To not feed DC the Father Christmas lie

[PeterRabitting]

Not looking for the MN angry responses of "let children be children for gods sake" etc etc but interested in hearing the intellectual views of any parents who've handled "Father Christmas" differently from the 'norm'. The reason is, I have a friend who has raised all her DC telling them there is no such thing as Santa from the outset. It has intrigued me a bit, as a mum of a baby. On the one hand part of me thinks that it's terribly sad and my friend's DC are missing out on the magic etc. But in the other hand her reasons do make some sense to me. She and her DH are atheists and so she argues that in the same way she tells her kids the science of life (eg she doesn't tell them there is such a thing as heaven) why would she fool them into thinking Father Christmas is real. She talks to her DC about FC as a belief / story that some people believe, in the same way that some people believe in different religions etc. She leaves it open for her DC to believe if they choose to, so she doesn't say it's "nonsense" but she just says some people believe it. She said her DC are critical thinkers and would question things like the scientific possibility of flying round the earth etc etc anyway.

She also says that her way encourages gratitude, mindfulness and an appreciation of the value of money because her DC know that their gifts come from mummy and daddy through love and hard work and do not magically appear / are not made by elves. My friend says that she installs a sense of magic into her DC through all the lovely family things they do and spending time together.

I'm uncertain but it intrigued me as I too am an atheist and if I'm not trying to persuade my child that heaven exists then why would I persuade them that Santa does? On the other hand... "let children be children"!

Does anyone on here "do Father Christmas" differently / not feed their DC this story?

Yes of course my children are far too intelligent and critically thinking to be like all the other sheeple 4 year olds and believe in magic. They've ruined BGT for me, they figure out the magic tricks immediately.

Also, I think it's very important that I stress to my children that they only have presents because I work hard and choose to spend my hard earned money on them. Don't want to be raising ungrateful little shits like all the other families I know.

The sense of superiority is just a bonus.

Christmas as a celebration is quite a mishmash of different beliefs and celebrations all brought together. Jesus wasn't actually born on 25th December. Christmas trees are a pagan invention and FC is based on a 17th century fable.

So getting het up about 'lying' to children about the reality of FC is a bit ridiculous, because 'Christmas' in the modern sense is a smorgasbord of collective rituals all rolled into one.

When my youngest (now 12) found out, she was upset. I just told her that FC was a figure that represented all the love and care in the world and that we carry the spirit of Christmas in our hearts even though we know he's not real, because that helps us all to remember that love and kindness and gratitude is what we celebrate.

What these earnest truth tellers always forget is the social value of having a strong imagination. Fantasy and storytelling aren't limited to the arts. Any entrepreneur or designer who has come up with a ground breaking, society-changing object or process did so by thinking laterally, by stimulating their imagination to excess, by ignoring what is in favour of what might be. Letting kids believe in Father Christmas fosters this part of the brain. Not to mention it being a massive source of excitement, industry and energy at the darkest, most sluggish time of the year. These are all practical reasons to tell children about Father Christmas,. There is a difference between fable and lie!

@monkeyonthetable

What these earnest truth tellers always forget is the social value of having a strong imagination. Fantasy and storytelling aren't limited to the arts. Any entrepreneur or designer who has come up with a ground breaking, society-changing object or process did so by thinking laterally, by stimulating their imagination to excess, by ignoring what is in favour of what might be. Letting kids believe in Father Christmas fosters this part of the brain. Not to mention it being a massive source of excitement, industry and energy at the darkest, most sluggish time of the year. These are all practical reasons to tell children about Father Christmas,. There is a difference between fable and lie!

My kids seemed to have a lot of imagination, I'm not sure adults pretending they can hear tiny reindeer hooves on the roof is needed to encourage that. The whole point is children having the imagination, surely?

my kids got frightened - aged 3 and 4 ish because my mum told them he would go in their room and tweak their noses to see if they were really asleep. Santa did not exist from that day on.

We dealt with it as "some people believe..." and it is a fun thing that most families "do", so "can we pretend...?" and we picked some bits of it - rudolph's carrot for instance, and they were fine - just because they "knew" did not make it any the less fun.

