To consider telling my 2yo the truth about Father Christmas?

[owmn]

Basically, looking for a bit of advice and other’s experiences!

DD has just turned 2, and so has no concept as yet of Father Christmas, aside from some decorations we have that feature him.

I’ve been thinking about being honest with her from the get go, largely because the idea of her finding out we’ve lied to her for so long, years down the line, makes me a bit sad! But will she be missing out on part of the magic of Christmas? The tradition of writing a letter, leaving out mince pies and carrots, etc.

I also can’t figure out how to ensure she knows she’s very lucky to receive presents, and recognises her privilege, if she believes in Father Christmas. Do we tell her we’re lucky enough to be able to pay him?!

We won’t be telling her she has to behave for presents, only her stocking will come from him, and we’ll be making sure her letter asks him for things for others too, if we do go ahead.

If you have been honest with your LO, what have you replaced those kind of traditions with?

Genuinely never thought I’d have to give it this much consideration! 😂

Mormons have Christmas and Santa. My mother was an atheist, and loved Christmas.

No words really.. only

I told my daughter at 2 y/o. Now 4, to my knowledge, she's not spoilt it for any other child. She knows presents are bought. She says Thank You. She is happy with her presents.
Having to do the decorations this year 🙄. She very much enjoys cartoons, fairytales etc, loves unicorns and fairies yet knows they're not real. We are spiritual/religious. She gets the cannot see yet real. She asks questions about the fantasy of FC. She is one of the happiest, most joyful, wonderful child I have met - often stated by others who meet her too.

OP - do your thing! Whatever you choose will NOT impact detrimentally. AND your DC still gets presents 😊

We never confirmed or denied Father Christmas. The dc write Christmas lists, sometimes they addressed it to Father Christmas but other times just a list. Only stockings from F.C. Big presents from us. Nursery and School did all the telling. I don't think my eldest knew about him until she was about 4 as we didn't say why we put stockings out, just that we did and we would see what was there in the morning. All questions deflected. 'Is Father Christmas real? Well what do you think? How does he deliver all the presents? I don't know, what do you think?' Mince pies etc only put out when they requested it. One tricky moment trying to explain the song 'I saw Santa kissing Mummy underneath the Christmas tree.'

Two believed until about 9/10, the other (middle) one was certainly on to it by about 6/7 but was always very skeptical. They all wanted to play along for youngest one. Still declare stockings are the best bit, even though presents are not very expensive. The only rule we had was that in our house we always say Father Christmas, not Santa. None of mine are traumatised, if anything they are more pro Father Christmas than I am!

MN is a strange place about Christmas. Hordes of people insisting their 12 year old still believes in FC. I find this scenario very unlikely.
We've decided just not to say very much at all. We have the occasional question from our 4 year old and I bat them straight back. I honestly feel a bit strange lying about something unnecessary but want him to have an enjoyable time similar to his friends. We do small presents from Santa and everything else from family.
We have two cultural backgrounds in our family so chances are our children will work it out sooner rather than later just from speaking to children in the other culture where it is baby Jesus that visits and brings gifts.

That’s not the only reason I’ve put forth though, is it?

It is what you strongly led with in your OP

I’ve been thinking about being honest with her from the get go, largely because the idea of her finding out we’ve lied to her for so long, years down the line, makes me a bit sad!

Your point on the kindness being without agenda, would you not consider that to be the case if she knew the gifts came from family, simply because they love her? Genuine question.

As I’ve said before, I find the idea of a force with no connection or obvious motive immensely powerful - and family have lots of opportunities to show their love already.

But you do what you want, it’s your child. For me, calling it a ‘lie’ represents a very limited understanding of the scope and complexity of truth and how humans understand the world. But what you do with your own child is entirely your own business.

"I suppose that’s simply the way I Iook at it, because I don’t see the harm in teaching her to be grateful by her also being aware there are certain privileges she hasn’t earned, just as less fortunate children didn’t do anything for the hand they were dealt. I’d hate for her to think she’s entitled to gifts, or to think nothing of seeing 10 presents beneath the tree year after year."

