To not want to go along with this? (Re: Santa!)

[MrsJohanHegg]

Myself and DSis (and our respective other halves!) both have 2yo DSs. We're both on the same page re: Santa - that he brings the stockings and one present. It works for us, it's what our mum did, DC learn that they can't just ask Santa for umpty-million expensive things etc. So when I put my tree up, I popped some wrapped presents underneath to hide the cheap wonky base to look pleasant and festive.

Well I've just had an earful from SiL as she popped by with our older nephew (6) who is now asking why we had presents under our tree when Santa brings them etc. Apparently in their house Santa brings all the presents. I told her to tell him they're just for show if it's an issue, and thought all was fine, but she later told DH that they also tell him that Santa brings all the presents from other people too!

So literally they'll visit his various grandparents, aunts etc and they'll pull out a present and say "Oh, Santa left this here for you - he must have gotten confused!" and it's expected that when we see him on Boxing Day and give him his gift we're expected to do the same when we give him his gift.

AIBU to think that this is completely fucking batshit a bit OTT/ridiculous and not want to go along with it? Why can't it just be a nice gift from us, his aunt and uncle?? I don't bloody want to say it's from Santa, I want the credit

YANBU at all!

Nice for kids to believe in Father Christmas and all that, but I think it's very important they also learn to thank people and be appreciative of the trouble they've gone to.

When I was little I'd have my stocking and maybe one other thing that would be 'from Father Christmas'.

Then everything else would have a label on it saying who it was from (including presents from my parents). We always said thank you in person or sent a thank you card too. Even if the present wasn't that great, my parents would always say 'It was still really nice of them to think of you, though, wasn't it?' or 'They must have gone to a lot of trouble to choose that, even if it's not quite your kind of thing'.

I even remember my mum (who was a SAHM at the time) whispering to me that it would be really nice if I said a particular thank you to my dad for my presents from my parents, because he'd been working extra hard for the money to buy our presents that year. I was only little but I remember it very clearly and it definitely helped me to understand the value of what we had.

I grew up in the 70s/80s and I know times have probably changed a lot now, but I do think it's nice for kids to appreciate the effort people have gone to and to understand the value of things. Absolutely love the whole magic of Santa thing, but you can have that and also teach them to be polite and grateful for gifts from others, surely!

My parents always did santa brings everything. But that other people send them to santa to Deliver. Makes no sense to me.

Everyone does things differently. The issue here is that your SIL shouldn't be coming into your house and telling you how to run your Christmas so it matches with hers.

Oh and her tradition is stupid. Santa doesn't leave random presents all over the place for one child, he is far too bloody busy and would get confused. He comes down the chimney and fills the stocking for the child that lives there. End of.

Yes, I agree it's crazy.

When my dcs were young I made the mistake of saying that all presents were from Santa (I can't honestly remember what we did. We didn't do stockings). If grandparents/friends bought a gift I would say the gift was from them and not Santa. It backfired on me when after a generous Christmas my eldest dc turned to me and said "but you didn't get us anything!".

After that, we do a couple of presents under the tree from Santa, the rest from everyone else. I even take credit for the stocking! (Although at 11 and 9 they don't believe anymore anyway).

Back to you OP, what your Dsil is asking you to do is totally nuts. Do not entertain it. She's setting herself up with a load of future grief.

For us Father Christmas brings stockings and a family present (DVD, board game, type of thing). All other gifts are from the giver, including DH and I.

We keep it simple, so much easier.

'Santa' is like a festive Amazon at ours. DS gives us his Christmas list, then we (me and rest of the family) put in our order with him. He then delivers on Christmas Eve.

We've also told him it's only for children and that it would be to much work for it to be for grown ups too. When we've gone to the shops nd chose something for a friend, cousin etc. I've said that Santa had run out of what we were getting.

I've never been questioned. It helps that we also order in the christmas food and then go to the shops for food we couldn't order.

I've also said some people choose to give presents themselves and don't go through Santa, this has also been accepted. SIL could try that?

Anyway, did you say child is 2? I don't think it really matters at this age, but she may find things tricky in future years.

It's crazy. We do santa brings the stockings and everything else is from who bought it.

I think santa brings everything is dismissive
Of the thought other people put into it.

I remember as a kid my gran giving me a present that said from santa and I was like I know it's you gran santa already gave us all our stuff and his writing is more like mums.... my mum must have been dying to laugh as she was Saying "oh fancy that I've never noticed " I've genuinely didn't make
The connection.

