To think ALL presents shouldn't be from Santa?

[justsparklex]

Surely it's not just me who thinks this is odd? I wasn't even aware people did this. So I messaged my friend asking if it was okay to come up Xmas evening with the kids and we can all then exchange presents, my friend replied saying " you can come up Xmas evening but can you drop the presents off before so dc's have all their presents in the morning" because apparently ALL their presents are from Santa. I was like What?? I understand people have certain traditions, but I just can't get my head over this one. I tell my kids that a few presents are from santa(usually less expensive ones) and the rest are from mummy&daddy and family, Santa just stores them and delivers them. I wasn't aware she didn't this until this year as I've usually just dropped them off before anyway.

I just think what's the point in even buying her kids anything if they don't even know it's from me? Why should Santa get all the credit? I just thought, do whatever you like with presents from you and your DH but family and friends?I think their kids deserve to know who bought them. I've bought them both two lovely, thoughtful and quite expensive presents and I'm just sad they won't even know it's from us. AIBU!?

Where I now live it was "all presents from Santa" or at least he seemed to operate some kind of Hermes/UPS delivery service. My MIL tried it on DD's first Christmas.
Bollocks to that. You have family presents and Santa presents. Family ones are the big meaningful ones.
This is DD's first year of not "believing ". I explained to her that as long as you have Christmas with me, you will always have Santa surprises . That's how my parents did it with me. I even remember rolling in after 1 having been to a Christmas Eve gig and tripping over a little stash of Santa presents that my parents had left.❤️

The way my parents did it was that Santa delivered all the presents but they were from other people. So Santa delivered presents from Mum and Dad, Auntie Jean, etc, but we were never told that the presents were actually FROM Santa. That way we had all the fun of Santa coming on Christmas Eve but we still had to do all our thank you letters.

I don’t understand how parents who pretend everything’s from Santa get their kids to do thank yous!

None of the presents are from Santa in my house but he is the one who delivers them overnight.

There cannot be a right or wrong, as long as everybody is happy, who cares how people celebrate Christmas.

What is infuriating is people telling you how you should do it in your own home. Chosen words come to mind to reply to these busy bodies.

DH and I give a gift, it's boring like underwear and socks. Everything else comes (came, adult children now) from Santa. I don't need instant gratification. They figure out it was me sooner or later, I'm not going to sacrifice their childhood wonder and belief in magic to stroke my own ego.

Father Christmas "delivers" our presents to the right houses.

None of the presents are from him.... Cos I bloody well bought them all

I can't want till DD stops believing so I can stop with all this bullshit - same with the fucking tooth fairy!!!!

And those Elves can fuck right off

Presents from other people come from other people though. Those don't even get under the tree. I always allowed them to open them when they were recieved because part of the fun of getting another person a present is seeing their reaction. But yeah, besides one lousy, totally uncool and unexciting gift is from mum and dad and everything else is from Santa. He can have all the credit for 6-7 years. That's nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Santa. When they are little enough to believe, I do the thanking but i wouldn't remove a tag. if they get a present from someone too, they thank them.
What's the big deal?

Well it's not a big deal but it is a deal. I fully accept I'm old fashioned, but I do appreciate a thank you note from a small person (many children who still believe can write).

Anyway it's a moot point, because how would they know if they'd got a present from me if they're told everything is from Santa?

Sooo "santa" is taking the credit for your gift ? Nah that's bonkers you show children that loved ones also exchang gifts surely

90% of DS gifts we buy come from Santa. DH and I buy him one present each and anyone else who buys him a gift, it comes from them and he has to write a thank you.

Lots of different traditions, not weird just different.

Santa delivers stockings only. So just little bits that fit in that. Everything else is from who it's from.

Same here. My parents did it this way and I've carried on the tradition. Good thing too as DCs found the X Box we bought under the bed. Well done DH you present hiding Muppet!

When mine were young children they had "santa sacks" that santa brought and gifts from us and extended family. Late mil liked to say Santa came to her house too which was quite sweet

@knittedjest exactly

YABU people do things differently.
All my dc presents were from Santa, that's who brought them to our home.
You do as you like, it's your prerogative.

RomanyRoots, how old were you when you stopped believing?

Did you give other people gifts and didn't you think it was strange that you wasn't given anything by your Parents, GP's, relatives?

I am always amazed at the myriad of variations on the santa theme on MN.

