to despise lying to children?

[TimeWasting]

I hate that it's the main wondrous magical part of Christmas for them, about receiving stuff rather than giving and that it's a basic lie.

I think it makes Christmas shit.

An excellent explanation here. Tissues at the ready (i am a big wuss)

Growing up FC brought us little bits, as we grew up we got socks, knickers, shower gel etc. Main presents were from our parents.

For me, it was just magic. Waking up and this stocking had magically appeared at the end of my bed, it was just such a magical time of year, and not cause of getting 'stuff'. It didn't traumatise me when I busted them one night at about 6.

I will fib like a pro when the time comes, dd is a little bit little at the mo!

All the commercial nonsense attached to Christmas can be overcome; please don't blame Santa for that. My DCs sure do like their 'stuff', but they also love, at 5 and 4 to choose surprises for their daddy and granny. They love helping to bake special treats for our neighbors and carefully considering what they would like to leave for Santa as a treat to say thank you for coming. They very willingly will pack up old toys to donate to charity, and they are grateful, without much prompting, for every gift they recieve. We LOVE the magic of Santa in this house, and we do it without all the commercial garbage...it IS possible, and I would feel selfish and terrible for not allowing my kids to get excited and delighted by all the magic and surprise.
It's not lying, ffs....lighten up!

far better than that lie about God I was fed as a child

I despise people whinging about the Santa myth and being miserable old goats about it.

Thanks for the warning Hatti......

We never did the Santa thing. DD1 was frightened by the idea of a stranger coming into the house. It didnt bother us either way. We hadnt grown up in 'Santa' households so didnt feel the need to do this with DCs.

All presents were from people and DCs said thank you to the people who gave them.

Hi there
Excellent point, OP
However, in the spirit of all things Christmas we're going to change the title by removing the "about Santa?" part from the title.
Thanks
M Towers

Does anyone still tell their children about Jesus at Christmas (you know - Christ mas? or are we abandoning that altogether and just going with Santa Going back to our Pagan roots and having the winter festival / feast of Yule or whatever it was?

I do actually wonder how long before the idea of christmas being about celebrating the birth of Jesus will be forgotten altogether. Well, abandoned maybe.

Although 25 December was pinched in the first place from the old pagan festival wasn't it? I think it was. So it's more like coming full circle.

That kind of changes the whole thread though, Olivia and the OP doesn't make a lot of sense now.

I agree soup -even MNHQ are in on it! OP YANBU!

Can't stand all the 'santa is real' nonsense! Hecate we do, and we talk about the tradition of FC and why people celebrate but never have we entered into the whole 'it is real' business.

I think santa as a concept is real - benevolent person making gifts appear as if by magic. Its just that he isn't a fat man in a red suit.

Ha!- the irony of not editing a thread title with the words FUCK FUCK FUCK in it, but getting rid of 'lying to children about Santa

yes. We can allow our children to read fuck shit bollocks cunt twat over our shoulder, but not santa may not be real, cos that'd affect them

We do Father Christmas and Jesus, as I'm sure do many Christians. I'm not particularly religious but I do love the nativity story and ds gets plenty of it at school - his carol concert last week was very sweet.

So make Christmas about Christ, then it's all about giving. Make it pagan and it's about sharing together. Make it atheist and its about receiving. I guess it depends which story you prefer.

MN editing 'about Santa'!

PMSL, brilliant!

And, YANBU, OP... sure there's lots of good about Christmas, and of course thw various stories can be lovely, positive things... but the Santa insanity/fantasy - but the fetishising of 'benevolent' bullshit - and obligation to join in the 'fantasy' - is nauseating.

MN's censorship here proves it.

Exactly, HappyCamel!

Best to have the choice, no?

If you don't lie to your children, how do you ever get them to do anything??

"Does anyone still tell their children about Jesus at Christmas (you know - Christ mas? grin or are we abandoning that altogether and just going with Santa"

At least one of the children in my class think that Christmas is about celebrating Father Christmas's birthday Hecate

This thread makes me sad. Every child deserves the right to believe in Santa for a few years. I wonder how many of those who oppose it got to enjoy the happiness it brings themselves? You ought to hang your heads in shame.

I'm glad I was lied to about Santa - i remember staying up all night with my sister and brother looking at the sky to try and spot him. at one point we even convinced ourselves we could see him.

It's fun, it's exciting - OP can't you remember being so giddy with excitement about christmas?

Being lied to about FC doesn't seem to have done many of us any long-term damage

We read the Gospel and have a crib, Hecate. But we also put out food for Santa/the pixie which is a far older tradition in my country and has survived 1000 years of Christianity. So I'm not sure about it "still" being about the birth of Christ is quite the right way round: as far as we are concerned, it is now also about the birth of Christ.

I think it would be a sad world if we couldn't allow our children to believe that a little old man sets out from the North Pole on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer on one special, cold, frosty night once a year just to bring nice things to good boys and girls.

But it's OK to ask them to believe that 3 kings, 3 shepherds and a donkey sat around a manger all together on one night 2000 years ago to worship a baby because he might be the son of god. Even the most ardent Christian knows that didn't really happen - it's a beautiful but purely illustrative tale.

Both are lovely stories, but stories nontheless. And both bring a tiny bit of magic to a world full of horror on just one day a year. Where's the harm in it?