How much does Father Christmas give your children?

[bumble79]

Myself and partner have different views on this. Growing up all his presents were from 'Father Christmas'

For us, we had a stocking and maybe a large gift or a few smaller gifts from him and the rest were from parents. This was always a thing.

What is normal?

I don't want Father Christmas to get all the credit 🤣

I'm thinking a stocking and a main present for him and the rest from us?

What do others do??

Stockings upstairs from Father Christmas, presents under the tree from us. It’s quite fun for them thinking of what to ask Father Christmas for that fits in the stocking.

It avoids asking to overly expensive gifts or gifts we have said no to

Stocking & 1 large present.

Rest from us & family.

Father Christmas wraps in plain red paper.

Stocking and 1 big gift from santa. Keeps the magic alive in my opinion. When they visit Santa and ask for a new bike, lovely to see their faces when he delivers.

Only little stocking gifts from Santa and left in the bedroom. I'm in England.
Everything from relatives under the tree.

Just wondering, those who say some gifts are from them not FC, why?

Stockings come from FC and not the bigger presents as I didn't want them talking to friends and wondering why he only brings some children a few presents and others get hundreds....it just seemed fairer.

Also DH and I give each other presents on Christmas morning too from one another and we give gifts to other family members so it feels totally natural to also give the DC gifts from us and include them in that.

Can I just say although FC was just the delivery guy in our house my DD’s 100% believed in the magic of FC and Christmas. We had a special cupboard where the presents would be collected by the elves. We still left - and will continue to leave mince pies etc and make reindeer food. They always wrote a letter to FC and posted it.

Just because some people do things differently doesn’t make it ‘wrong’

Stockings come from FC and not the bigger presents as I didn't want them talking to friends and wondering why he only brings some children a few presents and others get hundreds....it just seemed fairer.

This. I used to work with vulnerable families, sometimes the only presents they got were the things we sourced them from charities/the Social Work donation box.

When I was a child, and with dds, relatively little things in stockings only from FC.
Everything else from family, who needed to be thanked.

We were always told that FC couldn’t bring anything big or expensive (so no use asking!) and I did the same with dds.
That never stopped them being super-excited.

FC only fills a stocking here, but stockings are always the favourite. FC fills stockings for everyone, even adults in our house. I wanted mine to have reasonable expectations and it seemed easier that way.

Initially all the gifts from us were from Santa, until dd questioned why we hadn’t given them anything so then we gave them a small gift. Gifts from other relatives are acknowledged as such.

I think the example of giving generously and anonymously purely for the benefit of the recipient is a very important lesson. And as mine discovered that Santa wasn’t quite what they thought, they got drawn into creating the magic for other people by filling shoeboxes for the homeless, advising on gifts for siblings, sending donations to the hospital, picking a gift for a needy child, and taking care not to tell another child before they are ready to move on.

We still play “the Santa game” now and go through the rituals for fun. I’ve no idea how long that will continue.

Stocking and the one thing they've asked from Santa. The rest is under the tree from us and then any relative gifts but usually we see relatives with gifts so mainly ours to them. It's a difficult one as everyone does it different!

I am in Ireland too and presents and stocking are all from Santa, a present under the tree from Mom and Dad and presents from friends and family eirher given directly to them or under the tree from whoever gave it to them. This way they have the magic of believing Santa is kind and generous, they also have a present from us so we all exchange presents and they get to thank whoever else gave them presents too. I dont know anyone over here that doesnt do it like that to be honest.

We do one santa present and the rest from us or family. The main reason is that some children get far less or nothing and I too have heard the story of the child who really behaved well but got nothing or very little and thought they had done something wrong.

We do stocking and then presents from Santa to the value of £50! They are 8 & 10 and questioned why some friends get iPads from Santa and they don't! I said different families do different things and our choice is that we give Santa £50 to get them something which means he has more to spend on children who don't have much. They seem to accept it! If we ever did choose to buy them something so big for Christmas it would come from us so they understand that we have had to spend that amount of money and it's not just come from someone they don't know for free 😁

Everything from Santa except one present which is from me! Mainly because she likes to get me one, and one for friends, grandparents etc etc, so it seems 'fair' that way. She has a strongly developed sense of justice and getting multiple presents from me but only giving me one is weird! And as she gets to be an adult, there'll be a natural segue to giving her one present and a stocking from Santa, rather than continuing to spend hundreds of pounds!

Santa brings a stocking and one "big" gift.
The gift is always something from their list.

Everything we bought was from Father Christmas, things from other people were from those people.
Dd is too old to believe now & it makes me sad, I loved how excited she used to be xmas eve/morning waiting to see if he’d been!

I’m in Ireland.

Letters to Santa asking for whatever they want. They get what they ask for plus extras plus a stocking.

Present from mam and dad under the tree.

Presents from everyone else given to them on Christmas Day or put under the tree with names on.

I don’t know anyone who does it differently.

Ours get stocking presents from Santa, these are small things - colouring pencils, a book, bath bomb, notepad, small lego set etc. Everything else is from the person who gave it to them.

Dh tells of a boy he was at primary school with who only got Santa presents and was sad that his parents didn’t want to get him presents...

Everything myself and their father buys is from santa. It was how I was bought up too.

Father Christmas never gave anything to mine. How could he? He doesn't exist.

Everything is from Father Christmas, eventually they figure out it was all you.

When I was little, Santa brought everything except presents from relatives. Apparently, one year I asked why my cold hearted parents hadn't got me a Christmas present! After that, Santa brought most things but there was also something under the tree from my parents. I think we'll be doing the same with DS

When I was little everything came from Santa. It was a sofa full. All of my cousins and friends received similar. Same when older. It makes me sad that DH just got 1 medium present and a small stocking.

For our DC now, a big present like a bike or iPad comes from us (as Santa wouldn’t be able to make such expensive items for all children) and everything else comes from Santa. DH thinks I go overboard, but it’s always things they’ll love and play with. And I think his old Christmas sounds miserly (I know MIL had less money than my DM/DF to spend, but she smoked 20 a day and drank 0.5 a bottle of nice wine every evening, so I think that’s a value judgement she made).

The stocking only.