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Christmas

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The Santa debate

74 replies

Momsknowbest · 09/10/2017 21:49

My son is 3 (also have a baby under 6mths) and this will be the 1st year that he will actually get into Christmas (already pointing out decorations in shops). I don't want to ruin the excitement of Santa but I feel I can't allow him to think he brought all the gifts aswell. I tried to explain to my partner that I'd like to explain that Santa brings 1 present to all the boys and girls and mummy, daddy and family bring everything else, I also want to sway the gift he asks Santa for to be something inexpensive as he attends school with children who may not get everything they ask for. My partner thinks we shouldn't worry about other children as he works hard for everything we have but id hate after Xmas for him to return with the gift everyone asked Santa for to find out one kid didn't get it.
What do other parents do??
I know christmas isnt just about the gifts but be reassured we have lots of family time and always visit the grandparents,aunts ect leaving gifts at home to play games and eat cold turkey sandwiches and watch the tv specials.

OP posts:
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot · 10/10/2017 12:50

How did your parents to it when you were small? Any reason why you can't replicate that?

In our house, Santa brings stockings filled with lots of small (hopefully exciting) little things, which helps keep everyone occupied until tree presents later (all of which come from named people).

Santa brings his stuff - he's never had a monopoly over all gifts.

TittyGolightly · 10/10/2017 12:56

Titty well...yes? To kids anyway. It's make believe, fantasy, magical to them.

Do your kids never dress up and pretend to be, say, a ballerina or a superhero? Do you tell them they're actually just a kid and they're being silly?

Of course not. Let their imagines run wild before they get older and all of that is stopped.

Why do you assume there's no encouragement of imagination? Why do you imagine that imagination ever stops? I'm almost 40 and use mine every day. Did yours die with santa?

TittyGolightly · 10/10/2017 12:57

DD thinks the ISS is magical. That does fly, unlike reindeer.

dementedpixie · 10/10/2017 12:57

We always did it that any presents bought by dh and I were from Santa. Stocking was from him as well. Other presents were from the giver. None of mine believe now and Ds actively questioned the concept of Santa from the age of 6. Think we got to 8 before he stopped believing altogether. I don't know when Dd stopped believing tbh

MissFlashpants · 10/10/2017 13:11

Right...so to you, talking about an imaginary figure is lying to your children, but you're being chippy with me because you're a super-imaginative middle-aged woman? How odd.

TittyGolightly · 10/10/2017 13:30

It's not the talking about it though, is it? Some people seem hell bent on making it seem real (sleigh bells, glitter footprints).

We've never stopped DD imagining anything she likes. We left it up to her to develop an understanding of santa or not. She appears to have chosen not.

She also horrified at the idea that a fairy would come and take her teeth. She's keeping them herself - what for I don't know. But it's her choice.

She's quite into science, but loves magic in many other forms. Just not santa.

Bornfreebutinbiscuits · 10/10/2017 13:38

titty what did you think of the roald dhal putting the dream thing up to his dc window when creating the BFG, or the children of Spike Milligan, when he write them stories from fairies in the garden and they wrote back and both sets of dc saying how amazing that all was?

You seem very invested in not doing FC and almost frustrated and bad tempered at those of us who do it? I guess you would ban it if you were PM?

TittyGolightly · 10/10/2017 13:51

I adore Roald Dahl and Spike Milligan. No issues with stories. Don't see anyone trying to present those as fact to small children though.

I've no issue with santa as a story, or even with children believing it's real. It's the forcing of it on them by parents/wider society that I object to. I don't see any magic in that.

newmumwithquestions · 10/10/2017 13:52

Santa brings a stocking and 1 present here.

DD (3) remembers exactly who bought her what presents so I'm not sure I agree with PP who say they're not aware.

However she has no concept of money - just as happy with pound shop tat as something more expensive.

EvilDoctorBallerinaVampireDuck · 10/10/2017 13:54

Santa brings one present worth around £20, plus some kind of chocolate, family and friends buy everything else. 😆

Bornfreebutinbiscuits · 10/10/2017 13:56

Sorry I didn't make it clear.

I have seen programs with Roald and Spikes children speaking fondly of their " magical " childhoods with these amazing writers.
In the program Dhals child said he climbed up ladder and put dream catcher to the window...and other stuff...and Spikes said he wrote them messages from fairies at the bottom of the garden and they would write back. These instances are highlights of their childhoods.

Bubblebubblepop · 10/10/2017 13:58

Stockings from FC! My parents never really explained anything and we didn't seem to notice ( as in all
Presents were from them but we believed in FC) think we just assumed he was a courier type person

EvilDoctorBallerinaVampireDuck · 10/10/2017 13:59

MissFlashpants DD's 10 and showing no signs of realising that Santa isn't real. I think DSis was 13 before she finally realised!

TittyGolightly · 10/10/2017 14:05

Sorry I didn't make it clear.

