All presents from Santa

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Yes another Christmas one.

My Bil and sil have two kids.

We exchanged presents for our children along with a few other cousins over dinner last week. The children didn't see the presents then as we had all said beforehand they would be going under the tree.

We have gotten lovely gifts for ours and did thank you messages and will do letters this week.

I was then told by Bil and sil to not expect a thank you as they told their kids that every single present has come from Father Christmas.

Is this normal!? I have never heard this before! Every single gift! So all the ones from grandma and granddad and all cousins are from Santa.

Just a bit put out really. Why bother selecting and paying for a gift if they don't even know we have got them anything.

Also I know that grandma looks forward to the handwritten thank you letters with lots of kisses as she still has the one from my dds birthday up on the mantle and the phone call on Christmas Day saying thank you and my dd genuinely excited about her gift.

Just feels a bit mean for the gift givers to have Santa take 100 percent credit for our effort!

I often wonder how the children feel in this situation, when they go to school and all their mates are saying what they got from parents / grandparents etc. Do these children just think their parents didn't bother?

Plus it's very rude to the sender yanbu

Only ever heard of it on here, mine are 11 so don't believe but we used to do one main present from Santa. The rest were from mummy, daddy, granny etc. Other friends do stockings from santa but everything, no ...... I think its a bit odd.

We do 1 from santa and the rest from everyone else.
I think it helps with kids understanding not everyone has the money or opportunities that others have

YANBU i don’t know what the solution is as it’s their child and their way of doing Christmas. DH parents would do this when we visited, saying Father Christmas has been to theirs and left gifts for them. I must admit to telling my DCs that this was horse crap and all the gifts were from the grandparents and as such they must thank them.

Stocking presents from Santa, family presents under the tree. It's the way my family have always done it and I never heard of Santa giving everything until a few years ago. I don't like it either.

We do all presents from home from Santa but all other family members are from them. We see them all on Christmas Day and they give them to our children.
When we were younger and my mum didn't have a lot of money she said my grandparents presents got added to our piles as from Santa to help bulk them out a bit.

No I don't think it is normal and I don't think it is right not to thank people for buying a present. We always did a stocking from father Christmas and other presents from whoever they were from (opened in front of them, even if that meant not opening until boxing day).

DHs family did that all presents were delivered by santa, but bought by the relevant family member.

My sil demanded that I send gifts unwrapped last year so she could wrap them in 'Santa' paper like the rest.

I know that there are too many kids who don't get anything from Santa. This was a step too far for me so we saw them after Xmas with our own wrapping paper.

I've only ever heard of this on mumsnet. In my family Santa does stockings then the kids get presents from us and of course any friends or family members who were kind enough to give them presents. These go under the tree and thank you cards are written and sent out.

We do all our presents at home from santa as the whole meaning of Xmas is that I can give my dc presents from Santa knowing someone else is getting all of the credit and I won't get a thank you. To me that's the true meaning of Xmas spirit.
Everyone else gives gifts from themselves as I'm aware that not everyone shares my beliefs and would like to be thanked for the gifts.

I only of this on mn too to be honest. But I would not give a gift next year, what's the point?

One of my SILs used to do this only she didn't bother telling us so when we'd speak to the dc on the phone and ask if they liked the new car or doll or whatever, they were quite confused! It certainly went a long way to explaining the very specific (and expensive!) items she'd list off if asked what the dc were interested in and they were generally things she wouldn't have spent the money on herself .

Call me a cynic but it's an interesting way of giving the dc a great Christmas morning without having to pay for it. If it was a case of 'can't afford' that's different but tbh for her and BIL it was just another example of their opportunism and meanness.

My sil did this - I was a bit put out, I certainly never attributed gifts from anyone but us from Father Christmas who was generally rather frugal in our house!

I do find that odd, but have heard of it in real life. I couldn't get on board with that and would probably not get a gift, though that feels mean on the kids.

I appreciate that families do things differently and even as a kid knew that santa worked differently in different families (in one branch of my family gifts are sent to santa for him to deliver but come from the original purchaser where as we always had Santa deliver stockings and a big present, the rest were already under the tree).

I do find that odd and have never heard of it before. Surely it’s all about giving as well as receiving - a bit hard to understand the giving concept if all presents are from Santa.

That seems bizarre to me - never heard of it before. Not in keeping with the concept really.

However, it's also a little odd to expect a handwritten 'thank you' from children for a Christmas present. Maybe a picture if they live in Australia and you only see them every couple of years. Otherwise, very odd.

Have bought presents for nieces and nephews for years -- nice phone calls, hugs, drawings etc in thanks but I would never expect them to be sat down by their parents in school holidays and forced to write thank you letters for every gift from an aunt, cousin etc. I am sitting my small daughter down to draw a picture for her great aunt today as I can't quite believe she bothered to go and pick out an outfit for her!

I’m not a fan of this all presents from Santa idea.

Partly from the point of view where Santa gets all the credit and the givers can’t expect any sort of thank you from the children.

And partly because these children might get the idea that their parents, grandparents, etc etc just didn’t bother getting them Christmas presents, and might be wondering why, once they become aware that other children are receiving Christmas presents from people who aren’t Santa.

My DB & SIL did this. It was the first time I'd heard of it. They didn't say anything to me but my Mum said they had moaned they had to take the gift takes off! The next year I wrote on the paper with a silver pen.

It’s really weird, I only know of it happening once in RL when my friend expressed her pissed-offtness that the lovely Disney costume she’d gone to great lengths and money to source for her niece was taken away with a hushed ‘this will be from Santa’ explanation for the predicted lack of acknowledgement.

In our family just stockings are from Father Christmas, it hasn’t made the magic any less exciting.

Ridiculous.

This slavishly over-invested thing with Santa. What happens when the kids openly say they no longer believe? Do you suddenly revert to individual presents?

We ‘knew’ from a very young age that Santa was our parents, but we were kids, the pretend believing was just as exciting as ‘real’ believing. Thst’s why children enjoy stories.

Very very rude to want to co-opt all gifts as Santa gifts. Or at least weird and obsessed.

I think it's bizarre. Surely it's weirder for the DC when they stop believing?

Mine don’t even notice, too busy ripping open the wrapping paper. I even put from random non existant people / stuffed toys on a few for a joke.

YANBU, these people are being rude and could at the very least write a thank you card to you from themselves on behalf of the children.

I can never get my head around the 'all presents from Santa' thing though, surely it all just ends up leading to too many questions as the children get to school age, and do the children not then wonder why they get more or less than some other children if they're all gifts from Santa 🤷🏻‍♀️

I tell DS(4) who all of his presents are from but that these gifts are then sent to Santa for him to decide if DS has been good enough to receive, then Santa will gift a small token present for him; this year it was a protective case for his new tablet that my DM got him (I obviously made sure the case was the last thing he opened).