Presents from Father Christmas if your child doesn't live with you

[AutisticLegoLover]

Eldest Dd lives with her dad (a very long and painful story) and won't be with me this Christmas. Normally all her presents are put in her personalised sack and she chooses a stocking from the collection we have. Father Christmas gifts go under the tree.
I don't know how to do it this year and I don't know if I'll even see her. I hope I do but with Dd nothing is guaranteed except her being abusive or at best obnoxious. Despite this I don't want to treat her any differently to her siblings.
Would Father Christmas presents just be at her dad's house? Should I put everything under the tree for when she might come round? Or put them in a big gift bag and hope I can get them to her or her dad before Christmas? Her dad is a nasty abusive piece of dirt and I'm NC with him so that's tricky but doable.
Whatever I do is bound to be wrong in her eyes.
What would you do?

How old is she? Does she still believe in FC?

You could have him come to two houses although under the circumstances that do you think it would work? If not just have presents from you when she comes and FC just went to dad's

I think this depends on how old DD is, if she’s still a complete believer and if your ex will supply FC presents.

For reasons I don’t understand, my exH took our split as an opportunity to wean our DCs off Santa 🤷🏻‍♀️. So in our house they always write their letters to Santa from here and he always makes a delivery to our house, even on the years they’re not with me for Christmas.

If your DD knows your buying the FC presents, then yes, you need to get some stuff in a sack and get it to her.

For DSS on the Christmas we don't have him santa still comes and the gifts are there when we have him after Christmas, usually boxing day. I believe mum does similar when it's our Christmas.

In our case DSS is 10 and this is the first year he has outright said he doesn't believe but for us we will probably continue to keep that up more for his younger siblings to see.

What age is she? Does she still believe in santa? Will the younger siblings care? We also do stocking for mum and dad so would be weird to not have one for DSS

I would do everything as normal at your house so they are there for her the next time she comes.

Will her dad do Santa things for her? How old is she?

The situation sounds tricky, and I'd be cautious not to provide any situation which could be seen as proof that you care less about her.

She's 16 and believes yet doesn't believe. If I do everything as normal there'll be a big pile of presents just sat there for a long time and my other dc will be sad to see it as it will emphasise that she's not here. She has got the same presents as she would have if she was here. There's no difference there but it's the what to do with them that's tricky.

Put them in those big gift bags or a Christmas sack and put them out if she comes to visit. The younger kids must know what she is like.

This is solid advice.

I think I'll go for the big gift bag with everything in that she'd normally get from the family. Father Christmas will have to sort out her presents from him and get them to where she's going to be

That seems sensible and less stress for you.

She's called me some disgusting names tonight at an event with others from the wider family and in front of her siblings so I feel like sending all the gifts back. I wasn't there but I've heard about it.

Does she have mental health problems? That sounds really upsetting for you.

For my DSD we say Santa comes to both houses, but she’s only young and we half Christmas Day. For a sixteen year old I’d probably just put her stuff in a bag and try to maybe see her at her Dad’s house on the day if possible?

It sounds like the Christmas presents are a really minor issue here in comparison to some other issues. Do you think you might be transferring some of your anxiety about your relationship with your daughter onto the stocking issue? It would be understandable, it sounds like it's been very stressful recently.

With the presents, she isn't going to actually believe in Santa at that age, and you've said that anything you decide to do will be wrong - why not just ask her what she wants to do about it? Whether you should deliver her presents to her dad so she can have them on Christmas Day, or whether you should keep them with you until she visits? It doesn't mean you need to keep them on display until she comes over.

I'm not anxious about our relationship but I'm sad and angry and frustrated with everything going on. It's not just me that she has issues with and it's hard going. My thinking is that I don't want to treat her any differently to the others and this will be the first time we won't see her at Christmas so it's all new and upsetting. The fact is she is behaving very differently to the others and is abusive to them too and my instinct is to try to maintain normal and tradition when she's currently running screaming away from us all. Except when she wants me to get her from school saying she's ill. Or she has an argument with her dad and wants me on her side. It's complex but I think the problem is my mum heart telling me to keep things the same when all logic and experience this far says to forget it all together.