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.

Like others have said, you're in the minority and it would be a shame for other kids bubbles to be burst early if your little ones said there's no santa. Cant see why they would however if they've not been taught anything about Santa, not that he doesn't exist but more just avoided mentioning so can't see they'd go round vehemently saying he's not real.

Other kids believing in Santa, whether he's Father Christmas, whether he brings a stocking or all the gifts, or fills shoes with sweets on the 15th, or gifts are open on christmas eve, is a lovely part of childhood in all nations that have the Santa folklore, and I loved it as a kid and still do as an adult. I wasn't taken to see Santa though in a shopping centre etc, but he was very much more real and magical for that and I remember the excitement on Christmas eve thinking maybe this year I'd glimpse him. It's an old bit of human nature to tell stories and believe in magic.

Each to their own though of course!

www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/holidays-saints-religion-tombs-burials

Your kids your rules but if you were my SIL I would want to do Christmas separately.

please try to ensure as they get a bit older they don’t ruin it for others

This post makes me a bit sad, before everyone piles on and tells me otherwise and how unreasonable I am. I think a lot of the magic of Christmas is around Santa and the excitement of children believing in Santa.
As a child I remember we used to listen for the sleigh bells (I could hear them). Leave out a mince pie and a carrot and just enjoy the excitement and anticipation.
To not see that through your own child's eyes would be disappointing for me.
However, everyone has to do their own thing and what suits them.
I am reminded of Caroline Ahern in the Royale Family when she says 'Well, Christmas isn't really for children is it'.

That would be a problem for me, can you imagine Christmas Day…

DD ‘Look what I got from Santa cousin’
DC ‘Who’s Santa’
DD ‘he brings our presents on Christmas day’
DC ‘Mum, did Santa bring my presents’
YOU ‘Hmmm, what do you think?’.

… Yes, your not invited to Christmas 😆

Neither of you 2 are unreasonable, her kids are growing up and she wants to hold onto Santa this year. Maybe next year will be different.

I think everyone has different experiences and expectations. My expectation is to spend Christmas day with family 🙂.

Luckily enough we have my parents and sisters family to enjoy Christmas with 🙂

We do FC/Santa but you’re not cruel, sad or weird for not doing it. You’re not missing out on the magic either, the magic can be created it many ways.

We do a single present from Santa, the rest from everyone else. DC should be grateful for where presents come from. When they ask about Santa, we’ll say he’s real in that it’s about the spirit of giving and being kind, little kids just need a “real” person for that. It’s their turn to be Santa now and not spoil it for small children who haven’t worked it out yet. We can still do magic, we can still visit a grotto if that’s a tradition they want to continue for a while.

I think it’s not OK for your SIL to ask you to be somewhere else but you don’t seem that bothered by it and you’d rather be at your parents so I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it.

Nope. Christmas is a celebration of Jesus's birth where we give each other gifts to celebrate and to remember that jesus was God's gift to us. The modern version of santa sort of goes against that so lots of Christian families downplay santa or don't have him at all nowadays.

He was based on saint Nicholas who gave gifts to children but St nick definitely wouldn't have wanted to be the main focus of Christmas.

We do stocking with cheap fun stuff and sweets from santa and one big gift from santa and then everything else is from relatives and friends.

I don't think she is unreasonable either 🙂. To am extent I think it's nice, it's just not what I did or want to do 🙂.

Prior to him being Father Christmas, Santa is short for Santa Claus, is a variation of Saint Nicholas who did deliver gifts to children.

No idea how he became Father Christmas?

Why wouldn’t they have stockings? My kids stockings were never from Santa.

I didn’t make a big deal about Santa but of course kids hear about it anyway. When my kids used to ask if he was real I would say he’s real in your imagination if you want him to be.

I never gave my children presents from santa.

Your teens trying to catch you is all part of the 'Santa game/tradition' 😀
It evolves as your family changes.

Also your children are 2 and 3 and unlikely to ruin the day for them. Has she actually dictated where you go on Christmas, as in said you are not allowed to go to PIL’s house?

