulthoods than childhoods. Having more control over your life can be a magical thing. I had a very happy childhood and I still don't think there was anything particularly innocent and magical about it. Just a nice happy life - and I was lucky.

We don’t do Santa. I treat it just the same as religion; ‘some people believe...’ and ‘we must be polite about what other people believe even if it sounds silly to us’.

I find the focus on ‘magic’ odd and don’t quite understand it. It sometimes seems to be a proxy for the childhood an adult wishes they had had, rather than anything about the children involved.

I always remember a modern parent in DS’s class told their DS in reception that their was so such thing as Santa and really all the presents were bought by, kept in the loft qne put out on Christmas morning by your parents. He told my DS this and also told all the other children in the class this.

His parents also boasted that it was a lot easier, a lot less hassle and they didn’t have to spend as much when their DS knew the truth.
Fortunately we didn’t keep DS’s presents in the loft so we let him have a look up there and hung on to Christmas and Santa by the skin of our teeth for a few years saying you have to believe to receive.
OP please allow others to decide for themselves as like us they may enjoy Santa and the Christmas magic for as long as possible as much for themselves as their children.

It's a bit of make believe....like Peter Pan, a fairy take, a story which excites the imagination....similar to that of the tooth fairy, Jack frost, Cinderella, God, Crocodile Dundee, Peppa Pig or Paw Patrol talking animals.....where do you draw the line? When the child watches kids tv do you correct the situation by saying well clearly this is nonsense as pigs and dogs cannot talk, Indiana Jones cannot actually halt moving trains with his bare hands.....fgs just let kids be kids.

Exactly Justgivemeasoddingname

I really don't care how other people play it in their families but the whole "I couldn't lie to DC" I think is slightly bonkers.

Obviously it can be taken too far but we don't make a huge deal with it and let their imaginations do most of the work.

"You have to believe to receive"

So a child who starts to question Santa and tells their parents that they don't believe is threatened with no presents for Xmas? Fucking hell, that's certainty not about magic for the child, is it?

You can't force belief. It's either there or it isn't.

pallisers I meant in a few years time when the teenage years hit and questions start being asked. If he's been raised a Christian and his mates tell him it's bollocks then it doesn't sound like he'll cope well with that.

Justgivemeasoddingname

Nobody goes around telling children that Peter Pan or Paw Patrol characters are literally real people/animals that exist in the world, though. Children playing make-believe for fun or enjoying fictional stories is very different to adults telling children that fictional characters are actually real.

Oh bah bloody humbug. Honestly. Glad I got bought up in a working class non pyscho analytical family.

When growing up my parents didn't do santa. They never sat me down and told me he "wasn't real", they never told me he was real either so I always thought of him as a character. In fact I never realised that anyone "believed in Santa" until I was 6. I'm completely happy with that and want to do the same with my dc. I don't think it's disappointing at all, Christmas was always a super fun time because of the food, family, decorations and presents. I listen to the bizarre lies parents spin out and I just think it's wierd and not for me. "we don't have a chimney so in our house Santa becomes paper thin and slides under the door, and don't be naughty as he can see you through your ipad camera" etc etc.

Not judgement for those that do it, it's just not for me. Unfortunately my DH wants to do Santa and even wants to do elf on the shelf We haven't made our decision yet.

I think handled well it's totally utterly harmless and no one can persuade me otherwise.

I don't judge people that don't do it my way and I'm very certain my children won't be in counselling over how I do things.

Bit of live & let live.

My parents did Santa and I loved it and I worked out myself that they bought the presents and actually thought it was a nice thing to do.

I think it's natural you emulate your own traditions, if you had no "Santa" I'm sure you wouldn't particularly miss it, and have just as nice memories.

You're probably from the same thought school as those who educate their 4 year old daughters they have a 'clitoris and vulva' and not a Mary

pallisers I meant in a few years time when the teenage years hit and questions start being asked. If he's been raised a Christian and his mates tell him it's bollocks then it doesn't sound like he'll cope well with that.

You honestly think that a 10 year old getting upset that santa isn't real translates into a teenager having a "full-on mental breakdown" because his friends tell him his religion is bollocks.

You have been at the egg nog haven't you.

We decided not to lie about FC when DD was little but we went along with it when he decided to make an appearance in DD’s life. We never said he was real, and had she asked we would have told the truth. Incidentally, she decided she didn’t believe in god before she decided she didn’t believe in Santa - because she had ‘seen’ him one Christmas Eve (she says she saw a flash of red in the landing, we think she saw DH ).

She’s 9 now and when she said she didn’t believe, we talked about St Nicholas and the spirit of giving that FC represents. She’s not traumatised as far as I can see!

I want eggnog.