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!

Don't apologise @Saturdaycartoon not really interested in your long drawn out boring replies where you try to make yourself feel good as if you're the only person with nice friends and relatives and other people live in 'mumsnet land' wtf you're the one trying to be rude to people you don't know online.

We always had stockings from Santa filled with little treats (new pencils, chocolate coins, pants, Christmas socks etc) and other presents from the givers. We would also give family members (very modest, usually homemade) presents from ourselves from when we were quite little. I remember the excitement of knitting skinny little scarves for everyone.

However, when we went to my grandparents for Christmas they had a really peculiar system which I don't think I've ever heard of anyone else doing. In their house, all presents were labelled from the givers but were delivered by Santa. The idea was that Santa collected the gifts from family members and delivered them. So at Grandma's house, Santa was a postman. She also had a 'birthday fairy', who carried out a similar role...