If I felt that strongly about SIL’s views, I would have kept Christmas to my own family but I certainly wouldn’t have started to dictate how she spends Christmas and who with. How do your PIL’s feel about it?

Santa Claus is from Saint Nicholas (Nikolaos) and relates to a Christain saint.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas

Of course! 🙂 We had a quick discussion on the topic and she just said that she felt it would ruin Christmas for her kids and parents if this was the way we planned to do Santa/Christmas and so she thought it would be best if we spent Christmas with my family this year 🙂. It was a perfectly pleasant and reasonable conversation 🙂. Id have been hurt if we had nowhere to go but happily that's not the case 🙂

When I was little I was told that family but the presents and Father Christmas delivers them. I don’t remember having stockings. For my children I never said any of the presents were from Father Christmas so basically he just did the delivery, it didn’t seem right that he got all the credit 😂

They are happy for us to do what we want to do as they would rather do Santa/Santa presents etc with the older ones 🙂. I did say we would love to come and at least have dinner but my husband wasnt keen and would rather do it all in the one place 🙂

8 and 9 years should be supervised on the internet.

Not arsed about the history. But it’s deliberately obtuse to say the at children who aren’t Christian won’t believe in Santa. And that’s what I was replying to. The majority of kids in this country don’t believe in Santa because of their religion, it’s because it’s normal in our culture.

I've never done santa. I don't like the fact that it's an elongated bribe, I don't like the fact that you're supposed to get gifts for being "good" but kids from poorer families get less- regardless of behaviour. I also answer all my kids questions honestly so it felt really strange to tell them something untrue/make-believe. My husband never did it growing up so when it came to it we decided not to either.

I did santa growing up and personally remember seeing this- my primary school bully was absolutely loaded and got the best Christmas ever while my parents struggled and we got very little. He was horrible, I was a good kid. The morality of it doesn't work.

There are also parents who get really upset as they can't afford the "santa gift" their kid wants, it puts more pressure on parents as it's some magical bottomless capitalist red guy as opposed to their parents with finite resources.

Kids are 9 and 11 now so it's not an issue any more as most kids dont believe anyway at that age (some lie to their parents to keep it up!) but when they were younger we just told them to respect others beliefs and not talk about santa ot being real any more than you'd say "God isn't real" to a Christian. Our school is culturally diverse so many kids dont "do" santa anyway. But the amount of people who acted like we were ruining their childhood honestly it's laughable. People do things their own way, just don't ruin anyone else's. We have absolutely lovely Christmases with no santa.

We did all the Santa stuff in my family, but I always knew he wasn’t real even when I was very small. I don’t remember ever thinking he was real, it was just a story we all played along with for fun, we still visited Santa, wrote letters and left out whisky, a mince pie and a carrot. I assume I didn’t believe because I am the youngest of four siblings.

But I really remember being surprised when I was about five or six and being warned not to say anything to a family friend’s daughter we were visiting because she actually believed he was real. I didn’t realise anyone really believed. I thought it was even stranger that she left out milk and biscuits for Santa because I though no self respecting grown up would be having that before bed.

I still really enjoyed Christmas and I don’t think I ruined it for anyone. Maybe I did?

Haha I'm sure you're right, I'll have to set an alarm for about 2am this year.

My eldest is a poor sleeper, with the hearing of a bat, so rarely sleeps before 1am anyway. Last Christmases the stockings are opened by 3am (DC were 15 & 14...). I need a pre delivery nap this year!

I don’t remember ever believing in Father Christmas, my parents had similar approach to you. Presents were from them and family etc. I think I always knew Father Christmas was just a tale. I was a loner kid though so I don’t remember this ever being an issue with friends.

I tried to do the same approach as you with my daughter but by 4 she had learnt all about it from others and was basically instructing us to do the rituals (stockings, leave a mince pie out for him etc.) so now I just go along with it. I think she is a child that wants to believe in Father Christmas and fairies etc and I wasn’t but for her sake I am going along with it now.