My main objection is to the word privilege because it is part of the intersectionalist leftist ideology ('woke' in other words) which I think poisons almost everything it touches. As I said before everyone has advantages and disadvantages in life but that is different from the concept of privilege used in identity politics.

It's worrying to be you use the word 'unearned' in relation to her. How would any child go about earning the love or the presents they receive? Wouldn't being your child earn them everything you want (or can afford) to give them?

Obviously it's possible to spoil a child and, when they get older, not to give them some idea of those less fortunate than they are. But the concept of earning and privilege are quite different from gratitude and an idea of how fortunate they are in comparison to some children.

Perhaps we are merely talking semantics but the terminology you use is too close to that of the extreme left for me to be comfortable, especially in relation to a two year old.

I also felt uncomfortable at the thought of lying to my DC, but when it came to it, it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it would be. We do stockings from Father Christmas and all other presents from family members, which is what I had when growing up. My DC are now 11, 9 and 7. The 11 year old found out a couple of years ago by accidentally stumbling across my written ‘stocking list’ - whoops! But it was fine, she’d started to question it anyway and is happy to go along with the story for the 2 younger ones. The 9 year old is now questioning it (there will always be kids at school who will say he’s not real) but again, it’s not a traumatic experience for her. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t a big deal, either the maintaining the ‘lie’ or when they eventually find out. Also, whether from FC or not, waking up to a lumpy stocking at the end of the bed on Christmas morning is absolutely magical! All the best.

** Suzi888

TheTrashBagIsOursCmonTrashBag
You’re massively overthinking this. Let her believe is Santa and the tooth fairy and all that stuff while she’s little. They’re not children for long, I don’t know a single person who’s ended up in therapy or even really angry or whatever because mummy and daddy “lied” about Santa.**

This with bells on. My DD1 (11) has SEN and has adoption related attachment issues. She also gets very upset when she thinks she’s been lied to.

But she coped all right when DD2 (8) told her last year that Santa wasn’t real. She’d heard it from her best friend and asked me directly whether that was true. As she was at that point seven years old, I saw no issue with agreeing that Santa wasn’t real. And since DD1 was in year 6 then, it was the right time for her to move on from Santa with high school due to start the following September.

DD1 was fine! She asked us to record ourselves filling the stockings, which we had a lot of fun doing.

We now have very fond memories of previous Christmases, when we’d had to work hard to hide the stocking presents. And it isn’t as if we have to stop the Santa traditions of mince pies, carrots and stockings.

I think the Santa phenomenon is really a social media one. Through social media people have seen other people's traditions and absorbed them into their own. Not everyone of course. But some people do seem to have absorbed everything:

• advent calendar with chocolate/gift
• elf on the shelf
• letter to Santa
• Christmas Eve box
• Tracking Santa's journey
• Christmas stocking
• Mince pie/carrot/drink for Santa
• 'foot prints'
• All presents from Santa

If I think back to my own childhood in the early 70s, out of that lot all we had was the Christmas stocking. A few people I knew did the mince pie thing but not all by a long chalk.

Some people now seem to have absorbed all of it. The insistence that it is all part of family tradition says a lot more about the parents than the children.

I think it is fine to down play Santa even to the point of being written out. Children need to be reassured that they are loved. Christmas is a wonderful time to teach children the art of gift giving. It can start from when they are very small: choosing a present for a GP, neighbour, sibling.

Christmas is a wonderful time to teach children the art of gift giving. It can start from when they are very small: choosing a present for a GP, neighbour, sibling.

You can do all that, while believing in Santa y’know.

Anyway, a lot of your list there would have central to my experience, growing up in Ireland in the 1980s. Loooong before social media.

I was never allowed to believe in Father Christmas as a child. My mum always made sure we had magical Christmases but I still feel like I missed out on something special. I don't think being allowed to believe for a few years would have made me any less grateful.

Mine's told that everyone has elves luving in house who help Santa co-ordinate Christmas and gifts, and it is luck about which elves we all have and that we are very lucky with ours. Because some people are not as lucky we like to help those by donating to charity/food bank. That way it is not Santa's fault that some people have more and others less, but the luck of the draw with the elves.

