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.

Same here, I don’t personally no anyone who uses presents as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ rewards so maybe in real life it’s less common than you think. Not denying it’s everywhere on social media and does happen though.

My kids have always known presents and stockings are from us, but we said Santa delivered them to people on Christmas Eve and some people told their kids other things. Santa is a magical delivery man here.

We've never had Father Christmas, or a tooth fairy, or an Easter bunny. My eldest was upset at the concept of a stranger creeping around the house at night so we were honest from early days, but explained that other children did believe and that it would be unkind to tell them the secret. We are a fact-based maths and science family, more Brian Cox than Disney. 3 DC who know Santa isn't real. But we still do Christmas! Just Santa doesn't bring presents. He's a legendary Christmas character, much like witches and mummies at Halloween.

Oaft! The judgement on some of these posts!
Thanks everyone for your opinions 🙂. Lovely to read different ways of doing things and to hear your stories!

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas (when it eventually comes!) filled with love and laughter! ❤️

I think your approach is a bit weird but I can't imagine anything your 2 or 3 year old says is going to spoil the magic of Christmas for their 8 or 9 year old cousins.

It's more likely to be you getting funny about other people mentioning Santa. Just chill out a bit.

Look at it like this, you've saved them the disappointment of realising that Santa isn't real. My girl was scared of a big fat, hairy stranger coming into her room in the depths of the night. This seemed a very normal reaction to the santa myth to me.

Did you do elf on the shelf? My daughter was very disappointed we never did and I felt very guilty about that. I barred him from the house, the little twat.

I agree with this totally. There is something wrong about the idea that the amount of presents is somehow connected to you being 'good'. What the hell does 'good' mean anyway?

And every class will have a least one person who for whatever reason doesn't get much in the way of christmas presents - way to destroy their self esteem.

Absolutely nothing in OP's posts suggests she would 'get funny' about people mentioning Santa.

I did the whole Santa thing with my two but I have friends who didn't. It's hardly weird to decide you won't tell elaborate lies to your kids. You sound like you've got issues of your own, tbh

Pretty much exactly the same here. Probably how most kids were brought up in the 80s?

Are they aware of father christmas at all? From books, tv shows etc? Its quite hard to avoid unless you are really determined to not expose them to it, which would be a bit of an odd choice in the UK given the cultural significance.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your approach but some people do care about their children having a few years of innocence/believing in the magic of it, and you won't be popular in a couple of years if your 5 year old tells peers at school that santa doesn't exist for example.

Google joins in the fun and doesn't actually commit one way or the other! Or the speakers in the house don't anyway!

It’s not that controversial
I find the whole idea of Santa really odd tbh and struggle with the lies we have to make up and go along with!
i know this will grind gears as it’s Christmas magic and all that stuff but it really is personal choice in each family
I have a big thing about being honest and truthful so that’s the issue with it all for me

What gives you this impression?

We did similar, OP, but it gets hard when Santa seems to be the religion you’re not allowed to say you don’t believe in. We didn’t tell our kids he wasn’t real, but didn’t indulge in the belief. We still do stockings because who doesn’t want a load of stuff at the end of their bed when they wake up?

No one would care if a 5 year old told another 5 year old there’s no god, but heaven forbid they tell them there’s no Santa!

What issues does it sound like I have?

My kids are 2 and 4, we haven't particularly focused on Santa either way. I have no idea what they believe about Santa but I highly doubt whether either of them would be capable of saying anything about Santa which might ruin the magic for a 9 year old.

Either the OP's SIL is vastly overestimating the conversational capacities of toddlers, or she is actually worried about the OP ruining the magic for her kids.

Yes of course 🙂. We have books on it like peekaboo Santa and we have decorations of him.

If my child said to me "is Santa real" I'd probably just respond with hmm what do you think? And see where the conversation went from there.

Everything we gave our children was from Santa (it still is but they are adults). SIL didn’t want to do Santa at all. We still had wonderful Christmas’s. The cousins were similar ages and we just taught them to respect each other and it wasn’t really a problem until they were about 8/9 and by then they were beginning to suspect anyway.

My DC did take the truth quite hard though and in retrospect, I should have sat more in the middle and given Santa less of a role in our celebrations.

I think it's fine to do things differently, as long as both sides are respectful of the others views. Surely not all presents in SILs will be from Santa? As I always find that weird, as to me Santa only brings small/cheap items. If you are doing stockings anyway, couldn't you still go and just do these when they do theirs? No need to comment.
As for grandparents, I would also mention to them you would prefer the children to know they bought the gift and thank them properly so to say it is from them.

As others have said, I think you need to be aware that they might hear things from friends at nursery and school, so need a plan in place to work around this. Though lots of people do, as in my daughter's class there is a Jehovah's witness and the parents accepted that for the second half of the autumn term she would have to go to an older class most afternoons when they were in the lower years to avoid doing the Christmas play. She also had to be given different activities and taken out by a TA at various points too due to what the class were doing. Clearly her parents would have explained to her why and she accepted it, and the teacher did give some kind of explanation to the rest of the class why they didn't join in.

We didn't bother with santa either really. They went to 'see' santa twice when they were little mainly through the guilt others made me feel. They have always had one present from santa and that's it. I've never made a fuss of it.
I think it stems from me not wanting to focus christmas as a purely gift giving time of year. So we focus on family days out and time with family instead.

Ps the bigger under the tree presents aren't from FC in our house either. In my house your letter to santa is to tell him you've been good & to ask him to fill your stocking. We try and avoid lists of stuff you want but allow requests for small/silly things, for example both my kids have in the past requested blu-tac 😉, chocolate coins, and one this year wants to write bubblegum.

I just googled the question prompted by this thread and AI absolutely blows the myth apart in brutal fashion.

Tbf though if a kid is old enough to have unsupervised access to the internet and is capable of googling they can handle the truth.

Alexa, on the other hand, totally buys in to Santa.

What exactly is your concern about pretending Santa has bought a few gifts OP?

You could tell them the wonderful story of st Nicholas, who was a real person and how he became what we know as Santa who embodies the spirit of Christmas.
What happened to his bones is also an interesting story for when they are older.
I always say to my child that things are true to those who want to believe.

I've clearly not explained myself very well and I'm starting to regret my post however this is how I was brought up - it just wasn't really discussed 🤷‍♀️.

For my sister in law it's very very real and it's discussed regularly (from September) and is definitely more than just an idea but a whole experience. I think we are just 2 opposite sides of the coin.

It’s how most of my friends were raised too but seems to be hugely controversial on here 🤣

However you do Christmas will be fine.

As kids get older they'll say stuff like all Johnny's tree presents come from Santa, or Santa brought Sarah a bike, or Jamie puts out a pillowcase for his presents, Mary gets a shoe full of sweets on the 6th December - but no stocking at Christmas! Etc, etc. Just explain different families have different traditions. Which is what your SIL should be doing to her DC...

The magic for me these days is trying to stay awake long enough to deliver the stockings without being caught by my teens!