Controversial approach to Santa

[Lynsey953]

My children are 2 and 3 and I have never spoken to them about Santa. I've never said anything about him and they've never asked. We don't pay for them to see Santa and I don't allow other people to make a big deal about Santa in front of them (i.e. this present is from Santa, I would rather people say "this is from me merry Christmas").

This is how I was brought up and I have lovely memories of Christmas.

My sister in law is very upset by this and is worried that my controversial approach to Santa is going to ruin the magic for her kids. She has requested that we go to my parents house for Christmas day so that my kids don't ruin Christmas for her kids (8 and 9).

I am fine with this but I hadn't realised my approach was so controversial.

Is it? It's just what myself and my siblings always had.

My children are 10 and 13, and we've never done "Santa". They have always known who the presents are from.

Some parents and children at school mention "Santa", but we have always said that some people believe in the existence of Santa, just in the same way that some people believe in the existence of various gods (which they learn about in R.E.), and they have never really questioned it further.

Surely it's as simple as ''Different families have different beliefs''? Just like different families have different house rules, religions, family setups and all sorts.

And SO revered in Greece and Russia,. Might even be their patron saint. Though the giving of St Nicholas gifts for children is usually earlier in December, IIRC

I've always thought the santa thing was bonkers. I never did it with my kids which drove my parents mad and there was a lot of pushback. I told them , in the end, it's a fun massive game of pretend and we don't ruin it for others. I was wholly relieved when they and their cousins and peers aged out of it, it was a massive stress for me, the conflict it caused, but I remember being devastated when I found out my parents had lied to me for years. I was a very serious child. My children are too! We are all ND.
Lots of religions don't do santa and that's accepted so having a secular reason is no more unacceptable.

At 2 and 3 years old, your children wouldn't grasp the concept of Santa anyway. It's not until children reach 4/5 that they really grasp it. At the moment it works because, your children don't understand what Santa is or the meaning behind it. However, once they become more aware, and especially once they start school, they will hear about Santa or Father Christmas. It's then, they will understand, and will ask questions - is this from Santa? Why don't I have presents from Santa? Etc. Then you will need to think about your approach. Are you going to tell a 5/6 year old that Father Christmas isn't real? Or that it's something some people believe in but others don't? I think your approach isn't wrong, do what works for you but do be prepared for questions once they become older.

Exactly. The OPs SIL is batshit. Her DC are getting to the age where they stop believing anyway - probably have done already and are just keeping up with the pretence because they think it means more presents.

Therefore, if the OP wanted to 'do Santa' it would be she who should be worried that the cousins would 'ruin Christmas' for her DC because they'd be falling over themselves to tell their younger cousins that Santa isn't real and it's just Mum and Dad.

But at 2 and 3 they're too young to either believe, think they're missing out if they've been brought up without Santa (oh, the horror, call Social Services straight away ) or ruin it for their older cousins by not knowing about Santa.

As for 'the magic', why does everything these days have to be such an over the top performance? People come up with all these endless things that they 'have' to do and then complain about the work, the cost, the waste and the stress. Just why? It doesn't mean you love your DC more or they have a better Christmas if you tie yourselves in knots over all this crap for one day.

At that age, many kids find the concept of Santa frightening anyway. Being made to interact with a stranger in a costume. Then finding out that the stranger will creep about in your house in the middle of the night, but honestly, it's nothing like burglars or monsters under the bed.

I’m with you OP, Santa has become a massive global conspiracy - I found an app years ago that simulates photos of a reindeer being in your own living room ; then Santa is being tracked live around the globe… and then there are the bloody elves cluttering up my shelves.

it’s all madness.

And this is why kids are crushingly disappointed when they find out he’s not real.

My dc2 has had a very toned down Santa experience - we might see him at the school Christmas fair, we write a modest list and letter, a few gifts arrive in a stocking and that’s that.

My dc lost his beloved nanny age 3 near Christmas and his grief was made very real because he knows Santa is “very very old and has been bringing presents to kids for over a hundred years” - my dc wanted to know why Santa doesn’t die? Why did his nanny get sick and why did her body stop working, when santa never died? What is magic and how does it work? And in the next two years it carried on: Why can’t Santa do magic to bring exactly the presents he wants? Why can’t Santa bring him a million pounds? Do all the poor children get a Santa visit - why not, are they bad, is that why they are poor?is Santa like God - is God magic? Is Baby Jesus magic?

I have told him Santa is a fun thing to believe for little kids and we don’t have to take it very seriously, just have fun like we do when we pretend to be Batman or Harry Potter. If we think about it too hard it makes no sense so the best thing is just to enjoy it, and think about the important things like maths and spelling and recycling.

My SIL was like you and didn't tell her children about santa 'on principle' (apparently she "refuses to lie to her children", though she frequently lies to them about other things so who knows!)

It was a nightmare as her and her kids would frequently tell other kids that santa wasn't real etc, which is just plain mean imho. My kids were babies/very young at the time to understand so I just shrugged and let them get on with it, but now her kids are in their early twenties and really resent the fact they never had a 'magical christmas' with santa coming down the chimney etc. They also never got to appreciate chistmas films either, and once they're at school there's lots of santa visiting for events, or christmas parties where he makes an appearance etc.
I loathe christmas for lots of reasons, but there is nothing quite like seeing your children's face of awe when they see 'santa' walk into the room at a friend's party!

I think you're being a bit mean, and purposefully excluding your children from something (I can't comment on why you'd want to do that), but you do you.

We managed to make Christmas magical without my now very much adult DC being told Santa/FC was real, or us giving any indication that he may be real. It was never really mentioned. Gifts were from people who gave them. Like others, it was never mentioned who stockings were from. My DC is still the biggest fan of Christmas and now with their own DC wants to emulate the Christmases of their childhood as they were so magical.