@GnomeDePlume

I think the Santa phenomenon is really a social media one. Through social media people have seen other people's traditions and absorbed them into their own. Not everyone of course. But some people do seem to have absorbed everything:

• advent calendar with chocolate/gift
• elf on the shelf
• letter to Santa
• Christmas Eve box
• Tracking Santa's journey
• Christmas stocking
• Mince pie/carrot/drink for Santa
• 'foot prints'
• All presents from Santa

If I think back to my own childhood in the early 70s, out of that lot all we had was the Christmas stocking. A few people I knew did the mince pie thing but not all by a long chalk.

Some people now seem to have absorbed all of it. The insistence that it is all part of family tradition says a lot more about the parents than the children.

I think it is fine to down play Santa even to the point of being written out. Children need to be reassured that they are loved. Christmas is a wonderful time to teach children the art of gift giving. It can start from when they are very small: choosing a present for a GP, neighbour, sibling.

I grew up in the late 50s and 60s and Santa was alive and well . We did all of those apart from the more recent American things of Elf and Christmas Eve box . Of course we couldn't track Santa as that was the Dark Age

I personally think there are more problematic symptoms of the competitive social media crap than Christmas. “Do I want to be one of those parents?” is a completely different question. I agree that you can make FC an important part of your family’s traditions without going social media OTT.

I didn’t grow up with Santa and we don’t do Santa with my children. The state of scientific literacy in this country is abysmal (look at covid-19 vaccine fear, 5G conspiracy etc) and I will not encourage magical thinking at any age. Teaching rational thinking is so important even for children. Don’t get me wrong, my children have a great time at Christmas. They get presents but they know where they came from.

Also, for those worried about their children finding out the truth from school friends...is there really no cultural diversity in your children’s schools? Thinking about my kids’ schools, I reckon half the children are from cultures who don’t do Christmas let alone Santa!

I never believed in Santa. Parents simply never mentioned the idea. They bought us presents and other people bought us presents. When other relatives or school friends did mention Santa, I played along (probably not when I was tiny, but certainly from about the age of 6).

Still loved and continue to live Christmas.

Do what you think is right, OP.

The state of scientific literacy in this country is abysmal (look at covid-19 vaccine fear, 5G conspiracy etc) and I will not encourage magical thinking at any age

I don’t have words for how stupid this position is.

Also, for those worried about their children finding out the truth from school friends...is there really no cultural diversity in your children’s schools? Thinking about my kids’ schools, I reckon half the children are from cultures who don’t do Christmas let alone Santa!

One of my friends' children was excluded from the primary school Christmas party for saying that he didn't believe in Santa. The Moslem kids (etc) all went.

My Muslim nieces and nephews all believe in Santa (and their folks are religious). The little ones that is, not the ones in their Teens and 20s!

The state of scientific literacy in this country is abysmal (look at covid-19 vaccine fear, 5G conspiracy etc) and I will not encourage magical thinking at any age
😂😂😂

Children like stories. They like pretending. They like make believe. You can still do all the Father Christmas things without deceiving them. And ffs, whatever you do, don’t say all the presents are from him. That screws everything up. Just the stocking is plenty.

I didn’t really believe in Santa as long as I have memories of Christmas but it was part of the fun wasn’t it? Too many things just didn’t ‘add up’ - deliver presents to all the children in the world? How did the far man get down out chimney? How did reindeer fly? What about the cavemen (I was a bit obsessed with cavemen as a child) didn’t they get Santa presents too? Elfs? Nah didn’t believe there were elf’s... it was still all great fun though.

GnomeDePlume
And the santa apps, the videos from Santa, Santa cam and so on.

It seems to be a mix of Santa as some disciplinary figure and parents trying to prolong Santa as long as possible for whatever reason.

Even after we knew the truth, we still put the plate out at night and talked about santa. It didn't scar us for life or ruin Christmas because our parents didn't invent proof or bullshit us until we were about to start secondary school.

Each christmas I have loads of fun with my classes. The older students very much insist Santa exists and nobody can say otherwise. They're 14/15/16 and find magic in the story despite knowing it's not true.

"One of my friends' children was excluded from the primary school Christmas party for saying that he didn't believe in Santa."

By whom? I'm assuming by one of the ugly, vitriol-filled parents I mentioned earlier; not by an education professional.