I grew up in Ireland and it seemed like most people were on the same page there, certainly when I was growing up. Relatives and friends gave wrapped presents which went under the tree to be opened on Christmas Day and never sooner.

Santa brought the rest. My parents did not buy us a present for under the tree. Kids knew that if Santa came, he brought the toys.

We always had a great spread of stuff and a stuffed stocking too.

Santa never left his presents under the tree, he left his arranged in a lovely display by the fireplace where the stocking was hung. We left his mince pie, milk and carrot on the hearth of the fireplace and the used glass and crumby plate were there in the morning too.

Santa never ever wraps any of his presents.

Noone ever told us there was no Santa, when we got old enough my parents just tweaked the tradition where my Mum bought us 2 Christmas sacks (like pillowcases but bigger) and she filled them with presents and we would open them very late on Christmas Eve when it was just the 4 of us as we usually hosted on Christmas Day.

It was a magical time and I have absolutely incredible, amazing memories of Christmases at home

It was simple and effective and we do exactly the same now for our dc.
Dh's mum is English and they had a VERY hit and miss approach to Santa - some years he came, most years he didn't.

In the early days of our relationship when we were talking about our childhoods and when he heard about our Santa traditions he really wanted to do that for any dc.

So that's exactly what we do.

Dd is now just past believing, this is the first year, but we are saying nothing and continuing as always and we think she will see the magic is all still there!

In our house we have a Minnie Mouse sack that gets filled with Santa’s presents. Santa’s gifts are always in loud red and white wrapping paper, whereas the gifts from us are in silver wrapping to match our living room.

Santa’s gifts are all the presents that aren’t excessively personal or expensive. I wouldn’t dream of letting her think that her laptop for Christmas or any of the really coveted or hard to find gifts were from Santa, as I’d always thought of children who weren’t quite as well off, I would have hated for them to believe that Santa liked them less than he liked other children, and that we were better off too.

It just would have seemed really cruel, so Santa brings some cool, but inexpensive gifts, and I get to take credit for the more expensive ones...

DD is older now but I always go over the top at Christmas, I really couldn’t stand the idea of DD excitedly saying that Santa had bought her x,y, or z which was expensive for another child to think, Santa only bought me less desirable gifts.

I have thought about it at length, saddo that I am. It also means that grandparents and friends get to give gifts in their own name as does DD to us. Or that would be a bit of a weird one to explain!

All the presents from us are from Santa, presents from grandparents etc are from them. That’s how my parents did it and I just carried it on.

When younger all presents where from santa,they didn’t get from anyone else so was never a problem

I was 10 when I stopped believing and all my friends presents were from FC too.
My dc were around 9/10 when they stopped believing.
I know you'd think it would be strange not to get presets from family, tbh we never thought of this, and the kids were told when older who bought their favourite toys.

I've heard of this before and was horrified then and I doubt anyone who was giving a child a present would be happy about it. Would never dream of taking the credit via Santa for anyone else's present. In our house everything from Santa is bought by us and we just give clothes and all other presents are from the giver. I can't really advise how to handle it, maybe bring the presents Christmas evening as planned?

why does Santa use the same wrapping paper as us?

DD asked that last year aged 5, this year she is well aware that grown ups buy presents for each other and other peoples children, and she is making helpful suggestions of things daddy might like thank you DD

How on earth can people be arsed with keeping up the fiction that santa does all of it? There's no way I could get all the Christmas prep done in secret from her nosiness

when Santa doesn't wrap anything its easy peasy!
We keep a couple of clean bin-liners in the boot of the car and anything we buy from Santa goes into them and stays there till Christmas Eve. So if she does see the bags she is not suspicious as we regularly have bag for charity etc in the boot (estate car)

Any online deliveries come to my work and then get transferred to the boot.

He also gets something from St Nick on the 6th and something for St Sebastian on the 18th

Glad my two never heard of Sebatian! We did St Nicholas and Schwarzer Peter from living in Germany, that was quite enough, Schwarzer Peter had quite a salutory effect on them!

In our household, there is a stocking of presents from Santa, generally smaller stuff stuff such as socks, smellies, chocolate etc, but the rest of the presents are from us.

Imdon’t get The ‘everything from Santa’ concept either. If I brought presents for a friends kids, I would want them to know they were from me. Otherwise, how,does the recipient know where they came from.