do your children write letters to father christmas?

[cherrymonster]

mine do, dd2 will need help with hers as she is only 4, but the rest do it themselves under my supervision (so that i can spy and see what they want)

usually - we have a great toy shop round here that has a postbox and pins the envelopes with replies up on a ribbon so you can call in and check whether your letter is there yet.

But this year ds has worked out how the Tooth Fairy happens so I'm waiting for questions about the mechanics of FC...

Btw, he still wants the full service from the Tooth Fairy. He'd written her a letter just before The Conversation asking some questions so when we'd had a discussion I expected he'd drop it. But oh no, apparently he 'wanted to see what ideas we had'. I had to write a ruddy response!

They (well, DS so far) tend to do it at nursery/school. Which can be a leetle tricky as I don't always know he's done it, let alone getting a sight of the ruddy thing. Last year he sealed it in an envelope.

Yes, mine do. I usually get them to right them 1st week of Dec so I can then get reasonably organised. I give alot of supervision and ideas though

Yes -and we did this aswell:

portablenorthpole.tv/home

Do you let them have free reign and write as many things as they want?
I only ask as I remember sitting as a child with the Argos book and a A4 size piece of paper . Obviously I didn't get even a sixth of what was written, but was always happy with what I did get.
I tell my dc to list a max of 6 things so I can hopefully get 3 of the things they want and I know it's what they actually do want.

chippy- i have done the portable north pole for the last 2 years, my kids think its wonderful, it even still has ds1 (11) believing. i think he was sceptical before i did that, but he totally believes now.

Don't forget NORAD tracks Santa on Christmas Eve - they get to see which countries he has already visited, encouraged to hurry off to bed in time for him coming to the UK and end up with warm fuzzy feelings about the US military. OK, that last point might be contentious but still...

i only let them list about half a dozen items usually, i dont like them to be too greedy, and i do warn them that they might not get all of it

I let mine write as many things as they want (usually about 10 things - teddy, book, game, ds game etc.) but they know they wont get everything. We give everything from Santa though and only 1 (usually the most expensive) girt from us under the tree.

I let DS loose with the argos, scissors and glue usually and then I use that as a guide plus I choose my own gifts for him as well.

We love the NORAD site and have done it for the lasy few years.

Manda25, we do it the other way around. My Ds (4) thinks we buy the gifts, send them to santa and depending on what santa can bring, depends on what he gets! So his presents come from us, gp's, aunties etc but santa delivers them but there is one special gift from Santa, but only if he is good!

Kids see the toys in the shops and my niece last year was very confused because "how does santa make all the toys if they are in the shops" and "why do we have to ask santa for presents, when we can buy them now?"

Its kind of confusing what to tell the kids isnt it?

I think last year was the final one for DD. I told her a couple of months ago that he isn't real. Honestly, you'd think I had stabbed and disemboweled a kitten in front of her. She is 9.4 and we recently moved to Belgium where the children are much more sophisticated and grown up than Switzerland. I am pleased I did despite the tears it caused.
I used to go the whole hog, letter from Father Christmas (pound sign) and spray on snow in the living room with boots imprinted . So pleased that's over.

DD and I did the Royal Mail one last year - it was poor frankly. We do write one and it goes up the chimney (when we had rads we borrowed one )

I have covered all bases with the FC present thingy.

I have told my ds that FC has a different arrangement with each parent.

Therefore - with some, the parents send him the money and he gets all the presents, with others the parents send the presents for him to bring if good. And with others he buys them out of his own money. And so this is why some children have a lot and others don't.

IN regards to toy shops, I said that the elves can make lots of things but sometimes it is just easier for FC to do a Christmas shop himself!!

I told DD1 (5.5) who has started to do her list that FC can't bring everything she wants because it is a lot of money and there is a lot of children in the world and sometimes he run out of some specific toys.
Her answer " do you really thing they have money in antarctica (sic, close enough ), silly mama? He doesn't run out of toys, he has his own factory so can make has many as he wants with no need for money. He also have special reindeers, there are not magic but they can fly, and he can get to all the children in time"

I blame the USA for that one.

We do the portable north pole here too.

One thing that's become a kind of tradition here is that on the 30th November, the children will write their letters to Santa and leave them out for his elves to collect that night. When they get up the next morning, his elves have collected the letters and left them an advent calender and a small chocolate santa