To think that only posh people say Father Christmas?!

[charliesp]

And everyone else says Santa?

I say Santa but my posh DH and all his family and posh friends say Father Christmas.

Anyone else noticed this? Or AIBU?

oh fgs, I don't know why people are getting so cross!

As someone says, there's superiority attached to what you say. My understanding was always that Santa is american, but happy to stand corrected. My grandparents were scottish and also said FC fwiw.

link here says FC is a uK thing, but more english.

Anyway, say what you want!

Should add Xmas has something to do with Ancient Greece or something , still doesn’t make it sound any better

Father Christmas here. Santa always sounds American to me!

We all say Father Christmas, and we’re common as muck 😂

I mean there's no superiority! oops.

And just to add poor paw and pour are not homophones here in Scotland either.

Same where I live.

Poo-a, por, and pa with a long 'a'. Its a pitmatic dialect which I think has a lot in common with Scots anyway due to us being neighbours.

In Scotland we don't generally care about the 'correct' thing. We say what we say and you can say what you say.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

it sounds awful and I’m sure I’ve been told in the past that some Christians don't like it and find it disrespectful.

How it sounds makes no difference to whether its acceptable or not. And that's because some Christians follow the wrong idea that us dirty athiest/pagans appropriated the word Christmas (oh the irony) when actually the word was in circulation from centuries ago. You're welcome to dislike it of course, but there's nothing wrong with Xmas over Christmas. Both mean exactly the same thing, just as Santa is to Father Christmas.

i'm in Ireland and we say Santa or Santy. If we say Father Christmas, it will probably come out like 'faadder crismiss'.
Only if you're in D'Unbelievables

In my part of Scotland he's sometimes 'Sunty'

It's regional. Lots of people from northern England, Scotland and Ireland emigrated to US (along with many Europeans) and took Santa with them.

I santa has a slight commercial association because you'd never fit 'father Christmas' in a song or ad etc! Santa is much better in terms of marketing

www.whychristmas.com/customs/fatherchristmas.shtml#man

Looks as if, as is so often the case, the English are out of kilter with the rest of western civilisation.

I grew up in northern England & it was always Father Christmas.

Since moving to Ireland it's always been Santa, as that's what everyone says here. I can't bring myself to say Santy though.

Not a native English speaker, but I say Father Christmas for the one that brings the presents at Christmas.

Santa comes from St Nicholas of Myra, he died on 6th December and every year as a child I would put my boots out and he'd fill them with small presents on the night between 5th and 6th December. That usually was chocolate and maybe a little toy like a Lego or Playmobil figure.

The X in Xmas is fine: it represents Christ or Christianity.

Samiclaus here. He has a (moderately terrifying) sidekick called Schmutzli.

Is he Scandinavian?!

Why are the English out of kilter?

Santa Claus was created in New York in the 1800's.

Northern. Working class. Father Christmas.

Define 'posh' please.

Santa is American. I’m very northern and not remotely posh, he’s Father Christmas in our house.

'Santa' just means 'saint' so strictly speaking he should be Santa Claus if he's not FC.

AFAIK Dutch St Klaas/Sinterklaas comes on 6th Dec bringing sweets. I gather that he always used to have someone called Black Peter with him, who would take naughty children away. Doubt they do that any more - talk about racist/un PC!

When my sister was living in Abu Dhabi she and her 2 young DCs were invited to a Dutch community thing at the port, where Sinterklaas or whatever they call him, arrived in a proper old Arabian sailing dhow- with Black Peter! Apparently someone had told my nephew about Black Peter, and having been a little sod all day (according to my sister) he spent most of the event hiding behind her!

Santa Claus was created in New York in the 1800's.

The Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas) legends originated around 1200.

@TisTheSeasonToBeJollyFaLaLa, I think it's been long established on this thread that using FC over SC is an English thing not a class thing. Just like it's been said about a gazillion times that Santa isn't an Americanism.