I’ve never told my children anything about Father Christmas but other children have and the unadulterated joy on their faces about it, is well worth me having kept quiet about it not being real. It only lasts a short term as initially they are too young to understand and then too old to believe.

We don't celebrate Christmas in our home. Once my children were old enough to ask about it (my oldest asked 'the people in Christmas costumes'), we discussed much like DoYouRememberTheInnMiranda how that was the costume of Father Christmas, that it's part of many people's Christmas fun, and we don't ruin their fun by saying they should 'believe' in such a thing just as we wouldn't want them ruining our fun or saying rude things about our traditions.

I never had an issue about it, though my children are home educated for the primary years, at least which likely limited potential issues. We also use The Hogfather book and mini-series as a fun way of talking about Christmas and other traditions.

And one can have magic and imagination without Father Christmas. There are many other ways of encouraging those things in family life other than telling very similar stories about the same guy for the same holiday as millions of other people, especially with what used to be more common and still shows up at times where children are threatened with no gifts if they discuss the truth.

There are so many fables, mythologies, stories, and magic traditions that can spark ideas, and we can do that without saying they're real. I've spent much of the day doing early prep work for Día de Muertos - we talk about the dead coming back, about welcome the dead infants and children, and then the dead adults, but I no more say it's absolutely real or try to enforce the belief in it than when we've read books on creation myths from around the world. The traditions can have meaning even without literal interpretations -- having lost many loved ones, having time dedicated to talking about them & reconnecting to those memories together and reflecting on the inevitable has a lot of meaning and value to me - and they can create many ideas without them being held as absolute truth by small children.

@RepeatSwan - but you're just joining in the fun, surely? I enjoy it, though, so maybe it's just an excuse.

@monkeyonthetable

What these earnest truth tellers always forget is the social value of having a strong imagination. Fantasy and storytelling aren't limited to the arts. Any entrepreneur or designer who has come up with a ground breaking, society-changing object or process did so by thinking laterally, by stimulating their imagination to excess, by ignoring what is in favour of what might be. Letting kids believe in Father Christmas fosters this part of the brain. Not to mention it being a massive source of excitement, industry and energy at the darkest, most sluggish time of the year. These are all practical reasons to tell children about Father Christmas,. There is a difference between fable and lie!

You can read books you know. My non Father Christmas (tooth fairy and Easter bunny) believing DS read heaps of books with fairytales and myths when he was younger. He was reading fantasy and sci-fi at an adult level at 10

@whirlwindwallaby - of course you can. But why not both?

[quote monkeyonthetable]@whirlwindwallaby - of course you can. But why not both?[/quote]
I tried to lie, DS saw through it. He has always loved myths and fantasy but has always had a clear idea of what's real and make believe.

Coming from a culture that celebrates the memory of the bishop St. Nikolaus (i.e. the day of his death) and what he according to legend did for children, the concept of Father Christmas, the annual discussion and the assumption that you can't possibly have Christmas without him is interesting to me .
Christians remember the birth of Christ 'the bringer of (spiritual) light' at that particular time because that's when the light comes back and that's when people have always been celebrating survival.

@Sweetmotherofallthatisholyabov

Actually the more I think about this the more I think comparing Santa to religion is actually quite offensive.

I think it's a pretty good comparison.

Something invented to make people happy/act in a more kind way.

Santa has had a more positive influence on my life than religion has.

You can read books you know.

Really? You don't say! You can also enjoy imagination and fantasy that isn't in books.

My kids seemed to have a lot of imagination, I'm not sure adults pretending they can hear tiny reindeer hooves on the roof is needed to encourage that. The whole point is children having the imagination, surely?

So you don't see any value in shared fable, fantasy and imagination enjoyed between parents and children?

My point is that you can enjoy fantasy without doing Father Christmas. Films, books, stories, you don't need to claim it's real though.

Well my parents are Marxists so we obviously never had FC growing up, and honestly the magic of Christmas for me was feeling smug and superior to my gullible classmates...."You believe everything your 'parents' tell you do ya?". (Yes I was a knobhead)

I actually tried to explain to my son that it's just a story, and he thought I was thick.

I also really hate the sort of behaviour-blackmailing people do, 'be good for Santa' etc

@whirlwindwallaby

My point is that you can enjoy fantasy without doing Father Christmas. Films, books, stories, you don't need to claim it's real though.

