Writing letter to Father Christmas

[3bunnies]

When do your dc write to FC and at what point do I impress upon them the urgency of the matter. Admittedly he only brings a minority of the presents but his poor overworked elves need to know which bargains to look out for.

We do it on 1st December as our first activity.

The elves work all year to make toys, otherwise how would they have the stuff to photograph for the argos catalogue?!

My children are only allowed to ask for three gifts. One decent, and two smaller. Although, with my children they can sometimes be rather odd. In the last they have asked for a large cardboard box, bag of peanuts and dried mango amongst others.

They tend to do their letters early December, so I have enough time to source it off the Internet (if needed).

Letter is written late at night, put on the side to post in the morning, and then when the children are asleep, the letter is swapped for a blank one. The letter then reappears a the bottom of the sack with the three items ticked off.

In our house, FC only really buys the three gifts. We have to send FC the money for the rest of the gifts (to explain the great variance in the amount of presents received by friends! )

My dc did theirs yesterday! We went to santas warehouse toys R us to see what is on offer this year then wrote the letters when we got home. Santa only brings 2 things in this house and a small stocking the rest come from us so if they see something after this weekend they can ask me, I never buy their gift til 1st week December just in case

We do ours mid November. They are allowed to ask for 3 things and they know they will definitely get at least one of them. So far they have always had all 3 but it was my get out clause in case they chose something too expensive. They leave the letter out for the fairy messengers to collect. In the morning the letter is gone and there is sparkling fairy dust (glitter) with a chocolate lolly (thorntons snowman this year!) to show father Christmas has got it.

Ds writes regularly with new ideas lol. He's only 4 though so I encourage it as a writing activity :)

We post our letter at one of the shops that sets up a Santa postbox - there are several near us, John Le is usually does one, for example. We also say you are only allowed to ask Santa for three things. Once the letter is posted you can't change your mind either - this helps to save you from being caught out with last minute requests.

I We've written DD's first one ever today. I haven't worked out what to do with it though. I have explained that Father Christmas may ask some relatives to get something from the list as he can't get everything himself as there are lots of children to buy for.

Our dc tend to do the letter for Father Christmas middle of December, but in the past they have been quite sway able about what they want (meaning if I say I think they would love something they tend to go with it). Father Christmas then magics the letters up the chimney and leaves some of his magic glitter in the fire grate. The next morning he has sent an email message to each child from the 'portable north pole' which means he has got the letter and knows what each child wants. They love the video clip and will watch it over and over until Christmas.

We've done ours today - it's almost 1am and I've only just remembered that I need some sort of 'sign' that they've gone up the chimney. Have had Christmas trinket/choc other years, but they took me by surprise today. Was going to pop to the shop after tea but a bit too bloody late now - am here looking for some sort of inspiration! And they can write as such as they like on their lists - if they're lucky they might get a present or more from the list, or they might be given something that Father Christmas knows they will like. One list has a 'bum sucker' on it for getting rid of smelly farts..............can you tell I have boys? lol

Just found 'Elf on the Shelf' - no need to get dressed and drive 10 miles to the 24hr shop to buy a Christmas choc!