Is anyone else who didn't grow up with Santa finding it a bit uncomfortable?

[OctopusNow]

I was ok with Santa as a story and never tried to make out it was real. Obviously there are loads of books about Santa and he learns about it at nursery. I've even visited a little grotto with DS.

This year however, DH wants to do the whole leaving a drink out for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph and for some reason it's a step too far and is making me feel really uncomfortable.

I don't want to make DS think that an actual bloke is really going to turn up in his house, it's a bit weird.

ADH thinks it's normal because he grew up with it but I didn't. I'm wondering whether to just make it a thing for DS and DH to do together but DH seems to think I'm being unreasonable not to throw myself into the lies.

I wouldn't say anything contradictory, I just wouldn't be involved or talk about it.
If DS talks about Santa at the moment I show interest and don't deny it, I just don't push it.

Is it just me that feels this way?

It's just a white lie. I'm a bit surprised someone would find this 'uncomfortable'.

The streets are nor plagued by those unable to recover from FC not being real. Its about your son, not you. And I think your DP has as much say in it as you.

I'd say tell your dh to crack on. It can be a special thing for him to bond with his dc about. He can put whatever effort into making christmas being magical. I'm sure you're busy enough with the rest of the slog around wrapping gifts and preparing food and hosting visitors etc. If he wants to up his Santa game it's up to him.

The thing is, Father Christmas as a tradition becomes something far more than a childhood fairytale. I’m 33. My brothers are 28 and 25. Every Christmas Eve my mum still gnaws on a carrot until it looks suitably reindeer-foddered and then throws the stump out onto the patio so we’d know Rudolph has enjoyed it. My dad eats half of a mince pie and then leaves a note from FC to say he was too full to eat the rest. Every Christmas Morning we still find the carrot stump and the half eaten pie and say that Father Christmas has been and it’s fucking ridiculous and hilarious. Especially since our parents live in a new-build and FC comes through the central heating pipes rather than down the chimney these days. I don’t know why people get so worked up about it being “untrue” or “lying to children”, I really struggle to believe anyone has ever been emotionally damaged by believing and then not believing in Father Christmas.

"(Some of you seem not to realise Christmas is a Christian festival and non Christians don’t celebrate it)"

Christmas is Christian and/OR cultural. Plenty of non-Christians here and around the world celebrate Christmas.

My DH enjoys the glass of whisky and mince pie before bed. Teens too old for Santa but the whisky stays!

What about the tooth fairy OP?

We have Father Christmas and the TF as these two are 'nice magic', but when my DC were young and went through stranger danger worries and asked about witches etc., I explained the scary stuff was all made up for spooky fun. Then I said we could decide to keep the fun ideas if we wanted to and call it magic. They both went for that as it's fun!

😂 @ComtesseDeSpair - I am your parents - I have 2 primary age children and 2 adult 'children'. I just know my kids will be posting this sort of thing about me in the future 😄

Thanks @wafflyversatile, that was a kind post. I am busy buying and wrapping presents. I always do a stocking for DH because he is likes one and I do one for DS too although I've never had one. (I wouldn't be opposed to the idea but no one has ever offered)

I do try to make things magical for DS, I made an advent calendar with little pockets for every day and he loves seeing what surprise is in there each morning.
We baked and iced little Christmas tree biscuits and are making cards and loads of decorations to put up.

We have a nativity and learn about the birth of Jesus (although this too is just a story, I've not told him it isn't real but I wouldn't tell him it is, just that some people believe so if he asks.)

I feel like an awful mother reading some of these comments.

Oh for the love of god there really isn’t a problem here. Children aren’t traumatised because you pretend Santa, the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny are real for the first 8,9 years of their life.
It’s fun and magical and innocent. Life gets very real very fast as an adult so why not let kids have those magically years.
And I don’t think it’s normal for kids to find out the truth at 4 or 5. I’ve taught primary for 20 year and most kids still believed in year 4 and 5. Plenty of parents I know have had to gently tell their kids the truth in year 6 so they don’t feel daft at high school.

I didn't grow up with Santa and I also feel uncomfortable doing it. There was no big reveal, I always knew santa as a fictional character, in fact I was at school by the time I found out that some kids "believe" in Santa in that way. But that was also the time most kids stop believing so I didn't feel out of step with my peers.

The basic story and the character is nice, although to me a nicer story is that your loving parent/s got all these wonderful presents for you.

The part I find really annoying is the endless weird things parents say to explain it to their kids. I can't bring myself to go on with crap like "Since we don't have a chimney Santa makes himself flat like paper and slips in under the door", it's like something out of the x files.

We are Jewish, we have never had a tree or Santa or even presents. They get their presents on Chanukah. Most of their friends are the same. Christmas just isn’t a thing, some people have a turkey lunch, some people go out for lunch but most of our friends just go away because Christmas just isn’t of any particular interest

I find it incrediably odd that you didnt grow up with Santa. How on earth did you celebrate Christmas if you didn't do Santa? Where did you think that your presents came from?

