If there's no FC, how is it magical?

[skinnysituation]

DC is still a bit young to completely understand and DH hates Christmas, so not much help.

If you don't do 'Father Christmas' how do you still make it special and a bit magical? Are there any traditions I could adopt for future years that would still deliver that excitement?

Feeling a little sad DC won't have that joyous anticipation of Father Christmas delivering/filling a stocking that I experienced.

Why won't he? Are you forbidden from doing it?

Why can't your child have Father Christmas? It's quite culturally ingrained these days. How old is DC?

I think you can definitely still create magic; I just wouldn't cut him out with no real reason. Will DH help to create magic or are you on your own?

Birthdays are magical without FC. Create some traditions like a lovely advent calendar,making a table Dec from foraged foliage, closing tree together, waking up to find things decorated. There are lots of lovely things you could borrow from other festivals and make chrisymassy

DH won't be helping with any sort of 'magic' he's a grumbly old Scrooge and would happily ignore the day entirely.
(He thinks it's utterly ridiculous I'm insisting on having a tree 🙄)

DC will be 2 at Christmas this year.

We agreed last year we wouldn't do FC, celebrating the giving side of Christmas more than the receiving - few things prompted this, funds being one of them. (I worry that as DC gets older, they would also think compared to friends they had been naughty, as we do not have the money for FC to bring lots.)

However, now I'm not secure in this decision, I think FC was the magical part of Christmas for me!

In my family, Christmas was on Christmas eve. The kids would leave the room when everyone had assembled (always a few cousins + extra guests who were usually people that had no family). While kids waited in another room, the candles on the tree and all around the room were lighted (all electricity turned off). Kids would come into the room silently and we would all stand around the tree and sing carols.

After carols we would dive into the huge pile of presents surrounding the tree, and finish with a lavish meal. The gifts were a combination of lovely actual presents and also boring necessities, small jokes, little things for all the adults which were often just everyday necessities, but the lavish pile with some genuine lovely presents mixed in was definitely part of the magic. It was so magical and beautiful, even though we were atheists and also had no Father Christmas.

Oh we did always have a lovely real tree, with very old fashioned handmade decorations like stars made of straw and elaborately drawn small castles and birds. Making these things was part of the excitement.

Grass that's a good point with Birthdays and some good ideas!

Clara that sounds lovely 😊

Can't imagine being mean enough to not do father Christmas. One of the things I remember from my childhood is the magic and excitement of knowing that Father Christmas was coming. I don't know why you wouldn't want your child to have that.

You need to talk to DH. He is being unfair on your child to be actively trying to make a cultural holiday period so miserable!
I grew up around people of different faiths and religions and they still had a celebration at Christmas for the children even without believing in the Christianity part, so if they could make an attempt at enjoying a festive winter holiday then I’m sure your husband can too. The ones who didn’t still had their own elaborate celebration days involving food and presents. Your DH sounds utterly joyless unless their is a major back story.

Christmas doesn’t need to involve great expense but stories, decorations, nice food and some small gifts are enjoyable and achievable to most families.

How old is your child - 3yo and just getting into the swing of Christmas, or 9yo and dosn't believe anymore?

Some friends do a 'some people believe in FC bringing presents, some don't kind of thing and Christmas is still lovely.

If your child is very young, as they understand about Christmas and the lights, the lovely food, pantomimes, special food etc, your DH may come to love the festival through your child's joy, not necessarily through the Big Man.

For us, FC is part of the story but 7yo thinks we buy the presents and FC delivers them. We are in Spain where the 3 Kings bring the gifts on 5th Jan, so they don't bang on so much about FC.

For us, it is all about traditions: the tree (same baubles every year, new bauble every year), the food, the festive Skype with faraway family, (seeing those in the antipodes in bikinis and santa hats eating bbq prawns!), decorating the rest of the house, the anticipation of 2 weeks+ off school and new toys to play with, all sleeping in the same bed Xmas night and saying Happy Christmas to the dog (who also sleeps on the bed!), opening the stockings on our bed, the gingerbreadman -shaped pancakes on Christmas morning, putting uolp the stocking, Christmas crafts (lots of loo rolls, pompoms, fingers glued together, tissue paper mishaps!).

For me it is the joy of repeated traditions and lovely hot stodgy food. It isn't as cold here as UK, there isn't wall-to-wall Christmas tv here, last Christmas Day we were watching a Hallowe'en episode of Spongebob , they don't have the tradition of pantomimes, Queen's speech (not that i'd watch it...!), not many houses are decorated inside or out - my best friend got a tree 2 years ago as she loved mine, she'd never had one in her life, i made her some cute decs for it. Here tbe nativity is massiively important - they take up an entire sideboard and are quite elaborate, children move the kings a little bit closer to the stable every day.

We, personally, don't to Xmas Eve boxes, Xmas bedding, Elf on the Shelf, FC footprints, glittery oats for Rudolph in the garden. Can't be arsed

But DS still loves Xmas Day and Xmas Eve and Boxing Day and the general excitement of everything. He has presents of course, but not anything excessive and the festival doesn't revolve around gifts. We do birthday presents for others but we have stopped xmas, even for other's dc - that has cut down both stress and tat. What we need we buy ourselves through the year (DH and i will exchange books or small things like stuff for his bike, phone cover for me, etc). Totally stress free Christmas. Oh and we do not host. My family spread all over world, DH's family asshats! We walk the dog twice on Christmas day (as every day) so we get out to blow away the cobwebs. We have Christmas dinner at 6/7pm, not the middle of the day. We eat well but don't over-indulge.

If necessary, tell your DH to fake it !

I’d ignore your DH and get on with it yourself.

