christmas present from parents. Stocking from santa. AIBU to not get it?

[BazilGin]

Help me out here please. DH and I are having a disagreement about Christmas traditions. We always try to compromise, as I come from Poland and our traditions are very different, but there is one I just don't get. St Nick always used to 'bring us' all the presents under the tree when I was a child. The anticipation, the magic of it I still remember to this day.
In DH's family, santa always brings stocking presents (i.e. Chocolate, socks and other cheap tat. The main presents are from your parents, aunts etc AIBU not to get this one at all? What's the point of actually telling the kids all about Santa if all he brings are a few chocolate buttons and some pants?
Please explain to me how it works in this country, thanks!

We don't do Santa in our house. We each have a stocking and other gifts. Some stocking items are traditional to us - eg a satsuma, choc coins every time, other items vary.

One of my MILs (I have 2), is hugely into Santa. She makes up a stocking from Santa for DD which she opens as an extra at her house. DD says Santa is pretend, but is willing to indulge granny.

Because gifts aren't massively important to us we give up to one gift per person - and agree a max spend (usually £10).

We have stockings from Santa and presents from who ever buys them, all presents are ordered from Santa and paid for by us and he delivers them!

We do sacks instead of stockings and the gifts in there are from Father Christmas. The sacks mean there is room for a few more presents from FC and it has contained stuff like games, DVDs, torches and chocolate.

We always buy special FC paper and tags and on Christmas Eve one of us wraps FCs gifts and the other does stuff from us. That way we don't muddle paper or tags. FC always uses a red pen too!

My family was a some from Santa, some from parents for both tree presents and stocking.

I decided this year now ds is old enough that the stocking is from Santa, and big presents are from us. We work bloody hard to earn the money to buy them, I want the credit when he opens them and smiles!

I forgot to add, Father Christmas then decides if they have been naughty or nice and deserve to have said presents delivered, of course he always decides they have been nice! It also means I have immaculately behaved children throughout December

Father Christmas brings the stockings here but they include one or two things the children have asked for and are very full stockings so not a case of him bringing chocolate buttons and pants.

To give you an idea here is what is in dds stocking this year: tree decoration,chocolate coins, lindt reindeer, festive friends, small bag of jelly beans, bubble bath, toothbrush, soap, fortune telling fish, glider, disco duck, led bouncy ball, egg cup, dinosaur egg, finger lights, headphones, twirly ribbon stuff, a butterfly hanging thing, a slushy cup and a password journal. Ds' is similar . There may be a couple of other bits of tat that I've forgotten about but that's mostly it.

Then they get one bigish and one smallish present from me and whatever everyone else brings them.

I give my own presents, I don't have an arrangement with Santa.

Cheers everyone, I wonder if it's also regional? DH claims that all friends at school were told exactly the same thing (gifts from whoever bought them, stocking from santa).
I remember writing to Santa asking for something, I was always aware that it can't be too big, or it won't fit under the tree. I don't think I would be writing any letters with the stocking tradition, because not much fits in there at all?
I appreciate all replies, I like the idea of gaving a stocking and one gift from Santa. I just need to send this thread to DH for further discussion

why not have a sack from santa as well as a stocking (or a sack instead of a stocking) and anything else can be from you and your dh as well as friends/family.

I still find it confusing because of trying to dovetail with reality.
Other people hand over gifts throughout late December, and ds is aware of gift- giving nd helps with thank you cards etc.
So, in my mind the stocking is from FC because it neatly fits the ideaofhim popping down the chimney and filling the stockings with gifts.
But I agree with some others that I like the idea of FC getting the credit for all the magic. And I too, don't like the "we gave him the money" thing.
But my eldest is only 3 so he's easily hoodwinked

In my family people buy the presents, but send them to Father Christmas who brings them if you are good.

Santa brings all the kids presents in our house. Relatives sometimes ask Santa to bring particular presents, so they get thanked for that. We don't get thanked for anything, Santa gets all the gratitude!

In our house Santa brings presents in a stocking in the bedroom and in a sack in the lounge. The dc also get a present from myself and their dad just before bed normally something they can keep such as as a special book or jewellery.

In this house and what I grew up with: parents send money to father Christmas because there are so many children in the world,now, he can only make presents for very poor children who have no parents. Us sending money means there is a limit to what can be expected. Some presents are labelled from Mum and dad and others are what Santa has chosen to buy with the money! Close family also send money and the presents are labelled from nanna etc. other presents are put under the tree because father Christmas can't deal with everything!

DS is still too young for this to be an issue in our house, but when we were growing up my parents used to split the number of presents from them and from Santa.
Gifts form other friends and family went straight under the tree and remained labeled from them.

The stocking was full of coins, satsumas, apples, nuts and little gifts. My brother and I would set our alarms to go off on the hour from 5 am so we could open a stocking present, 7am being the time we were allowed to wake the parents.
Sometimes the sticking gifts were just as good as the main event. I remember one year my brother playing continually with a £1 harmonica, totally ignoring all his big presents!

This is fascinating, I'm Irish, lived here years and never realised it was done differently. For us, main presents bought by parents are branded as coming from Santa. Parents officially either don't by presents, or sometimes get credited with doing the stocking in my experience. Presents from aunts, uncles etc are clearly from those people and are under the tree.

I can't believe I never realised so many parents here officially gave the big Xmas presents.

Every house is very different.

I think this year we will divide up the massive non MN hoard the presents and give some larger ones from Father Christmas, and a few from us too.

Lots of people in the UK it seems need to have credit for the gifts so its crept in that FC sometimes only brings a few. .

If Aunts/Uncles bring a gift, other visitors then of course, thats from them.

But that big WOW factor under the tree, in our house, mostly comes from FC.

Yanbu I don't understand it either.

It's all a bit less complicated in this house, Father Christmas brings everything however the presents he brings are not from him personally so thanks do need to be said to the actual giver. And grandparents and other close family bring their presents when they visit anyway.

Everything is sent to Father Christmas and if he decides DC are on the good list he brings the presents.

This was always how it was when I was growing up and it was a revelation to me that the big FC was anything other than a Christmas postman .

English stocking Santa sounds shite No offence but a couple of pairs of knickers and a satsuma knocking about a stocking does not make for magical Santa experience. In Ireland everything was from Santa, but then we didn't get anything bought for us by anyone other than our parents so there was little room for confusion over where the presents came from.

When I was a child I didn't get a stocking and presents were from the people who bought them. No Santa presents. I remember asking how Santa got them as I knew they were bought by my parents/grandparents. She said they bought and wrapped them and sent them to Santa so he could deliver them on Christmas eve. That was when I stopped believing in Santa. Dh had big santa presents and small ones from relatives but his santa presents weren't wrapped . We do stockings, big presents are from Santa and they are wrapped!

runes Our FC stockings are most definitely NOT shite! They are amazing.

I was so outraged, I didn't stomp my feet properly

we are also Father Christmas fans - he brings the stockings - presents are from actual people

oh yes and stockings have a mixture of tat and more expensive presents they have asked him for

Our Santa presents weren't wrapped either. I didn't realise other people's were until dh told me. I do wrap them for the dc now though to prolong the present opening experience.