How do adults celebrate Christmas? How do people without children celebrate Christmas?

I find insisting Father Christmas is anything but a story really bloody weird. It's like insisting Cinderella is a real person and of you don't believe then it's not magic.

That's not what Christmas is about at all.

@BlueGingerale lots of non Christians do celebrate Xmas though. My family are atheists, as are DPs but we still did it all

OP, there’s no need to pretend Santa is literally real. I grew up with Santa, but we’ve always just treated him as a fun story with DS — he thinks of him as a fairytale character, just as lots of the Muslim and Sikh kids in his class do, but we still write letters to him, leave out a mince pie etc. It’s still magical.

I’m exactly the same, OP (raised with knowing Santa as a fun story thing, though aware other kids believed it) and even have the DP who thinks Christmas will be RUINED for ds FOREVER. if we do not do Santa 100%. I also feel a bit uncomfortable about it, especially when I think of children who fully believe in it and wake up to very little/nothing on the 25th because of money issues or other... Idk, I think there is such thing as too much storytelling, and also that the magic feeling of Christmas doesn’t begin and end with Santa.

I don’t push it, nor do I outright say anything like ‘It’s not real’ etc, for now I just kinda... go mm-hmm, or say ‘oh idk, Dad knows more about Santa’ or whatever if DS brings it up. Interested to see how others in a mixed-attitude family deal with it!

I probably did believe in santa but we didn't do the leaving out food thing. I think another kid in my class told me for sure he wasn't real but by then I think I was just pretending to believe as it was fun. My son figured it out quite reasonably when he started realising all the toys could be bought at Tesco and asked me if I was Santa. My kids (now teens) still don't want to see any presents under the tree until Christmas morning though.
If it's important to your husband then let him do it and just smile in the background. You can be economical with the truth rather than lie.

I grew up with a mix of doing Santa and being told Xmas is not good (parents of conflicting religions).

With my DCs we did 'do' Santa but I absolutely refuse to outright lie. If the kids asked 'is Santa real?' I would say 'if he's real to you then that's all that matters' or something like 'well he's as real as fairies' with a little wink. kids are playful by nature and happily accepted that. As they got a little older my youngest dc would ask if he's real and I would say 'I will tell you the truth when you tell me you're ready'. Dd13 has never ever been ready (despite being well aware he isn't real she never pushed for the answer). DD2 however came to me a few tears Back and said she really wanted the truth. So I checked she was ready and told her the truth. I said I don't believe he's a real person but I do believe in the magic of Christmas because it brings us all joy. Since then she has flipped back and forth between telling me she chooses to believe Santa is real to knowing he is not. Essentially I raised them to believe in the magical glittery joy of the Christmas period without all the blatant lies. It is important to me that if my kids come to me and ask for the truth that they know I will always try to give that to them.

None of this has ever applied Christmas. If it helps, kids remember very little until after age 3 to 4 so I don't think there's much harm in going along with Santa in the early days and toning it down as they get older.

@orcaaa so you never thought your toys came to life when you weren’t in your room....
my son is six and one of his favourite books is the velveteen rabbit - he believes in that story.
Children have wild imaginations - believing in stuff that isn’t real isn’t harmful, it’s magical and with time/age they figure it out without any damage done.

@handbagsatdawn33 Never forgave them?! For trying to make your childhood magical & exciting?? Jesus H Christ! Get a life

I get what you mean op, I'm slightly shocked at how very good we are at lying to our two children, had to tell ds1 before he got secondary school and ds2 still firmly believes.

If your happy with it in principle, how about deferring some of the questions to your DH... 'I don't know dear, your dad is the expert on that one' etc. You could be honest and say you didn't know about santa growing up but that your DH know a lot more. Also, the answer 'good question, what do you think?' is a great deflector, or 'I know, it's a mystery isn't it'. You don't have to lie outright but you can avoid it.

Also, when I sat ds1 down for 'the talk' I told him it was a little lie for some parents to sneak in extra little presents (in our house the stocking and a book were from Santa, presents from us and relatives), and signed him up as chief elf to do ds2's stocking. We've not find it a problem that it's been a lie, or blurred the boundaries with lying in general.

I told my dd last year Santa isn’t real. She was 10. She decided she knew better. Now at 11 she’s not sure. So I’m just going along with the Santa being real thing for the time being and maybe I got it wrong. We do the leaving a mince pie, carrot and glass of milk thing. Maybe I’ll leave some muddy boot prints out to keep her wondering. Honestly there is nothing sinister about it. Children totally differentiate between the magical figure flying in the sky and keeping themselves safe / stranger danger thing.

Christmas traditions are harmless, I don’t believe children hold grudges when they find out the truth. Ok if people don’t celebrate fair enough but it can be a fun and magical time for many people so why not let it be.