I still do stockings although I don’t have any believers any more. My favourite thing is to get all the presents under the tree after they’ve gone to bed, set loads of fairy lights on timers and when they come down in the morning it’s maximum impact. Stockings get unwrapped, coffee, PJs all morning. It’s lush.

When your DC gets to school you’ll have to explain and collude because 99% of the other children will be big on Santa. What does your DH suggest for that?

If it’s not your thing, fair enough. But you know the joy it brings and it’s a shame that it’s you having to compromise on it IMO. No skin off your DHs nose to go along with it. He might even enjoy it.

I think you should go ahead and do santa. Speaking as a former poor kid: the age where you start being able to compare your gifts with someone else's or understand the market value of things, more or less coincides with starting to question Santa.
He isn't going to start thinking he's been naughty or Santa doesn't love him. He'll be trolled to receive whatever Santa brings.
Tell your DH to cheer up or butt out.

thrilled

Everything unlimited said is exactly what I would.

That's not a good reason to not do Father Christmas; and if your husband isn't going to help and put aside his "Scrooge" feelings for his son, then he doesn't get a say in how you do it.

I was a poor kid; and I had a pretty crap childhood - I didn't really know good Christmases until last year. But I embrace it; and I'm looking forward to it this year. Don't let your kid miss as many as I have.

You can also do Father Christmas with a bit of a tongue in cheek acknowledgement that it might not literally be true. Kids don't need to be fundamentalist about it in order to feel the magic.

We don’t do FC in that we pretend he exists and nor did my parents when we were growing up. We have a fairly low key Christmas but we also have traditions like we have a tree, bake gingerbread house,
visit christmas markets andand just spend time with family and friends.

I think it sounds a bit sad that your DH doesn’t want to celebrate at all. I think that is a bigger issue than not doing FC.

Thanks for the replies, lots of good advice.

I'm a bit annoyed with DH, I thought this Christmas hatred would wane after DC was born. He's a very good, incredibly fun-loving dad, so the anti-Christmas view doesn't really fit.

He had wonderful Christmases as a child, his family are very affluent, I wonder if it's more to do with not being able to repeat that for DC.

He's being a miserable sod!
Did he have Santa as a child?

Santa is magic and highly ingrained in kid culture. Santa letters in nursery and early school plus Santa turning up at kids parties. But their are different ways to do Santa and ways to limit Santa wish lists. He doesn't bring inappropriate toys, no live animals, limited space on his sleigh etc.

Different ways to do it, Santa purely the delivery man. Nothing from him but he delivers like the postman.
Santa who brings 1 gift to every child.
Santa who brings everything.

My Santa is a mishmash, brings couple of small gifts, fills stockings and 1 big gift. And delivers most other things.

We don’t do F.C. Christmas is a religious festival for us. It’s made special by preparing all through Advent, nativity plays, carol services, DC go to pantomime every Dec with MiL, shopping for presents for each other, spending hard earned money and thinking carefully about what will bring people pleasure, watching the excitement of the DC as they squirrel their purchases away and wrap in secret - delighted at the prospect of giving. Decorating the tree, the house, making gingerbread, celebrating with extended family and friends. Visiting the local garden centre which has amazing decorative displays. Midnight Mass and Mass again on Christmas morning for the younger ones.

Have a look around, there are so many traditions out there and you get to build your own!

DP has reduced me to tears every Christmas since we moved in together. He refuses to get up, open gifts, do anything for DS at all (10 and not his).

All of this sounds lovely but my main advice is to agree on how you want to handle it now instead of arguing aboyt it nearer the time and letting your DH make a misery of the whole day.

Ive never been big on Christmas but I fucking dread it now.

ditto I'm sorry Christmas isn't enjoyable for you
Do you have any family you could spend it with instead?

One of my worries is DC might resent DH for being a misery around Christmas.

How sad for your son. 🙁 FC is cultural tradition that is really hard to avoid. He visits kids at nursery and school, lots of movies will reference him...

A good Xmas doesn't have to be about the money. I have teenagers who are normally meh about everything (and obviously know the deal about FC) but these are some of the things that make them happy

• buying the Xmas tree and getting out the boxes of decorations. First weekend in December is decorating day in this house and they literally gush when opening the boxes of decorations.
• going out for a walk/drive at night to look at people's outside lights. Then home for a hot drink.
• the kids are allowed to choose a bauble every year for the tree. I have a mixture of baubles which include a Tardis and Hello Kitty (!!) They we're chosen by the kids so are part of our family history
• the arrival of the Xmas food shop on 23rd December.
• choosing which snacks can be delivered with said shop. There's lots of treats in that shop that I don't buy during the year. For example, J2O with Xmas dinner
• I'm divorced from their Dad but he makes a Xmas video from photos and video clips during the year.
• they are very happy when I present them with their advent calendars. They cost £2 tops each

He’s being entirely selfish.

A massive part of being a parent is doing stuff you don’t want to do. The sunday mornings I’ve stood in mud, rain pissing on me, watching 9 year olds play football really badly. Cheered them on all the way.

Did I want a load of teenage boys making my house stink last night? Nope, but I got the febreeze out this morning.

The very least he could do is meet you half way.

He had wonderful Christmases as a child, his family are very affluent, I wonder if it's more to do with not being able to repeat that for DC.

But it doesn't have to cost loads. We were quite hard up when I was a child but FC always paid us a visit and it was so wonderful and magical

He is being a selfish pig.

One of my very earliest memories is reaching to my stocking at the bottom of the bed and it was full because 'he'd been'!

If your DH is worried he can't provide the level of comfort he had as a child, the fact that he's depriving your children of something that costs nothing makes it worse, not better.

You can guarantee, whilst your son might not notice his house isn't as big as others, he'll know he's the only one who FC doesn't visit.