The inconsistencies of believing in Father Christmas!

[HappyAsEyeAm]

DS1 is nearly 5, and I am preparing myself for questions that he will ask about Father Christmas.

Last year, he really got it, and he was 100% entranced by the magic of father Christmas. He just accepted everything we said, which was basically that Father Christmas brought all presents.

This year, we have a few potential difficulties!

1. He is getting a trampoline from my parents, and that will be delivered to us in the spring. My parents will give him something small to open on the day though.

1. Friends of ours openly deliver presents to us/him before Christmas.

1. We are seeing friends after Christmas and we each buy for each otehr's DC. We will exchange gifts then.

1. Do you tell your DC that Father Christmas brings all the presents, ie everything you give them and everything everyone else gives them?

Basically op say whatever works for you. I will/do go along with Father Christmas but as soon as they start asking questions then I allow them to work it out.

I say that we (and others) buy presents and can take them to the post office. FC then collects them and delivers them on christmas eve.
We do one big present each and the stocking from FC; everything else comes from the giver. Otherwise, how do you deal with thank yous and gratitude?

Santa brings presents from him, other people give presents from them, mummy and daddy buy a medium sized present from them too. Then everyone's covered :)

Santa brings a big present and the stocking presents. Everyone else gives their own present with no need for Santa to help. Not sure why santa would have to do the delivering?

Santa brings stocking presents, Parents buy what was on the christmas list - Santa tells them, Relatives and family friends also buy presents.

Santa brings the stocking presents. Everything else is from mummy and daddy/ grandma, etc.

This is what my parents used to tell us and I believed in Santa for AGES, so this is what I tell my DD. My dad was great at the pretence - he got really annoyed with Santa one year for dislodging the loft hatch

What spoilt it for me was that my mum used the same paper for the stocking presents as she used for the tree presents, so I'm determined not to make the same error......

We have presents from father Christmas that magically appear in the middle of the living room floor over night .. and presents from us / everyone else.

We have learnt to make sure we get special wrapping paper for father c stuff as one year dd was perplexed why he had been to Tescos and used theirs !!!!! We said he was a bit short !

Ah you can get away with anything at that age, I wouldn't worry.

I expect I change it slightly each year as I'm dreadfully forgetful. If either of them pull me up on it, I just say that Santa has had problems this year or because of something in another country its a bit different this year etc etc lie lie and more lies

FWIW this year and most years I think we do Santa does stockings and one big present rest is from us and others.

Really don't stress about inconsistencies. If its easier to change what Santa does, do that. eg "DS, sweetheart, as you are getting a bit bigger what Santa does for you changes. He's going to get you a stocking and a big present, but then Mummy/Daddy and other people are also going to get you some presents too. Won't that be nice?" Then follow up automatically no chance for him to answer that last q with " And what do you think you'll be asking him for this year?" etc

FC brings the stockings, we/ others give the big presents, limits their expectations of the sort of money FC might spend on them.

Yes, OUR Father Christmas comes through the cat flap as we haven't got a chimney. He manages to squeeze through because he's magic.

and later, when they're older - yes I know not everyone believes in Father Chrsitmas but we like believing in our house because it makes Christmas more fun/magical.
AND if there are younger ones in the house - say to the older ones - yes we know Father Christmas is only pretend so now you can join in the fun to make it special for [little brother or sister]

You can tell I'm a big kid at heart. I just love the magic of Chrsitmas, even if it is commercial overkill. I couldn't wait to have kids to dance around the tree with me, stir the pudding and make mince pies.

Anything that magically appears overnight is obviously from fc because everybody was asleep. But we like to give presents too so we buy them for other people and they might buy them for us.

This is how it happened when we were children and how I did it with my dcs. We would get a token gift from my parents after lunch. Which was lucky because we would sneak downstairs at some rediculous time every Christmas morning to see if fc had been. My parents never seen us open presents from when I was between 3 and 12. :(

Santa only buys presents that are in the stocking or beside it in our house (and that is what we had growing up too, both DH and I).

There is always a small present from Mum and Dad wrapped under the tree (usually something useful like an outfit, or craft supplies). All other presents from other people are from those other people (and need to be thanked afterwards).

Last year, we managed to get away with lighting the fire on Christmas Eve (I think DH said something like Santa had magic dust to put it out when he got here if it was still lighting).

And while DD can ASK for anything she likes (and we might have tried to steer that some years), she won't get everything on her list as Santa has to give toys to all the boys and girls around the world, and he may look at her list and think that she would prefer something else that he has for her rather than something she asked for (cos he knows her so well, you see!!).

Santa only does stockings in our house.

Father Christmas does a stocking for each child (small presents, mostly useful like toothbrush, shampoo, underpants, a bit of chocolate and a book or dvd).

Main presents come from us - and if necessary are deferred/second hand/bought before or after Christmas.

Other presents are from other people - why on earth would you make Father Christmas deliver presents from other people, doesn't he have enough to do, poor man?

It makes life soooooooo much easier.

If you don't have a chimney he magics himself in.

Funnily enough mine never worried about why they got underpants and a tangerine from FC when their friends got playstations.

And their stockings are still their favourite part of Christmas even though they are now teenagers and have known for a long time that I do them.

We used to say that the stockings were from FC and other presents were from the givers.

To get around the chimney issue, we said he could magically beam himself in and out like in Star Trek! In answer to 'how does he get around the whole world in one night' we concocted a tale about time shifting where in some places (like Narnia for example) a long time was in fact a very short time when they came back to a real world. So our time is the normal time and FC works on a magical time.

We used to leave out mince pie and a drink which were magically consumed by greedy daddy, leaving crumbs on the plate, to be discovered on Christmas morning.

Like Maryzed FC brings stockings only and they never asked why FC brought their friends big presents. Most of mine are adults but the keep up the FC pretence for dd who believes. The stockings are still the best bit of Christmas according to my lot even though the contain stuff like undies, socks toothbrush, chocolate and tat.

Treats my mam got around the "same wrapping paper" questions by telling us that parents are collected once a year from the local branch of toys r us and taken to the North Pole to tell Santa what presents to fetch and whether ir not the children have been well behaved.

The sleigh they were taken on was invisible to children.

At the end of the visit their would be opportunity for the parents to buy wrapping paper/gift tags hence why sometimes they were the same.

I'll be telling DS the same thing

Santa only leaves a present on the bed in our house so all other presents downstairs are from family ect

We used to get stocking & "big" present from FC, something like a book, PJs and a small toy from parents and any others were from the relative or friend who gave them to us and thank you letters had to be written. If a present was received from a friend or relative in the run up to Xmas, we were occasionally allowed to open them when we received them rather than wait until Xmas Day. Thinking about it now, this only applied if the school holidays had started and if it was a close friend/relative who was likely to have got us something we actually wanted/was appropriate and was presumably suggested by my Mum in the hope that it would keep us entertained whilst she did various preparations. I don't think I ever queried that my parents appeared to have spent less on me than FC or a grandparent as I was so ridiculously excited by the whole occasion.

From a youngish age, I did have delayed presents (like you're going to do with the trampoline) and think I was given a picture and a date (and possibly behaviour condition!) on which it would appear.