In our house it is just stockings that Santa brings (and mummy and daddy get one too as they still believe). But DD also knows that different families are different so the way Santa brings presents varies between households.

I've only just realised that if you say Santa gifts them all it gets you out of sending thank you letters - maybe that is why some people do it!

It's important to me that my children know that their gifts cost money, and they should thank the person who bought it for them. Father Christmas doesn't get all the credit in my house! He doesn't pay for the gifts he just delivers them along with a few small things made by the elves.

Is no-one else in awe that the OP has put presents out under the tree that are as yet unopened by toddler hands? How on earth are you managing that?

She has no right to try and enforce her Christmas onto you. My mil did this in reverse - tried to say that santa had delivered dd presents at her house too. I told her that only the presents from us were 'santa' presents. Stick to your guns!

For posters who do all presents from/ delivered by Santa - how do kids give presents to adults? Or do they get caught up in the santa delivery too?

We do magical postman here. Everyone brings presents to each other secretly before Christmas/on Christmas eve the kids don't see any until they all are magically delivered by father Christmas. Nobody personally hands over a gift. My family have always done it like this, at least 4 generations. I find the presents under the tree bizarre as I have literally never seen it in real life only on tv.
The kids buy wrap and leave presents, for adults and each other, on the fireplace (secretly without the person they are for seeing them) they are collected by the elves during the night the elves leave a letter saying father Christmas will deliver them.

My DH's family don't do presents under the tree because a thief might see them and they may get stolen. Never mind that everyone can see that the house is decorated for Christmas and the presents wouldn't actually be visible through the window.

My ds is three and they have started all whispering about Christmas gifts as if they don't want him to know that they will all be giving each other gifts. I obviously spend time with my son, seeing the cartoons he watches and going places with him. (ie public places with decorative gifts under trees) He notices presents everywhere he goes and asks me about them because obviously he wants one. I can't imagine how any child could not know that people give each other presents this time of year. You'd have to constantly be taking about what a screw up Santa is for leaving presents everywhere.

How has your nephew got to 6 without it you realising this bonkers way is how they do Christmas?

SoupDragon I never really paid attention before since we didn't have DC/DS was a baby and they don't visit here often, we mostly see them at other people's houses and it never came up!

I don't think they ask that many questions about it really. We don't bother doing the Santa thing here but when I was told about it when I was little I kind of accepted Father Christmas (as he was known then!) gave me presents that were also from my parents. Perhaps I didn't have a very enquiring mind!

I was brought up with Santa delivers everything. People send to Santa and he delivers with a few bits that are from him. My mums logic was it meant she didn't need to worry about little people opening things before Christmas and nor did she need to move presents to hoover.

I certainly don't agree with tags being removed / changed or everything being FROM Santa.

I'm not sure you need a watertight santa logistics plan TBH. In my experience children are more interested in the presents than interrogating the logic of it all.

My children give people presents (these are the ones that live under the tree) but all their presents for Christmas morning materialise overnight so they're there on Christmas morning. They'd find it too difficult (well DS2 would) if some of their presents lived under the tree for half of December.

Other people are totally welcome to give the children their own presents later than that.

I have never (in my life) find thank you letters for presents. My children don't either. We do a proper thank you in person at the time or we phone people to actually say thank you. It isn't more meaningful if I spend an afternoon or 4 nagging the children to write something. I've never received a thank you letter for anything other than a wedding present either (and have no desire to - in fact, I don't care about not getting one for a wedding present either). Not receiving a letter doesn't mean I haven't been thanked. This always seems to be one of those MN is a parallel universe thing with people getting arsey about the lack of letters meaning the recipients of their gifts are somehow ungrateful.

Bloody hell. All this overthinking takes ALL the magic of Christmas away for me 😡

Fancy forcing people who have carefully chosen presents for their beloved grandkids to hand them over anonymously and not even have the pleasure of seeing the kids open them. How thoughtless 😡

Every family has their own way of doing it. It doesn't bother me what other people do and I don't really care about getting credit for buying stuff. I have a couple of single mums in the family and I always send them a cheque early in December to help them out at Christmas. I hope it takes some of the pressure off and does it matter if their kids, who don't know me that well, don't think I'm wonderful.

We have Always done, stocking from Santa, presents from everyone else. And we are expected to write/ draw/make some kind of thank you for them.
santa never spends much on a stocking as he can't afford too. Which is why it is our family who buys the expensive things

We used to tell our DDs that Santa brought everything until someone asked my DD aged about 6, "what did mummy and daddy give you for Christmas " and she sadly answered " nothing" .

YANBU