confused about father christmas

[melrose]

When i was a child fc came down the chimney and filled up our stockings which he then left at the end of our beds. we opened them first thing in the morning. when we wre all up and dressed we dug inmto the presents under the trees from Mum , dad, family and friends. This was the same for all my friends too. Is this still the case?

Seem to come across a few who have all pressies from FC. What do you do?

Also as domeone who is honest in answering all questions from 3.5 DS I am finding the endless questioning about FC and how he does what he does very hard!

we have 1 special present from FC and the rest from family.

in our family FC fills stockings - these get opened in bed with mum and dad, and GPs siting on end of bed too! everything else is from the people it actually came from, and is left under the tree.

some friends of ours put evrything in the stockings - FC brought it, but it is all from friends and family, not FC - therefore not bits to buy for stockings. FC is just the transporter of it.

we don't make a big thing of FC, but do leave a mionce pie, glass of something and a carrot for rudolph!

stockings from fc and tree prensents from family and friends etc

I was just searching for older threads about which pressies to give from us and which from FC when I saw your thread!

I'm a bit confused as I've wrapped up all the pressies ion the same paper but was going to probably give them the smaller ones from FC in their stockings and then put the big pressies from us under the tree.

Does that sounds right?

My DD sounds a bit like your DS - she's always asking how he makes them all, why doesn't he buy them from the shops, how does he deliver them across the whole world (she now reckons there's a FC in each country to make it all quciker) and sometimes she says she can't possibly believe FC exists at all and is it all a big joke!

I just tell her if you don't believe, you don't get the pressies!

We have cousins stayimg this year so need to ensure we are all giving the same info you see!

Ds is adamant that fc cannot come in the house so Daddy has had to make special contact to arrange for him to leave the stockings at the front door! Ds now saying he'd rather fc stayted away altogethjer or came while we are awake!!

oh luciemule that is the other debate in our house right now, my husband says stocking presents are wrapped but mine never were so i say they're not

When I was a kid, all presents were in a pillow case at the bottom of the bed from Santa. DH's family had stockings as kids so we've adopted that tradition. Ours now have stockings from Santa and the rest of the presents under the tree which they know of from us and family. As they get older, I think it will help them to realise we have to pay for presents and don't have limitless cash so they can't expect everything they want.

In our house FC is a delivery service more than anything else. Was when I was little, and was at DH's house too.

FC normally brings one present himself also - normally the big one fron us. This year, it is the DS.

How does it fit it all on his sleigh? Magic dust of course

We leave out a drink and somethign to eat for FC, and a carrot for Rudolph.

All presents are wrapped and left in the living room.

DD has never questioned it at all. She just accepts things as they are regards FC. Never seems to interest here in how FC works in other people's houses either and she never seems bothered if what happens elsewhere is different to here.

For us FC is a magically story which, at present, DD choses to believe in. I hope she will for a while yet but I guess as she is now 5 and at school (Y1) the year will come at some point. For now though, it is just funa nd magic in the hula household

Obviously as children get older they twig something's not quite right with the FC story.

I say that some presents are made by the elves in Santa's workshop, but that most I have to buy and then go to the Post Office and line up and send them off to the North Pole, to be packed into the sleigh. This has worked quite well, and I make a huge fuss about how long the queue was, and how the pile of presents heading off to the North Pole was huge, and I hope ours didn't get confused with other people's, blah blah blah.

Ds is 9 now, and I'm sure he doesn't believe a word, yet he throws himself into the whole thing with a glint in his eye. Dd, however, has already examined the chimney and declared it's far too small for FC to come down. She is altogether more cynical than ds.

We have stockings from father xmas everthing else is from whoever bought it, but the fact that people often buy what's on the xmas list just means that we got a letter from Santa telling us what they wanted, or went to the shop and collected what santa ahd chosen, but it's still from us iyswim.

We don't have a chimney - FC has a magic key.

I have a little sister who is almost 10 years younger than me. As me and my brother got older it was lovely to part of the FC story magic, for the sake of our little sister. Made the whole FC thing even more special in some ways. Which is why it remains so special now I have DD to do it all for.

Fircone, my 7yo has that glint in her eye too. She's written a christmas list for Father Christmas starting with Chicken Pox. This is a test for him. If she doesn't get chicken pox (unlikely as she's already had it) she'll know for sure he's not real.

do the presents go under the tree on Christmas morning OR do they appear in dribs and drabs over the weeks before?

we have an empty tree which miraculously fills up with presents on Christmas Day

BUT I am thinking, well if they are not from FC, they whey do they appear then?

