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 the same with my kids. I never made a big thing out of Father Christmas as I would have felt guilty about lying to the kids.
I never actively told them there was no such thing either, I used to just fudge the issue if they asked difficult questions.
I always found the whole issue a bit of a moral dilemma.

Just talk to your SIL OP. If you want to go to PIL you should, it’s not her place to
univite you. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to reassure her that your little ones won’t be saying ‘no grandma they aren’t from Santa they’re from you.’

Id approach Santa as a story right from the start. Which to be fair is the truth! He’s a story character that people like to pretend is real. So when people say ‘it’s from Santa’ they know it’s part of the ‘game’.

I wanted to do this but the way relatives/nursery talked about him meant I would have had to directly tell my first born ‘he isn’t real you know’ and I felt I would be judged. So mine had a few years (3-6ish) of believing but we never did visits to Santa or letters to him. When they asked questions I was honest.

Im brutally honest that the elf is not real, yes even your friend Jim’s who’s mum says real
elves only visit good children. I tell them not to spoil the magic but that Jim’s mum is lying to Jim. I can’t stand the knots people tie themselves in to get their kids believing and think it’s quite insulting to their intelligence once they’re 8ish. I had a friend who admitted her kids were frightened of the elf and were asking ‘he’s not real though is he?’ but she insisted on ‘one more year‘ of pretending it was real. Gross.

If it makes any difference I didn’t believe past about 5 and I loved Christmas and still
do. Doing my kids stockings, pantos, Christmas lights and Christmas crafts are highlights of my year.

This really irks me. The flaw in Santa is that it demands all parents lie to their children. It can't work.
The OP's approach was what i grew up with and now my husband is from elsewhere we blend traditions from our countries. There's no time or place for Santa. We have books with Santa. We don't say "hey Santa isn't real". It's just not a thing.
But I definitely won't be training my kids to lie to others if ever it comes up. I actually don't think it will, they're less likely to be wondering about it since we don't make a big deal of it.

I agree with this. Saying that the OP's family can't spend Christmas with the in laws is a completely over the top reaction, especially since her children are getting to the age when they probably suspect Santa isn't real anyway.

If anyone is ruining the magic of Christmas, it's the person trying to ban the extended family from the celebrations.

But if the OP would prefer to spend Christmas with her side of the family anyway, I guess it's a win win for her.

If I were her husband I would be annoyed though, and tell my sister to stay in her lane.

Minimal Santa here too. The year DS would have understood (3) MIL died suddenly the week before so we didn't really celebrate that year. The following year he just never asked. We have since found out he's autistic and would never believe in something like that. We do a Santa visit at the shopping centre just for the pic. He doesn't talk about it really.
SIL however is into Santa big time and says he brings all of the presents which can he tricky especially as he has SEN and is still a believer at 12 and my kids absolutely aren't. I just tell my kids to keep quiet as to not spoil the magic for him.

Nope.

A lot of parents seem to want to credit for the presents and I think that this immature egotistical mindset is way worse than giving your children some harmless little bit of fantasy and magic.

I think you give these lofty moral arguments about ‘lying to your kids’ because it’s too much effort to go out of your way to make something special for them. Joyless.

As you are in the minority, you have to adapt. You can't keep your children sheltered from big bad Santa forever. Having said that you have the right to go where you choose at Xmas so tell your SIL where to get off. However she has the right to allow her children to reference Santa even if your children are around.

I see threads like this every year re Santa, 😢
Children grow up so fast and have their whole lives to face reality. Why not make their childhoods magical and fun? Not participating in this magical aspect of Christmas is more about cynicism of the adult than anything else.

Next someone will post saying there's no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. Right... 🙄

Your kids are 2 and 3. They aren’t going to have the articulation or intellect to debunk Santa to an 8 and 9 year old. You’re all overreacting.

I think you need to separate out the Santa of the going to see him in a shopping centre or garden centre from the experience/excitement of Christmas morning.

My kids never got much from the going to see Santa part. They knew these were helpers (and varied in quality!) and I wouldn't judge the 'magic' by these.

But the anticipation, their little faces on Christmas eve, waiting to open the living room door on Christmas morning. These are all things not replicated in the same way by anything else.

If course they love birthdays but it's just not quite the same.

My eldest is past this now and we'll still have a lovely Christmas - and he'll enjoy doing it for his little sister - but if there's a moment in time I could go back to, it would be the putting out carrots and their sheer joy.

I don't like the word 'magic', I'm not the kind of person that likes Disney, I don't even particularly love Christmas but I didn't realise how much I'd enjoy it with my own children and I feel you are missing out for no real reason, and that seems a shame.

We had Santa when I was young but Mom and Dad always told us they bought the presents, he just delivered them. My magical Christmas memories are of family time, exciting toys and decorations. We chose not to do Santa and my 3 kids (19, 17 and 14) all say they are glad as it's awful to lie to kids and who wants a creepy old man coming into your house.

