Who are kids presents from? Santa or you?

[starfish8]

Couldn't summarise that well in a title. My ds is now 5 so he's going to be more aware this Christmas about how things work.

How do you explain to your kids who presents are from? When I was a child my mum said Santa delivers them but mummy's/daddy's send them off to him. I think she wanted us to know that they contribute to them.

I know others say certain presents are from Santa and others from them, like a particular gift or the stocking presents.

Feel like I need to get my script together before the questions start!

Stocking is from Santa, all the good stuff is from us. Why should Santa get all the credit 😂

Santa brings their main present, the rest are from us.

Santa brings stockings and tree presents.

Relatives give their own gifts.

Getting 'credit' is not something that concerns us.

Santa brings the main gift and stocking and we buy the rest. Plus gifts from family and friends. I think it's important he knows that we and family buy him things as he understands he can't have everything he wants then.

We do stocking and 1 bigger present from father Christmas, the rest from us. We have separate wrapping paper.

I have explained to my children about those less fortunate than us and ever year we do the shoebox appeal.

Their cousins get presents from Santa & their parents so when asked by DD why I don't buy them presents, I explained that she already has lots of toys & gets presents from Santa anyway so I think it's better we give something to those who are less fortunate rather than buying her more presents. She agreed and was happy with this arrangement.

When I was little FC bought all the presents my parents bought and it didn't even occur to me that I didn't also get presents from them. I just don't think children think that deeply about these things do they? Unless an adult puts the idea in their heads?

I'm more of a passive FC parent. We don't make any great efforts to convince DC that FC is real but we do talk about "Father Christmas presents" as opposed to presents from Father Christmas and my DC1 was fully aware that he saw 3 different Father Christmases last Christmas. But I think the fact we don't try to micro manage his FC experience and let him figure it all out in his own head actually makes it more magical.

And now I'm rolling my eyes at myself for calling it "his FC experience"

Mine got quite enough magic and pleasure from their stocking and preparations for a visit from fc etc. I am not some sort of bah humbug scrooge but to me it is very wrong to make other presents from him too for the reasons given in my original post. It is all to materialistic to my way of thinking.

Father Christmas brings 1 present, parents etc. bring the rest (its what my mum did too)

That way you still get the 'magic' of Father Christmas and his elves, but also can explain about why some children get less/charity appeals etc.
But my DS is only 2.5 so doesn't realise things like that yet.

Santa brings a stocking and one present, which is a toy because elves make it. Other stuff is from the actual giver!

We do so the majority from Santa 🎅 but have one or two from us so it looks more authentic 🤣

DH never got anything from Santa. The PILs made sure they knew it came from them so (as MIL put it) “they knew who to thank”.🙄

However, they were still supposed to believe in Santa. DH said he and his siblings were really confused because why all the excitement of Santa coming when he didn’t bring anything???

We got a big present from parents and almost everything else from Father Christmas. My parents weren’t hung up on the “know who paid for it” crap, it’s children at Christmas not a divorce settlement!

My daughter found the Smyths catalogue the other day, as she was the first through the door when we got home. She circled most of the toys so we had a chat about how I save money from working and send a little to Santa every week, through the year. Hopefully, her letter to Santa won’t be too long!

We’ve had this conversation at work. General consensus was the more money your family had, the more likely you got loads of gifts from “Santa”. The families who had to watch the pennies wanted the children to know the gifts were from them.

Stockings from father christmas, everything else is from whoever sent it but it all gets delivered by father christmas so no presents under the tree until christmas.

All these people wanting credit for Santa’s work! I’m shocked!

Seriously, I think it’s a class or socioeconomic thing. The more you can afford, the less you feel the need to ”take credit” for making a magical Christmas for your children.

Santa brings stocking fillers and a small gift, the remainder are from parents. This is because it's not fair for others who get less from santa.

How do the children know what all
The other children get? Who’s comparing?

Kids always talk about what santa bought them.

They’re going to talk about what anyone gave them, not just Santa!

But they do talk about specially what santa brought them. I would hate for another child to feel like santa doesn't care because my kids got something fancy. I have to be careful because my daughter remembers what toys are from santa years later.

Santa only brings what fits in the stocking and they can open that as soon as they get up. Includes small toys they can play with before the main present opening begins. No way is some imaginary man getting the credit for my present buying!

Santa brings all the presents (ie those bought by the parents). Family members then give their presents when they see them , or else they are put under the tree until Christmas morning (with tags saying whom from).

Parents then give one gift on Christmas Eve (usually more like they allow the kids to pick out one present each and the parents pay for it there and then. Just something small like a dvd or colouring book).

This is what it was like when I was growing up. I was always very very thankful ! Even knowing Santa brought the presents, it's like I was just thankful to be in the situation , iyswim! Very magical.

I do not understand why parents feel the need to get the credit for Santa presents what is the point of Santa in that case!? It doesn't make any sense to me its meant to be magical, not just another day in the year ... just let it be magical!!!

Of course presents from anyone else (aunts, uncles, GP) should be labeled accordingly. You are Santa , not everyone else ...

With regards to writing the Santa list, we were just told that we couldn't have everything. So we had to pick our favorites and label them as such. Then we could write down a few more as well. Honestly no need for further explanation. We were children. We didn't overthink anything ! We just went along with what we were told. Never questioned it.

Also, by the time we get back to school in January, nobody is really talking about Christmas anymore. So no need to worry about comparing presents. But at the same time, it was just normal for the more spoilt kids to have fancier stuff than me all the time. So like for their birthdays through out the year, their presents were bigger and bolder than mine would be. So again, even if I did find out what they got for Christmas, I never took any notice of the discrepancy...

Stop overthinking it, and let kids be kids for the few years that they get to be [santa]

glampingroundeurope - You have me curious now, I'm going to ask at work what people do. I can't work out if the Santa Postal Service and getting "credit" for presents are Mumsnet things. I'm wondering if it may be regional?