I have given this a lot of thought

I see it all the same way as you melrose and I plan to keep it that way for DS. He's younger (still 2) so hasn't asked so many question yet, but I also feel uncomfortable about insisting that all this FC stuff is true. Instead I'm telling it like a fun story and if and when he starts asking awkward questions I plan to say "well what do you think, could it really happen" with a wink - and/or I have no qualms about saying "well it is a fun story, but no you're right it would be very hard to do all that in real life" etc. I want him to enjoy the fantasy but certainly not be forced to actually believe every word of it if it doesn't seem right to him. I certainyl didn't - I enjoyed the game a lot, leaving out the mince pies etc, but at some level I did know it was a game. Children aren't dim!

Our tree magically appears over night on Christmas Eve. We do sometimes put the odd ones of mine or DHs under, but none of DD's presents.

Think the presents going under the tree any sooner than when the children have gone to bed on Chriooistmas eve is just testing their willpower a little too much!

People buy the presents (which accounts for the adverts on TV and toys in shops!) then FC delivers it all (and/or wraps)

FC brings stockings and presents in our house. Just always the way we did it. Family also give gifts but they know who they are from.

I never knew there were so many different ways of doing it till I came on MN!

I know!

I used to say FC got everything but then did thank you cards for relatives

luckily they did not query this discrepancy as too young

this year, FC will bring fuck off pillow case stocking, rest will go under tree from relatives and us

Wouldn't it all be easier if FC just bought some nuts and an orange like he used to?!!!

I was really laughing at the thought of us all carefully planning the whole FC story out so carefully- it's was like a military operation to stop the DCs finding out.

FC does bring satsumas thoguh Lucie! They go in the stocking, he won't give you just sweeties because it's bad for your teeth and back in the 'Olden days'....(my story of St.Nicholas comes in)

My brother lives in Australia, so when we ring him on Christmas Eve it is already Christmas day there and FC has BEEN! And so therefore is ON HIS WAY!

This always seems a good explanation to me (in that not all done in one night, he does get a good 24 hours which makes it all the more reasonable).

I distinctly remember as a child asking to put a pillow case out and thinking to myself "this is all rubbish but I'm not saying anything because I want the stuff!"

Like someone else said - children aren't daft!

What an interesting thread!!!! I?ve loved reading this and really wanted to add my little tale. DH and I couldn?t do it the way we always did it, because we both did very different things!

As a child, I brought presents with my parents, we wrapped them and FC?s elves came and collected them magically in the night when we left them out, and FC delivered them. FC also put up our tree after we had gone to bed and filled our stockings that were left on the foot of our bed. So he was mainly a courier for us, but did give us stocking fillers.

As a child, DH had tree up on 1st Dec, family and friends brought, wrapped and placed presents under tree asap, and on the night FC came and added his (many) presents to the pile and gave everyone stocking fillers.

Two very different approaches and we had to compromise. So, our DS will help us put up the tree on about 23rd or 24th Dec, when DH has finished work for the holidays, we will shop for and wrap presents, leave them out for FC?s elves and FC will deliver presents, leave just one personal present under the tree and give stocking fillers. I have made a large sack, bigger than a pillow case, for DS to leave under the tree on Christmas Eve for FC to put his one present in.

It sounds daft, but it took DH and I a long time to work it out what we were doing, because we each had very fond memories of the magic of Christmas as children ourselves. I never knew there was another way of doing things, and you know the worse part ? the parents and PIL. They want to know why we aren?t doing it exactly the way we did it as children and find it hard to understand our compromise!!

I wouldn?t impose this story on my DS/any other children I might have, after all it is a lie, but while they are young and while they believe in magic (and children aren't daft and don?t believe for very long) I think it?s nice. However the true meaning of Christmas is my main priority, and my 19 month old DS already knows how to say ?Jesus? and ?Amen? so I am very happy at that!

Wow, long post!

FC brings everything in our house. Stockings first thing and bigger pressies later. For the bigger pressies FC is a sort of courier - so they're from someone else but he brings them. And me and dh are FC's helpers, that's why we have Xmas wrapping paper in our wardrobe!

Forgot to say - no pressies under our tree until Xmas Eve after dc are in bed.