I find it frankly bizarre that people who choose not to participate in a mass lie to children are seen as the unreasonable ones! It is mostly used as a threat and behaviour control in my experience. Weird. I'm with you, OP. Kids can always be told that it's make believe but some children like to believe it so don't spoil it for them. Mine never told any other kids he wasn't real, just expressed distaste to me that parents lie to their kids!

This. Your kids are too young at the minute so this doesn't seem relevant but it will be.

Isn't it? Santa is a major part of a major cultural event here. Google plays along. All the tv channels play along. I appreciate everyone has the right to chose to do things differently but they absolutely do not have the right to ruin it for others.

I think any different approaches would be difficult to deal with. Im very fortunate that both DH and my family tradition is FC delivers and gives stockings/sacks at the end of the bed only. Presents under the tree are from people and added to the collection as and when they arrive.

We both have very fixed views that this is 'correct' too, so we dodged a bullet there. 😅

Your sils kids will.be hearing other children say santa isn't real by 8 or 9

In my experience the golden age is sort of 3 to about 7 or 8.

My kids did enjoy the magic til the end of primary but I wouldn't have minded them knowing the truth by 8

My childhood Christmases were magical and very traditional but there was very little emphasis on Santa/FC. We knew the presents were from our parents and we never left out milk and carrots or anything like that. It was the same for my children.

I had a real problem about lying to my children so I thought it best to just not put any emphasis on him.

We used Santa as a symbolism of magic of Christmas.
Was fine.
They never told anyone Santa didn't exist because what he symbolised did exist in our house. They are thriving teens, still love panto, stockings and everything that is wonderful about Christmas.

We did used to take them to see "Santa" honestly was the worse Christmas outing we did. So we stopped in the end.

(Watching The Muppets Christmas Carol every Christmas Eve last thing as is tradition in this household has helped considerably with their GCSE text)

You don't need Santa, but if you do decide to completely dismiss it you need to work out how not to spoil the magic of Santa for other families. That's just basic manners.

I’m so fed up of people pushing this BS of THEIR vision of what is ‘fun and magical’ and ‘childhood’. Get over yourself.

Me and my sister grew up without the ‘magical Santa myth’. My dad was a Santa-for-hire every Christmas in our town and beyond, so we cottoned on pretty quick. I have no memory of actually believing in Santa.

Christmas was still magical and special. I loved it for so many reasons – choosing and decorating the tree with mum, baking together, helping my dad wrap the presents, all my family coming over, Christmas films and music, the brilliant Christmas dinner. Always was a magical time and I still love it.

Look outside your very narrow box.

FC/Santa has a delivery schedule to keep to 😉
If you're not asleep by the alloted time, he has to deliver to the living room.

Presents from Father Christmas in the morning (little things in a sack) Main presents under the tree in the afternoon

My youngest was scared of Santa ( and any other dressed up figures!) from a young age so we just said he wasn't real, it was just a person dressed up but not to tell the other children. We kept it light, gave them stockings from 'Santa' ( they always went along with it but knew it wasn't real but enjoyed the fun!) but never really talked about Santa much. They still had magical Christmas time. Also, we're Christians, so lying to our kids felt weird. Some people go to incredible lengths and get really obsessed. The youngest we could probably have convinced he was real but just lighted skimmed over, saying ' what do you think?' if asked. Do whatever is right for your family but respect others choices.

I never believed in Father Christmas. Probably a combination of having older siblings and being a church going family where it was tricky to line up the Nativity with Father Christmas. I loved Christmas, still do, felt magical, still does. We were always told that some people believed in him and we were to keep quiet.
On a slightly different note I am delighted that elf on a shelf didn't exist when I was younger. The idea of never knowing where a creepy doll would pop up next would have scared the life out of me.

We've never made a big deal about FC. We do the leaving a carrot and mince pie out thing and they get their stockings filled it but all other presents come from whoever they come from and appear under the tree whenever they arrive.

SIL does the things are from who they are from but everything is magically delivered on Xmas Eve from FC. So one year they arrived at our house on the 23rd to a tree with presents under it and she still hid her bags until the next evening.

I don't think my niece or nephew noticed the difference and crucially SIL wasn't making a big fuss but was happy to let different people do it differently without being precious about the "magic".

You're kind of doing them out of a magical fun thing. However, it won't ruin Christmas for other DC if you teach yours not to.
One of our DCs best friends is Muslim, we got asked early on why santa doesn't visit him and we said santa only visits people who want him to. Your SIL could do a version of that saying "DC had everything they wanted from mum so didn't want to ask santa for anything"
You'll probably find your DC want to join in the fun once they start school though. Ours ended up excited about the easter bunny which I never did as a child, but have for them now due to school friends influence.