To think this is a really weird thing to do with presents?

[Santaslittlehelper83]

So a family member has just told me that every year with the kids Xmas presents they rip off every label from presents that have been given, then tell them that all the presents are from Santa! I mean...wtf. I feel it's an odd thing to do, and also nice for the kids to know who has got them what and to appreciate and thank them for it. I've now written in sharpie across all her kids gifts! AIBU?

I like to do absolutely everything under the tree from Santa but even this is absurd for me.
Noway would I ever ask someone if it's okay to relabel a present as being from Santa!

"I disagree that it's mot wrong. It's wrong to take presents gifted by someone and pretend they are from someone else. "

Yes, it's appropriating something that doesn't belong to them. Not quite theft because they children do receive the presents, but there's something quite wrong...

Christmas isn't the only opportunity to teach gratitude and manners but I do think not considering it all in the biggest gift occasion of the year, and the only one where people are giving lots of gifts at once reciprocally, is a bit of a weird choice.

I'm not anti father christmas - we do it in our house, albeit it a little half heartedly. But I think that it makes much more sense to also teach that the magic of christmas is family and generosity because that's actually real and so lasts.

My children (now adults ) only got
A stocking for Xmas with the smallest of gifts. Shampoo, bubble bath, chocolate coins.

I was a child of poverty & I remember going to school &'feeling like I must be bad because Santa brought me very little and everyone else got great incredible gifts. I was 4.

I have begged everyone I've ever met to stop the big ticket items being from Santa. Take the credit yourself & keep Santa alive with the little magical things, stockings, footprints, mince pie carrot for Rudolph etc.

Let's stop another generation of poor kids growing up feeling bad & naughty

I just think it's weird and convoluted. Why can't grandparents just give the DC their gift?

It's rude and completely dishonest. If I were one of the people whose gift had been redirected like that I'd be fuming. If I were the kids and found out later, I'd be embarrassed to have parents like that (although with parents like that, a moral compass would be seriously undeveloped).

Keep any comments about the "dishonesty" of Santa in the first place to yourself. A little make-believe does no harm at all, and it's not the same thing as dishonesty.

Same, and that was how my own DCs were brought up too.

We always opened the wrapped gifts from family on Christmas Eve, and Santa left unwrapped presents and a little candy under the tree overnight.

The thank you notes were in the post on the 27th December.

I love it when you can tell what a thread is going to be about before you read the OP.

It’s bonkers, OP, and problematic in a number of ways, but some people are bonkers and so it continues.

They’re more than welcome to give presents for 364 days, nothing stops them. I’m not British. In my country the tradition all comes from Santa or the wise men. Nobody bats an eyelid if someone wants to do something different.

its in mn/ Britain where I see so much criticism if you have a different tradition. Shame we can’t respect other families and their traditions without criticising them

Santa is the magic part. These days they know the truth about 8/9, where as gullible Jo here believed until I was 12 😳

Sometimes I think we overthink this. As a child I believed in Father Christmas, assumed all my presents were from him but still wrote 'thank you' notes to my relatives. Didn't even question it.

Father Christmas is the glorified middle man. The global, for-everybody version of the local Evri man. Who loves pitching in and a great job he does, too. The magical aspect is that he manages to get the job done all in one night and without breaking any windows or doors.

Kids nowadays know that he isn't making Apple products, LOL dolls, slime sets or whatever the latest craze is, in his workshop with the help of elves. In the olden days, maybe. Wooden trains, spinning tops and what not. Not any more. He's more of a distributer these days and that way, friends and relatives can be thanked for their thought, time, money and effort in sourcing and supplying their gifts.

Dd definitely believes Father Christmas and his elves make the toys. I don't like the delivery man idea for us, that doesn't sound magical at all.

Well I very much believed that Santa was the one who made or obtained my presents as a child. Maybe it helped that I sometimes got wooden things like a dolls house and a wooden sled but he also brought plastic stuff and I didn’t think he was just distributing it. I didn’t think too much about how it was made.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was replying to a PP who asked who sends thank you notes any more. I said it’s important to instil in kids to thank people for gifts. Encourage them to write a little note etc.