I have seen programs with Roald and Spikes children speaking fondly of their " magical " childhoods with these amazing writers.
In the program Dhals child said he climbed up ladder and put dream catcher to the window...and other stuff...and Spikes said he wrote them messages from fairies at the bottom of the garden and they would write back. These instances are highlights of their childhoods.

Both child led rather than adult led then.

If DD wants to play a game where there are fairies living in the garden then we play it. I'll happily go with the magic she's creating.

If she showed any interest in santa I'd go along with it in the same way. Despite huge societal pressure she hasn't. So I'm not forcing it on her.

Is it really that hard to understand?

Redglitter · 10/10/2017 14:13

When we were growing up Santa brought us one present and a stocking. We wrote to Santa every year with our requeat All the other presents were from Mum & dad (or who ever bought them)

My brother & SIL adopted the same system when their children came along.

I would have found it really strange as a child if I'd got nothing from my parents at Christmas

2ducks2ducklings · 10/10/2017 14:14

No presents are ever from Santa in our family. He brings them, but only after we've sent money to him for the presents and he thinks they have behaved enough to have them.

bookworm14 · 10/10/2017 14:18

Stockings from santa, big presents from whoever bought them. Until I joined MN I don't think I realised there were families where santa brought everything!

Annwithnoe · 10/10/2017 14:18

OP when we were small and hadn't two pennies to rub together, my DM used to encourage us to ask for a "surprise" from Santa.
Santa's visit was always magical: spotting his sleigh in the sky and rushing to bed, finding sooty finger prints around the room and coal kicked out of the fireplace, milky circles on the table from his glass, half chewed carrot on the lawn....
I think it's lovely that you're thinking about the impact on other children.

Bubblebubblepop · 10/10/2017 14:33

There's always someone desperate to be different

InDubiousBattle · 10/10/2017 14:35

My dc will be just turned 4 and 2.5 at Christmas. We will do a short list for Santa (last year dd was too little and ds's list had 4 things on), on Christmas Eve we lay out milk, mince pie and carrots and on Christmas morning they are gone with crumbs left and the list presents are there. All other presents are from the people they are actually from but we don't bring them out until Christmas day. My cousin asks that we all give her the gifts for her dd so that she can hide them and they are all delivered by Santa.

TittyGolightly · 10/10/2017 14:48

There's always someone desperate to be different

How boring it would be to all be the same.

The Santa debate
Fueledwithfairydustandgin · 10/10/2017 15:04

Personally I think there are so many other ways to teach them the value of money you really don't need to use santa to do it. I would hate to have missed out on that magic just for an opportunity to teach something that I could have taught anyway. we have always done everything that we buy is from santa and anything else is from the buyer. That's what we had and I never really got into the technicalities as a young child

Bornfreebutinbiscuits · 10/10/2017 15:05

Both child led rather than adult led then

Hmm Grin

No, very much adult led! Started by the adult!

TittyGolightly · 10/10/2017 15:17

How is a child putting a dream catcher up led by the adult?

Bornfreebutinbiscuits · 10/10/2017 16:33

Hi Titty ,

We are talking at cross purposes.
In the book the BFG ( Big Friendly Giant) the character the BFG puts a large glass thing up to the window of sleeping children...to catch their dreams.

Here: Lovely article

time.com/4343386/roald-dahl-bfg-book-movie/

"The witch’s potion was a delicious concoction that my father made us every evening at bedtime, a combination of canned peaches or pears, milk, and a few drops of either red, green, or blue food coloring whizzed up in a blender to make a homemade milkshake-type drink. “The witches dropped it off at the doorstep five minutes ago,” my father would tell us with convincing authority, the same way he told us about our BFG who lived in a cave under the apple trees of our orchard right next to our house"

Everything was magical, even the witch balls that hung on clear fishing twine at different lengths and heights from our bedroom ceiling. “Witch balls” are beautiful, antique, fragile balls of all different colors. My father told us that they were to keep the bad witches away: “One look at her reflection in the witch ball and she’ll be scared to death and disappear faster than she arrived.” We were safe; we had so many mystical things around us. The Witches (good ones); the BFG; Fantastic Mr. Fox, who lived under the “witch tree,” a spectacular beech tree that had grown from three small trees into one massive climbing tree, which stood gracefully halfway up the little country lane where we lived, in a rambling farmhouse called Gipsy House.

He did this to make sure that later the BFG could get his stick through to blow dreams into our room. Then my father kissed us good night, tucked us in snugly, and turned out our light. Then we waited . . .

The wait was never long. Usually within about five minutes a long bamboo stick slowly poked its way through the middle of our curtains. First the stick would aim at my older sister Ophelia’s bed. It stopped steadily for a moment, and then we would hear two terrifically loud blows, rather like the sound a great big whale makes when it blows through its spout. Then, very slowly and carefully, the bamboo stick would turn toward me. The thrill was exhilarating: what could be my dream tonight? Two huge blows were exhaled in my direction, and then the long bamboo would slowly retract back through the curtains, and within seconds we went to sleep. We couldn’t wait to go to sleep and dream our special dreams that the BFG had made for us that day, from his cave under the apple trees of our orchard.