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.

I was brought up not believing in Santa 👋🏻 My mum said she could never justify lying to her own children. It just meant we missed out on magic. At school we would scrunch our noses up and say “you don’t really believe all that do you? You don’t even have a chimney!” And honestly, it was all a bit sad. No one (besides, apparently, my mother) is so heartbroken or betrayed when they figure out Santa isn’t real. Most normal people understand that magic is an important and beautiful part of childhood.

In turn with my own kids, we did Santa. It was never a huge thing. They visit him, they got a present from him Christmas morning. They aged out of it all normally.

It’s fine if you don’t want to do the Santa thing b it it’s also absolutely fine for other mum’s to want to protect the magic for their children. Respect it.

We don't do the Elf. One of ours questioned it and DH said he put a mousetrap in the attic and perhaps that scared it off!

You do your own thing, don't expect others to follow.

Logic kicked in for me at an early age and I can’t remember truly believing in Father Christmas. All gifts were from a named person. We’ve continued with our own kids. Never peddled the myth of Father Christmas when they were young, but have upped the ante now they’re older. We leave a note, drinks and snacks for him. He’s the delivery service and it’s a tiring night for him. There are no gifts under the tree until Christmas Day morning and the magic is still there when everyone is finally up and we see the tree and presents together. The kids are 24, 26 and 28.

How daft. Elves weren't even a thing a few years ago. Why invent a lie instead of being honest?

I don't think it matters really. There is so much about Christmas that is great fun for children. I can see why it makes you and your sister incompatible for spending Christmas together though. For this reason I would join in with it all because it would be more important to have togetherness for me.

No well we don't do it. I think that is a bit weird because it is really obviously a plastic toy, but I know some families get a lot of joy out of it, so why not I guess.__

We do the same OP. Santa/Father Christmas isn’t a thing in our house. We have presents, stockings, festive magic and we enjoy it just as much as our friends who celebrate Santa.

It’s pretty normal in my friendship group. Early 30’s with under 5’s.

I think I’m a bit like you OP and you underplay Santa/Father Christmas but certainly don’t avoid the idea - I don’t think that’s sustainable with friends/TV/xmas shows and books etc

i think you can refer to it with it being obvious that it’s not 100% real - I say things like it’s just part of the Christmas magic.

I would be very clear with my two that some children believe completely in Santa and to not say anything that makes them doubt this as it makes them happy.

I never believed in Santa because my sister had worked it out by three and there is three years between us. Christmas was still magical and fun. Also none of this weird pressure to continue to keep the fabrication alive until 10/11 like some parents I have seen on here.

The truth is, I think a lot of children half realise it isn't true but still want to preserve the magic and partake of the tradition.

Plenty of otherwise very astute children seem to have a willingness to go along with it without the usual whys and wherefores. I actually think that's quite nice.

It's good for children to realise that sometimes there isn't any need to point everything out - like when they reach that age when they know not to say they can smell a fart.

Mine was horrified by the idea of a fairy taking her teeth. One of her best friends was terrified by the idea of a stranger breaking into their house (chimney or otherwise).

Had she wanted to believe, we wouldn’t have stopped her. We just didn’t encourage it.

It didn’t “fade away” for either me or DH. I was quite traumatised by finding out my parents had lied to me (I’m ND and had suffered sibling loss which was not discussed with me, so I appreciate that this won’t be everyone’s experience). Being forced to continue the lie for my younger sibling was deeply painful for me.

It's interesting you say that, as reading this thread I have been wondering from some of the comments - especially around the aversion to "lying" - if there isn't a kind of ND/NT divide in attitudes on this.

I guess it is much easier for NT children to kind of grasp the (admittedly subtle) distinction between make-believe and lying. I guess that could explain the divergence in attitudes as to whether it is fun and richly traditional, or a negative untruth. One is more of a social construct approach and the other is a more literal view.

We took the approach the Santa just delievered the presents - that presents were from people that loved and thought about our children and family. Presents were never from Santa, not even stockings.