Obviously, if the child is told all the gifts are from Santa, they can’t learn to thank people. As they don’t even know the person put in the thought and spent money on them. That’s why I agree with OP that it’s better to leave tags on. So the child can know.

As this thread shows, there isn't any one British tradition. It’ll depend on the background and traditions of families. In fact, I’ve never before heard of taking presents from relatives and keeping it secret from children who they’re from. My kids never had two piles. They had a stocking and a sack left by Santa next to their bed. The stocking was from Santa. The sack was full of presents Santa had delivered, which other people had ordered from him.

I agree Xmas is now way too commercial. I don’t partake in a lot of that. I have a very small family and my father died at Xmas, which makes it hard for me. So, I take it easy and it’s always just me and my kids and my mum. No extended family, as there aren’t really any left in the UK or due to dysfunction of previous generations we don’t know or see them.

But lots of family friends used to (and still do) give my kids gifts. I guess that’s why we’ve always thanked them, as I was so grateful and touched they went out in the cold (pre online shopping) and spent their very limited money on lovely, thoughtful gifts (when they weren’t obliged to) so my kids had a big pile of gifts in their sack. They were never really expensive, but always the sort of things the kids loved and played with most. Never given to charity shop.

As I said before, IMHO a gift should be thoughtful rather than expensive. Chosen with care and love for the person. Not ticking a box or spending a fortune. Maybe even home made.

I buy lots of people Xmas gifts but I don’t spend much. You can still buy mini things, like mini bottles of cava or lovely hand cream or chocolates, books. Things people need or will use. Little figures for kids (e.g. superheros) for them to make up their own games and take out. Wrapped with care. It’s the thought that counts, not the cost. And I think it’s important to let people know their thought and effort was appreciated. It creates a circle of love.

Growing up FC was more of a delivery service for family and friends. He delivered gifts from them on Christmas Eve, inc,using our parents.

With DD FC brings one present. The rest are bought by family and friends and go under the tree to open on Christmas mornjng. when dd was small they appeared under the tree overnight in Christmas Eve, simply because it didn't feel fair to have a tempting pile of presents sat there for days but not being allowed to touch them.

Some friend's version of FC was the FC brought the stocking.

I dint know anyone who claimed Fc brought everything.

And tbh I hate that notion and wouldn't really be happy about it. I'm not sure I'd feel able to say no if asked if I minded though, depending on who it was. I'd probably just have to agree but secretly hate the idea.

I believe more gifts should be labelled from who actually bought them so they can be thanked properly after.

Many, if not most, children (who celebrate Christmas this way) will believe in FC until they are 8 or 9, ime.
Most children are capable of writing a simple thank you from about 4 or 5, some earlier with support.

If the op has spent time and effort (and money) choosing and buying a gift, why isn't she allowed to make sure the child knows who it is from?

Thank you 'letters' can take many forms. However, until they died, dd would write thank you cards to her great grandparents. They didn't have smartphones and really appreciated a tradition mailed letter or card.

Nothing wrong with a text to those who tend to prefer that form of communication but ], to me, it's about knowing the person and what they'd appreciate most.

Dd wasn't forced to write letters and notes, but grew up knowing that they were important to many people, especially her older relatives. Therefore she just did the without fuss,

My youngest two, and their classmates still very much believe that all the gifts are made by Santas elves in santas workshop.
Just as my older children did. This is not something we have ever explicitly stated.

For many children, there's no notion that Santa is some kind of glorified delivery service, they wholeheartedly believe in the idea of magical little elves squirrelling away to construct toys and gifts.

Odd thing to do IMO! We have always put gifts under the tree throughout dec from us/friends/relatives, and presents from father Xmas appear on Xmas morning obviously 😁 ours are older now anyway so no father xmas…but never would I give father xmas credit for someone’s else gift they’d bothered to wrap and buy!

I'd stop buying gifts for them. Santa fills the stocking, wrapped gifts are from real people, and whilst I don't expect kids to sit and write a dozen stupid 'thank you' letters, it's good for them to at least say thanks to the people who've made the effort to get them a gift.

sounds ridiculous tbh

Everything is from Santa here including from other people but we ask them first. No one has said no yet.

What would you do if they said no?

And also, why do you do this? Why can't your children understand that other people give gifts too?