Santa conflict - present from Santa or no?

[Kate8889]

I have always been into science and healthy skepticism.esp since my dad joined a religious cult when I was 5. I never want anyone in my family to fall for a scam like that again.

When my husband and I were planning on having kids, we agreed that we wouldn't be doing Santa

Now our daughter is 2.5 and my husband has been asking her what she wants from Santa. I reiterated that I didn't feel comfortable having my daughter be told to believe something that wasn't real. He insists he'd like to do it for at least a few years.

I'm so disappointed and lost. I want our child to be able to trust us when we tell her something. I also don't want kids who receive less presents than her to think Santa cares about them less.

I have never seen any indication of a link between allowing children to enjoy the magic of Christmas and them growing up to be cult members. Sorry to hear about your father's issues. I wouldn't be using it as an excuse to take an experience away from my child.

But is it any less magical if the presents are from family/friends?

Santa brings stockings and 1 small present in our house.

Doing santa does not result in joining a cult. Most children believe in the magic it's not a bad thing! Let her have a bit of magic.

Simply yes. Whilst still exciting to receive presents it's the magic of December counting down, reindeer etc etc.

As soon as she gets friends, goes to pre-school or nursery or even school itself she will be told about Santa. You will be the bad parent if your kid is the one who tells their friends the ‘truth’. Or you can just let her enjoy it and make her own mind up at the developmentally usual age later on.

Ok, I never experienced this (my dad's cult said no presents/secular celebration of Christmas), I always got presents from my parents/grandparents before that point and it was still special.

How do Jewish parents handle this?

I would compromise with small presents from Santa and other presents from you (or whomever) under the tree. You do not want to have the embarrassment of your child's teacher pulling you to one side because your child has been telling her beleieving classmates that Santa is not real.

We did FC as a story and our children still loved Christmas and interestingly still do as adults . AFAIK they never told anyone else that FC wasn’t ‘real’ and we still did trips to see him when they were kids as it was a fun thing to do . Neither of them feel they missed out on anything magical but we did always spend 5 days at Disney in the week before Christmas which they probably saw as more magical .

The only Jewish people I know are mixed families so I don’t know what they actually say to the kids, but they all seem to do Santa, church and Hanukkah in various combinations.

Santa delivers the presents and provides the stocking, but the proper presents delivered by him come from grandparents, aunties & uncles etc.
It worked for us, especially as a lot of our family live several hours away.
So you could ask your DH to change his question slightly and to ask her what she would like Santa to bring her.....like a super speedy version of Postman Pat.
This clearly avoids the issue of kids wondering why the neighbours' kids have so much more or less than them.

Yes this is what I was trying to say to my husband, that we could have it be a "legend" or "tradition" of Santa but he wants to go all in

Of course it is. Mummy nipping to Smyths Toy Superstore is vastly different to the idea of a magical man flying through the sky with a sackful of presents. YABU OP.

Yes, nobody describes birthdays as magical. And that’s a day where you get presents from friends and family.

And she will still get presents from parents and grandparents, friends or wider family PLUS something from Santa. You can decide if you get a gift/stocking/put out a carrot for Rudolph etc.

Santa is different in every family.

I always put out a glass of sherry for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph. It's pretty harmless and most of her friends will believe in Santa. Only one present from Santa though you want credit for the rest!

There is only a few years for children to have the excitement of the magic of Santa, for me I think it would be sad to not allow them to have it. It certainly doesn’t create a breach of trust in later life that you’re worried about. It’s such a lovely time for both parents and kids.

Dont be so fucking selfish. Let your child enjoy the magic of christmas and father chirstmas while they can.

Of course believing in Santa makes it more special/ magical, going to see Santa, putting out the mince pie/ glass of milk, reindeer, elves etc.

I think it’s selfish not to allow this and also really unfair on your husband as he will be missing out on these memories too. I would honestly be devastated if DH didn’t want to do Santa.

You do get the odd person who feels betrayed and lied to about Christmas OP, but be realistic, if everyone thought it was awful when they found out, no one would do it to their kids, would they?

We don’t do Santa in a big way - just the stockings are from Santa. Everything else is from who it’s from.

To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever even told my children about Santa, they just get the idea of it from nursery, school, a Christmas film, books set at Christmas (although you can avoid those last two if you want). They just pick it up, and I’ve never corrected them.

I don’t have a huge amount of time for the nonsense of “how dare someone tell their 11 yr old that Santa isn’t real, my child will be devastated to hear that at school!” I have no memory of discovering Santa wasn’t real, I was not traumatised by my parents “lying” to me, it’s just a fun thing for young children. I think my 6 yr old already knows he isn’t real because it’s obviously not logical at all.

I think your history is turning this into a bigger deal than it needs to be. And Santa is such a big cultural thing that I think it’s hard to avoid it.

Many years ago when the children were little, we always said that Santa was the postman who delivered presents from family. No gift or stockings were ever from Santa, no naughty or nice list, just simply that Santa got sent the presents from those that loved our children to deliver.

The children still had the magic of Christmas without the impication that present were from Santa.

Absolutely this! I’m in my 60’s and still remember hearing rustling in the hallway and hiding under the covers in case I saw Father Christmas! And looking into the skies with my own children to see if we could see him . Wondering how he got down the chimney. And the answer to any question ever about him was “ he’s magic” ❤️

Letting a small child believe in Santa is not deception. It’s the magic of childhood. They are only small for a short time.
Understandably your childhood has influenced your thoughts on this. But fast forward 20+ years, how will your child feel about her childhood when she is an adult, knowing that the opportunity of a pretty normal thing like Santa was never allowed in her childhood. Of course you can still make Christmas time special, but for small children the magic of Christmas time and the lead up is all about Santa. That’s normal in society, of course I know some religious communities don’t celebrate Christmas. But if you’re not in one of those communities, then your child will grow up questioning why her childhood was so different to her peers.
Kindly, don’t let your extremely adverse childhood influence you into making your child’s childhood different from the norm. There’s no harm in the magic of Santa and I’ve never known anyone to grow up questioning their parents for lying to them over that. Additionally, she will be the only one in her class at school not believing in Santa and your strong beliefs on “truth” could end up inadvertently spoiling the magic of Christmas for other small children.
Let her be a child and enjoy that childhood magic while she can…

Same in our house. It's joining in a make believe game with your children .