Did anyone else's parents do this with presents at Christmas?

[TowerOfJoyless]

Every Christmas morning as a child my sister and I would wake up, go into the living room and find toys sitting out on the couch from santa and looking back, it really was quite magical and exciting.

Now call me thick, but it never dawned on me for a long time that we never received any gifts from relatives, including our own parents.

Years ago, I had a conversation with an aunt where I mentioned one of these gifts sitting on the couch to which she replied, "oh that was me who bought you that!". It then occurred to me that mum and dad had been collecting presents from everyone and passing them all off as coming from santa.

Is this quite unusual? Have to admit I have never heard of anyone else doing this before. With my own Ds I tend to have a few presents from santa and the rest from DH and I, plus he is also aware what comes from friends and family.

Stocking and present pile from Santa, stuff under tree or handed over from relatives is from the giver. I never even thought about my parents not getting me anything! I'm telling my ds that I give Santa some money and he will do the rest. He knows we are buying presents for relatives and wants to help wrap with me.

We used to get a main gift from Santa and others from relatives (late 60's/early 70's), no extra from parents iyswim? One really early memory is coming downstairs to find a massive sheet covering something in the 'sitting room', when I pulled it back there was a longed-for dolls pram. When I was a teenager the same thing happened with a stereo. There was a huge sign on it saying "Ho Ho Ho, so there's no Father Christmas Symphony?" My late DF loved Christmas and was bereft when I stopped believing.

For our DC's it's stocking and a gift from Santa and the rest from us and whoever gave them.

Our parent's presents came from Santa, we lived abroad and tended to see parcels arriving from other family.

We used to write letters to santa, to ask from things. After my father died i discovered a letter he had kept, from me to santa, asking for a couple of things plus, at the bottom, 'anything else Santa happened to have'.

Sorry about being off topic

That's lovely Finally, I might have something in my eye.

Symphony I'm similarly affected by your story. How utterly lovely to blow you away with that even though you were too old to believe. I remember working all summer one year to buy a JVC hifi.

BoxofSnails the use of ! at the end of the words bloody cheek clearly point out that it is said in jest.

My Dd does not need presents to know that she is loved, and didn't need to be brave to ask me, she talks to me quite freely about anything and always has.

And whats with the pretty spoilt comment? How can you deduce from my post if my dd is spoilt?

We have one present from father christmas, logistically speaking he cant carry everything for everyone, and DD sends him options and he picks something. Everything else is from family. Plus the way we do christmas is that we have three separate days with different family and father christmas wont deliver everywhere!! The magic is there though and she knows he is coming!
when I was a child, I used to stay with my grandparents, and I remember one year laying in bed and swearing I could hear jingle bells. I could, it was my grandad in his bedroom. Bloody magic, and now I seem to have something in my eye too

Santa provided my stocking gifts as a child and just collected and delivered the presents from everyone else and put them under the tree. I think my aunt and grandparents contributed various bits to the stocking too, but it was always 'from Santa.'

These are the things that make the memories, sigh.

In our house santa fills the stockings and delivers one main present. Everything else is from us, grandparents, friends etc.

Last year everything we bought came from Santa and presents from others came from them. We gave DD some small presents at Easter. She said that she knew these were from us as the Easter Bunny doesn't exist. She then said that Santa gives better presents than us. So this Christmas Santa will bring some presents and some will come from us.

When children we didn't get gifts from relatives so no issue.

In our house we do pile on the sofa from santa and gifts under the tree from relatives (usually a pile of envelopes) and their main present is from us. We used to forget to give them something from us when they were little but instigated the main gift from us when they were about school age.

You had a magical and exciting Christmas! Perhaps when you see your relatives and parents you should mention that.

*My DM, who lives for Christmas, has a strange tradition all of her own. As well as a stocking from Santa and gifts from relatives there was always one small present from a "random" name, usually lifted from a comic or magazine.

So one year DB got socks from Bob Marley and I got a huge Dairy Milk from Roald Dahl.
Well, I think it's sweet....*

That is just brilliant - I think I may steal that this year.

Father Christmas just brought stocking presents when I was a child, and the same for my children now.

My parents did wait until Christmas morning to put any presents from them under the tree, so it was still a big exciting surprise on Christmas morning, but I never thought that it might have been FC delivering them there.

I will do the same - the DC's main presents under the tree will appear overnight on Christmas Eve, but there will be a few presents under the tree straight away, as I will encourage the DC to put their presents to each other and to DH under there as soon as the tree is up. Anything that comes in the post will go straight under the tree too.

One year I remember having a big pile of presents under the tree that I'd been looking at for days. But in Christmas morning they'd all gone in my stocking along with other presents. Was a little confusing... I don't think they normally did that

I love the idea of socks from Bob Marley!

Our DN's birthday is in November and they live overseas - the year he turned 1 we sent a voucher for a nearby toyshop so that BIL and SIL could pick something for him. They bought him a lovely present... which Santa then gave to him a month later! Since then we've ordered things online and got them delivered - he's old enough to realise if he does/n't get a present from us now!

In my house growing up there were no presents from family/friends as we had a big extended family so nobody would have afforded to buy presents for everyone. Santa brought the main gift. We were set a budget of what Santa could afford once we were old enough to understand. DPs started giving a book or something small like that from them in later years - probably when we started questioning them as to why they hadn't got us anything .

DS is still small so I haven't figured out what we'll do - but presents from family members will be labelled as such that's for sure!

We never had presents from Santa, I didn't know people did this. He was the person who delivered them but we knew they came from parents.

We always buy the presents then send them off to Santa who looks after them and brings them back on Christmas Eve. That way there is never any doubt who bought the presents and explained why our DC could not have all of the expensive gifts that others had - they learned the value of money and how its the thought that counts from an early age

My bloody in-laws do this, but all relatives are aware. Fair enough, each to their own.

BUT...if you are going to do this, sort out and swap presents in advance. Don't spend Christmas Eve coming to my house after 10PM (numerous relatives) and presenting me with bags of unwrapped fucking presents. I then have to wrap them and put them with the other 'From Father Christmas' gifts.

Sorry. As you were

My DM is still attempting to maintain that Father Christmas delivers all gifts and talks a lot about sending things to Father Christmas. We're trying hard to remind her that everyone likes to give gifts at Christmas and FC doesn't bring everything for everybody.

It's weird, as I don't recall her maintaining that all presents were from him when growing up.

My PIL bought DD a massive Santa sack as well as a stocking. Every year so far I've had to work out whether I've got large enough presents for it. I might lose it soon as it isn't a good way to choose presents.