Its like some people forget that most of the world aren’t christians. Instead we’re obviously suffering terribly because without santa you can’t have an imagination

My point is that you can enjoy fantasy without doing Father Christmas.

Yes, or you can enjoy fantasy including Father Christmas. Because it's lovely, fun and most kids love it.

Surely pretty much every culture has myths, fables and legends, and kids are told about them when they are young, not with the po-faced preface "This is all made-up, but....*? And later they come to be increasingly but affectionately sceptical about them as they grow older and pleased with their mature knowledge, before joining in with the adults to introduce younger siblings or cousins to the fun and eventually passing it down to their own children. That's what myths, legends and fables are, and the world would be a duller place without them. They aren't just stories to be read in books, they are traditions passed down and varied according to the family's own interpretation. I wonder when people first started calling this 'lying'.

Its like some people forget that most of the world aren’t christians. Instead we’re obviously suffering terribly because without santa you can’t have an imagination

Not at all. All cultures have their own traditions, customs and fables. I'm not a Christian but still did the Father Christmas thing.

YABU as you are missing out on vital bribing opportunities for 3 months of the year 😂

"This is all made-up, but....*? I've never said that. DS just doesn't believe me when I'm talking about make believe things. I actually tried my hardest with drop bears and bunyips .

You're way over thinking this!

Yes, or you can enjoy fantasy including Father Christmas. Because it's lovely, fun and most kids love it.

I'm sure many do love it -- but many is not all. Already mentioned in this thread, as there usually is on threads like this, are people mentioning their kids find the idea of a strange man in their house frightening. Just because you find it lovely and fun doesn't make that a universal truth.

I grew up with Santa. I have no memories of magic, imagination, and wonder that many others describe. I can remember the pagentry, the smiling nicely for the photos to be shared, and what I still regularly see in Father Christmas threads about telling kids who no longer believe that they won't get presents if they say so. Fewer seem to do that these days as it wasn't enjoyable so the tradition changed. Some of us didn't enjoy it enough to pass any of it along to our kids. That's part of how traditions change too. Traditions aren't static, they're constantly evolving.

Many cultural traditions passed down don't actually involve telling children something is true and waiting for kids to learn differently (also many myths were once and in some areas still are religious beliefs, they became 'lies'/'myths'/'fables' when beliefs changed). It's simply told as a story, whether or not they believe is irrelevant. It is irrelevant if my children believe the dead come back during Día de Muertos. It is irrelevant if I believe. The meaning of the stories is what we get from them, they're part of the cultural rituals -- we speak of dead infants and children coming back to mourn and connect together and to their memory, we speak of dead adults coming back to mourn and connect together ro their memory, we discuss what will become of us. It has great significance in my home even to someone like me who doesn't even believe in an afterlife.

Some of us get nothing or even have a negative association with Father Christmas. I have no recall of the story having significance to me and so I do not pass it on. That doesn't make someone dull, that doesn't mean someone doesn't have other fables, myths, legends, or magic in their lives. Christmas and the fat guy in red do not have a monopoly on traditions.

I was one of those children who believed my parents wouldn't lie and was very upset when I learnt Father Christmas wasn't real.

We always said that the Father Christmas's we visited in the UK were not real, but that the real father Christmas lived in Lapland and we did go and visit him one year. We only have FC presents in the morning (in a sack)and then under the tree presents from everyone else.

As soon as any of my DCs asked me if it was feel, I asked them what they thought and if they said it wasn't real I told them, but explained that we still had to make it special for younger siblings who still believed. DS1 and DS2 believed for a long time - until 10/11. DD realised last year aged 8.

Christmas is not as special if you don't have a FC believer no matter what anyone else says. It's going to be a bit flat this year. AS long as you don't lie, I really don't see the issue. Children films, books are fantasy and they play make-believe games - it's just an extension of that.

So you don't see any value in shared fable, fantasy and imagination enjoyed between parents and children?

Yes of course @lazylinguist but a fable and make believe is not the same as telling a child something is real. That's the point - I don't tell my children seriously there are really trolls under the bridge, although of course we played games about trolls. I feel the same with FC, it's a game we all play.