I grew up in a country where the story goes that good kids get presents, bad kids get thrown in a sack by Santa's helper and taken to Spain for a year's hard labour 🤣

Thankfully we were far too old to fall for that by the time we moved there. Horrific. Well behaved kids though!

We were never told Santa was real, and Christmas was magical. We still visited Santa and knew about him, but knew it was a lovely bit of make believe. Conversely, I got to see all those kids who were told he (and fairies, and the Easter bunny etc) was absolutely real feel devastated when they found out he wasn’t and angry their parents lied to them.

I think it’s much weirder to lie to your kids for years because you’re worried the world won’t be so magical otherwise. If you don’t find the real things in our amazing world magical then you aren’t looking hard enough at them!

Yeah - guy in my work is Muslim but he does a secular version of Christmas/Santa and his kids get presents. He told me his parents did the same for him and his siblings.

He drinks alcohol and eats bacon though so not sure he is a shining example of a Muslim to be fair

OP I don’t think it will be an issue for much longer. I taught in a junior school and in my experience most children stopped ‘believing in Santa’ by the age of 8 or 9 even if they kept up the pretence at home. When I was teaching year 3 (7-8) I trod carefully around the Santa topic, but in older years I would assume that the kids had it sussed.

Oh gosh, why does everything have to be so complicated and difficult nowadays? You don't mention Santa to your children; they haven't got some terrible infectious disease or anti-social habits that means other children have to be separated to avoid contamination.
If the kids do meet on Christmas day and difficult conversations begin about sensitive subjects concerning reindeer and chimneys, and you are called upon to clear up any misunderstandings, could you just say 'In our house, Mum and Dad do the stockings', and leave it there?

I mean you’re allowed to do things how you see fit, but ‘Santa’ is everywhere: films, tv, adverts, on the radio etc - I’m not sure how you can avoid mention of him? Your kids are still very young so haven’t noticed any of this but they will - and whilst it’s your choice not to ‘do’ Santa, many families do play along with the fantasy so it would be equally unfair for your kids to spoil their fun by saying he does t exist. I guess it’s a bit like religion, I guess? We just have to respect that others have differing beliefs and traditions. “Some people like to create a fantasy of Santa for their kids. We don’t, and that’s ok, but other people’s way of doing things is ok too”.

I still talk about Father Christmas to my kids and they’re 23/20/17! 😂

Father Christmas and Santa are two different characters. Father Christmas wasn't associated with gift giving until we merged the two.

Because if you say to your 6 yo, "The elf is just a toy that the parents put out and we don't want to," they go into school and tell all their friends and then you have to face the wrath of the Elf Mommies telling you your child has destroyed "the Christmas magic" forever.

Weirdly, my autistic sister is mad about Xmas and goes all out. Her son is still little but profoundly autistic and non-verbal and it’s not clear how much of it he takes in/ignores. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I didn’t know I was ND for many many years. My diagnosis followed DD’s.

My mum says there are lots of things they just did because it was the done thing at the time - not talking about death to young children, Santa as a magical being rather than a character etc. (I wasn’t christened until my sibling died which I suppose is another ritual that was followed because society deemed it necessary.). DH and I have been a lot more mindful of how DD experiences the world - death is a fact of life, there is magic in nature, some people believe different things and it’s right for her to choose her own beliefs rather than be forced into them. We just followed her lead and answered in an appropriate way when she had questions. Nobody that knows and loves us has had any issue with it - it was the rest of society that lost their shit over our “clearly joyless life”!

There’s a difference between pretending Santa exists and gives you presents and watching a Disney movie. We didn’t do the Easter Bunny no, (does the Easter Bunny give out eggs? Easter eggs were given by me and granny). The tooth fairy was done a couple of times but they sussed that one quite young, just like I did as a kid. When my kids asked me outright if santa was real I said he was in their imagination if they wanted him to be, I just wasn’t going to say yes to a direct question.

Bollocks to that.