How many Santas and Christmas experiences do you visit?

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How many Santas and Christmas experiences do you visit?

Agree with reading .. we didn't do 'paid for experiences', DS might see Santa at nursery school but never went to a commercial one ... if you know where to look there are plenty of free or very cheap community events. And the one and only time DH took him to a Panto (I loathe pantomime) they had to leave half way through as he was terrified.

None and never have done. In-laws took them to panto a few times when they were younger so I could get some secret wrapping done but I’ve never booked to do any of the grottos, light trails, Lapland visits, winter wonderland etc.
Feels like massively overpriced consumerism, fake snow in dreary locations, find it all a bit depressing and I never bought into any of it. We do have a Christmas float that drives round the neighbourhood collecting money for charity, Father Christmas comes knocking on all the doors and we always donated and chatted to him for a minute but that’s as far as it went.
My kids are unscathed!
Each to their own, obviously has no effect on me or my life!

One

We did them once or twice in total, I guess. It's not something I particularly remember. We did go to the panto most years. I think I visited FC more as a child than my children did. They used to enjoy seeing FC on the local Rotary "sleigh".

I would only ever do one per year and make sure the child knew this was not the real Santa just a Christmas treat thing. I wouldn’t do it until they are at least 2 unless they have older siblings

I think we took the children to see Santa once or twice during their upbringing when were were out somewhere that had it, and it was quite low key and fun. But usually Santa visited them at school anyway for the party with a small present for each (usually a book or stationery, obtained and wrapped by the PTA). And they didn't really believe it but played along. With the exception perhaps of the sort of outdoor light show my partner and I like to go to at one of nearby country houses, or ice skating, or a proper show that happened to be festive in theme, we wouldn't go now if we had small children and we'd do at most one or two of those and not the same every year. But most of these 'experiences' these days seem either naff, expensive, crowded, annoying or all 4.

Each year we only do one day out/Christmas experience that includes seeing Santa, and at least one other big festive outing that doesn't include Santa (or we don't pay the extra to include Santa) such as light trails, castles/NT houses, snow dome, theme park or theatre. We also do lots of other smaller trips to Xmas markets, trails, garden centres etc, so we generally will do something every weekend in December. The lead up to Christmas is my absolute fave and my DD6 really enjoys it too.

My child has 4 events where they will meet Suntee Claas.

We do one thing per year. Last year was a woodland train experience thing. This year it's a Christmas craft event. One year we did the circus.

It's absolutely fine to do one or none, or to do lots. It's up to you and it's your Christmas at the end of the day. The kids do plenty at school and at their clubs like pantos and parties so for us, one family event is enough.

Quite a few! Grotto, Santa'a train, winter wonderland, and there are a few additional grottos (at the school fayre, at nursery concert etc)

One that includes Father Christmas because like a pp said it confuses them as despite their young age it doesn't take long for them to figure out that the Father Christmases were not the same hence adding confusion. We've learnt not to try and do too many things now (after experience) as it becomes overwhelming, costly and I agree it adds to consumerism.

We only do 1 per year - actual meeting/talking to santa.
Plus school fayre

I try and do something Christmassy each weekend though - we did tree & decoration today for example to build up gently

No Santa visits as I like him to be a mythical character rather than someone they can meet, so we do letters /listening for sleighbells /footprints etc but not meeting him

We have a light trail , pantomime and ski lessons booked over Christmas and will probably do ice skating. But we don't have the children on Christmas day this year so we have to find other ways to have a family Christmas

Just one when they were little - where we cut the tree had a nice Santa grotto. Maybe a panto but not every year and I think the last time was a non panto musical in the West End.

I think we did about 6 Santas last year, including some free ones and fairly low key local events. We do lots of other experiences too - we live in London and we like taking the dcs to the theatre, so we have a lot of shows lined up (about 9 I think). But we go to the theatre all year around anyway, and they aren't even all Christmassy, but lots of theatres put on their best kids productions in the Christmas period so they're just concentrated in those months. And during school holidays I always take the dc out to keep them busy so in that sense it's just looking for activities to do, and most of them are going to be Christmas activities at this time of year.

We'll also do a light trail, some concerts, a soft play Christmas event, seeing London lights, an activity farm, circus show, NT property, ice skating.