All presents from Santa

[findurfavouritesorhaveabrowse]

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!

All this "Santa paper" nonsense. I told mine that I buy the paper and leave it out for Santa to use! That's why he and I have the same.

No it's not normal. Santa does stockings.

Hang on, everyone does the Santa 'thing' differently.

I dId the same for my DC that my parents did for me and my siblings. The presents would all appear on Christmas morning, Santa had delivered everything. Delivered being the key word- the gifts from parents/friends/family were there too clearly tagged- plus some and a stocking from the big man himself. To us it was magical- as is others methods.

What is wrong in this scenario is the de-tagging etc and pretending Santa gifted it all. Yes, very rude!

We do all our presents from santa but the kids think we buy the big things and send them to him to avoid issues at school where santa brought them a console but not their friends. They are 9 and 11 now so this could be an issue at school. We make sure they know family gifts come from family though.

I’ve never heard of 3rd party presents being from Santa. I think that is super strange. My dd is 8 and I don’t think she really believes now. But she had stocking and some presents from Santa 2 from us, all others were from the givers.

When i was younger all mum presents were from Santa and the rest from the giver. I did wonder why my mum never got me a present lol which is why dd gets 1 from us lol.

Presents from people who have them here so they can say thank you. The presents from us are a mix from Santa and the elves and from us - depends what they have seen us buying 😂

My mil used to annoy me when she came in on Christmas morning with presents for the kids full of 'look what Santa left at our house for you!' It didn't make sense that Santa would go to an adults house to leave more presents for children so why say it? I kept repeating every year 'look what granny had you, more presents from them, day thank you etc' plus I used to ask them as they got a little older - what do you want granny to get you got Christmas? So that doesn't fit with Santa then getting it and leaving it at her house?

She stopped that now thankfully.

YANBU. Odd and quite rude. If the DC don't write thank you cards then your BIL or SIL should still write to say how much the DC appreciated the gift. The majority of my relatives wouldn't give a gift the following year if they did not get a thank you the previous year.

I've only heard of this on here.

For what it's worth, Santa brings all the 'main' presents from parents in my house, but everyone else gets credit for their own present.

In future, just give them your present directly, wrapped in 'your' wrapping paper and that way it's super clear who it's from.

It's not sat down and forced 🙄 @Saturdaycartoon it's actually very rude to get a gift from someone and not bother to thank them. I feel sorry for your relatives of you think thanking someone is 'odd'.

And yes I had never came across it in real life before. And they're not skint either! The children are pre schoolers so still believe in Santa. Mine gets stocking from Santa. I would hate her to think other people's parents buy them gifts but we don't bother.

This is outrageous and very rude. The children should know the gifts are from you and write thank you letters, What the stupid parents want to do about the Santa lie is up to them, hand the presents to the child personally. Teach children the right messages not the grabby ones

We always had a stocking from Santa and then a few little presents under the tree from Santa with most from named people. Everyone used to contribute to the Santa tree presents; my father used to end up with loads of boxes of jelly babies as it was so well known that they were his favourite sweet - Santa brought several boxes for him each year.

All presents in stocking and under the tree or on the sofa are from Santa in my house (I have no kids but my mum adores this tradition so everything she buys from my list are santa presents) but gifts from anyone else is from them. So the only people that I"don't" get presents from is parents.

Not sure I'll carry on that tradition though when I have kids because Santa can't have all the credit when I'll be working to give them what they want so he'll have to share.

Santa is just the courier . . . and still is, now the kids are all adults. The difference between him and UPS is that he does it under cover of the night on Christmas Eve - it used to be after they'd gone to bed, but now it's before they get up, as they get back from the pub after DH and I have gone to bed!

It's beyond rude to not acknowledge gifts from other people.

They're setting the kids up for a big disappointment in a few years' time.

Not normal. I think it's very rude not to thank people for their gifts!

What we do with DS (5 years) is tell him that we and everyone else (aunties, uncles, grandparents etc) order the toys from father Christmas and send the pennies for them. Then the elves make the toys and father Christmas delivers them. That way he knows who they are from.

Keeps the magic of Santa but also allows for thank yous.

Completely unsustainable and creates many more problems.

Do they not see their parents buying gifts for other people? Do they not wonder why parents/grandparents haven't bought them anything ?

Santa is either the 'courier' or , leaves a few pressies in the stocking that were on the list the sent to santa.

Won’t they think it strange that they send presents to their cousins (they get thank you notes so must know!) but their cousins never get them anything? What a way to make them feel unloved!

My Sil does this. They requested presents before Christmas eve so Santa could bring them. I did put labels on but doubt the children noticed.

I think it's incredibly rude. My dc is only 18 months but explained who the present was from and have thanked everyone on their behalf for the gifts. Also got them to do hugs for those that were around.

I think it's disgusting not to teach children that people have spent their hard earned money on them and they should thank people for taking the time to buy them something.

I didn't even get a thank you from the sil or db for their children's gifts.

Makes me not want to get them anything but it's not the kids fault their parents are selfish arrogant twats.

Realistically it’s got absolutely nothing to do with you what parents choose to tell their children. Nonetheless, if you only give presents in the hope of getting a thank you and not because you love and wish to share happiness with the children then that says a lot about you.

What does it say about me if you say it says a lot?

Realistically it’s got absolutely nothing to do with you what parents choose to tell their children.

What parents chose to tell their children about your present has everything to do with you.

Personally I don't give too much of a shit about thank yous (though it is polite to give them) but I want the child to know the present I bought was from me. And there's nothing unreasonable about that.

Santa was just the delivery man in my young day! We wrote thank you letters to our relatives.

Yes it happens, and yes it's absolutely bonkers. I think it's really important for children to understand that people give each other presents. How else will they learn that they also need to give presents to people that they love? And of course parents shouldn't be taking gift tags off presents from other people. In future, I'd wait until you see the children in person and hand over the presents directly. It's not about getting the thank you, it's about making sure the children know you cared enough to give them something.

All our presents are from santa. It's exciting and magical.

Yes 100% @bridgetreilly it's not nice that they think we never get them anything!

Sorry I didn't see your post @findyourfavoirites. A little hard to decipher but if you were trying to say that you feel sorry for my relatives IF they aren't thanked, no need. I'm spending time with many of them now and they've been thanked profusely.

I'm just of the view that forcing small children to write thank you cards is an element of Victoriana we can leave behind in the modern era.

Thankfully my relatives and friends are happy well adjusted people who appreciate the genuine delight and thanks of children and don't need letters. Most of them complain if they are thanked too much. They are just nice real life so perhaps that's difficult to imagine if you live in a Mumsnet world!