Yes, American imports such as.Scotland, Ireland, and Northumberland/North East England where it's always been Santa Claus and where the use of Santa Claus pre-dates American Christmas traditions.

This is the exactly why lots of us on this thread don’t really ‘do’ Santa.

Youre putting yourself in a position where you can’t even see your own family due to a fantasy you’ve created. If your kids want to believe then someone else saying they don’t believe won’t change that.

Parents who are precious about Santa are so quick to say ‘don’t spoil it for others’ with no recognition that the rest of us would quite like to celebrate without constantly wondering whether this kid believes in just the stockings, the whole lot, is Santa just a postie, does this one think he actually makes the gifts, does that one think their elf doll is alive?! I’m not going to tell your kid it’s not real but I’m not spoiling my holiday for the sake of nonsense.

Yes, totally agree. I was juar curious what the OP would say that's all.

Nobody, at an age when children are in the midst of their own experiments with lying and make believe, was devastated when they found out their parents lied to them. I honestly absolutely hate this 'heard it on social media and will parrot it til the death' trend. Give it the fuck up.

So glad my parents went out their way to create some christmas magic for us, I am doing the same for my own children, I love it as much as they do and a part of me wishes he was real. I always remember running into my parent's bedroom with my brother and sister, jumping on their bed so excited and my dad would ask "has he been?", makes me smile thinking about it. My parents still put their carrot, mince pie etc out christmas eve and send their grandkids a photo, they still want to believe even now we are all married with children of our own!

I find it sad when parents don't do santa, I don't understand why you wouldn't want your children to join in something magical, they will just end up ruining it for other children.

No one is asking you to spoil your holiday by playing along - the OP's SIL is simply protecting her own holiday by keeping her family separate, which is completely fine and works for both families.

It's funny, actually, the more I read posters saying "your children will spoil the magic for others" the more irritated I find myself getting. It's a total fiction. It's not even like religious beliefs which some people for whatever reason genuinely believe are true. It's a complete fib. It's a fun fib, not a malicious fib, but every single parent knows for a fact that there is no Father Christmas and the presents are bought by them. And yet some of those parents are asking for a level of respect that they would never expect for their genuinely held religious or philosophical beliefs that they actually factually believe in. I think this thread has really made me realise how ridiculous that is. Do I want my kid to try to ruin it for other kids? Of course not, but if she's asked she'll give her genuine belief. She's not responsible for your feelings or your kid's feelings. If you're that invested in keeping Santa going, you should warn your kids that some people don't believe in Father Christmas so that it's not a shock when another kid says he doesn't exist 🤷

I think the two issues could be as follows:

1. tbe children stand out from their contemporaries and don’t fit in around Christmas. Reminds me a bit of children at school whose parents refused to have tvs in their house on principle (decades and decades and decades ago!) and they couldn’t join in the usual chitchat about tv. And other children might think them a bit odd
2. they become known as those precocious know it alls announcing to all and sundry that Mum says Santa doesn’t exist and becoming ‘that’ child.

As for posters saying they don’t lie to their children, of course they do. ‘Oh what a lovely picture you’ve drawn’, leather than ‘this is a distinctly average/below average picture you’ve drawn’ etc etc

This is basically what we did. We hate Xmas anyway and do the bare minimum (and never on 25th December). We just never introduced Santa as a concept. It was AMAZING how hard others, including complete strangers, tried to push it on her. She went along with it politely, but never believed in it as a real thing. (See also Easter bunny, heaven and the tooth fairy which other people felt she should be forced to believe in.)

A small stocking arrived on her bed but it was never attributed to Santa.

By 7 she had worked out that to do what people said he did, he would have to break the speed of light. Had always ensured that she understood that people believe different things and she never told anyone that their beliefs weren’t real.

There is plenty of magic in winter without needing to lie to kids in the way some people do by bending over backwards to make Santa “real”.

Very different complimenting a picture to creating an annual illusion that must be maintained at all costs.

The fact that you have two small children and your husband volunteers to work on Christmas Day every year is far sadder than them not having the magic of Santa, IMO.

Personally I think it's a bit sad not to do the whole Santa thing. I never felt lied to as a child. On the contrary, I was old enough by then to realise my parents had "played along" ( and to grasp the effort of hiding gifts, putting out milk and cookies etc etc) and was quite grateful to them for the years of magic, but perhaps some children might feel differently.

I think the main thing is that if you choose not to adopt that tradition, you should really impress upon your children not to spoil it for others. It's fine to do as you judge best with your own family, but not for that to filter out to other families.

In one of my dc's classes there was a child who loudly announced to all that it was just a big pretence and most of the parents were really cross and upset about it. Fortuitously for our family, my dc was home that day - and all the others very fastidiously did not pass it on, which I was grateful for. But it does cause upset if they ruin it for others, and I'd have felt the same had my dc been present.

Not really. There’s a difference between ‘maintaining at all costs’ and a benign tradition that’s maintained for a few years and then fades away, like the tooth fairy or whatever. Parents lie to their children all the time - whether it’s the sub par picture they’ve drawn, how clever they are, etc etc

Why is it ok for you to simply continue what your parents did but it is sad for OP to do the same? Clearly she had no issues without Santa as a child or she'd be doing things very differently with her own children.

It isn't a child's responsibility to keep the Santa story real for other children and I think that's something that has to be accepted if you tell your child that something is real when it actually isn't.

I don't think so at all. I think he's being selfless.

Even as adults my mum gets cross when we have Christmas at theirs and my dad wants to go to church in the morning because he isn't around the whole day. I never had an issue with it and sometimes go with him. It sounds suffocating this idea that the entire day has to be about magic and every body present feeding the magic constantly.

🙄

Is it really all SUCH a terrible imposition ...?