Wrapping paper from santa

[dreamygirl25]

In the past, I've wrapped santa gifts in one type of paper, then gifts from us in a different type.
Does anyone not do this and do your 6/7/8 year old children make the connection?

I'm struggling with my mental health at the moment and can barely face doing much at all right now so please be kind - it may be another thing I seem to be over thinking! When I was little I remember noticing Santa's handwriting was the same as my mum/dad's and the paper was the same but it never stopped my disbelief!

It’s not going to be the end of the world when the dc figure things out - and spotting a clue like the wrapping paper or the writing can be one of the nicer ways of finding out. Solving a mystery feels clever; getting told by a classmate makes you feel stupid.

And it’s not our job as parents to keep the secret going indefinitely. In fact, the longer it goes on the more delicate a situation it becomes.

I’m not a grinch, but I’m trying to lift the pressure off you a bit OP. How about for this year, you leave the Santa gifts unwrapped (there’s a serious elf shortage at the North Pole since they’re all out monitoring naughty children and getting up to mischief at night), and pop the family ones in gift bags with a bit of scrunched tissue on top.

At those ages they are at the tail end of believing and will absolutely notice. You could get away with it if they were 2 or 3.

Not about wrapping paper but this thread reminded of a Christmas party when I was teacher in a school nursery class. The Santa we were expecting didn't turn up so the school secretary put the costume on and dished out the presents. None of the children seemed to notice apart from one who came up to me and whispered that Santa was wearing ladies' shoes. She didn't doubt it WAS Santa just surprised at his choice of footwear. They believe what they want to believe so I wouldn't worry about the wrapping paper.

I don't believe my mum and dad ever did this and I believed until very late - I think I might have been as old as 12! I never thought about it too hard.. I doubt the average child does.. until they start to have doubts.

Edited to add.
It probably does depend on the paper. If it's very distinctive paper - not the usual snowflakes, Robins, Santas - then it it'll probably be more noticeable!

I 100% agree with this. Let them figure it out for themselves rather than having to tell them later. I don't really understand the lengths people go to to keep children believing, the longer it goes on the more like lying it becomes.

Santa wraps all his presents in tartan paper here but my parents were like yours and it never stopped me from believing either

Different paper still here despite DC being 19 and 15. Although we also still do ‘has he been?’ In the morning and leave a mince pie and glass of wine milk out before bed…. 🙈😂

In our house santa brings one gift and he fills the stocking. So at the least, I wrap one gift in santa paper and the stuff in the stocking doesn't need to be wrapped if you don't want to.

You just do whatever makes life easiest though - all in the same, not wrapped at all, whatever helps.

All wrapped in a mix. And just labeled appropriately. Kids none the wiser - to my knowledge!

one year I put a scrap of every paper used out with the mince pie for Santa to let him know what paper we liked 😆

I remember my young daughter loudly exclaiming that Santa used the same wrapping paper that we did.....

We just always said that Santa had the same wrapping paper as us. I wrapped gifts in any paper and none of our children ever questioned it.

If you have a spare £10 or £20, I recommend investing in something like this:

KAHEIGN 30Pcs Christmas Drawstring Gift Bag, 6 Styles Large Gift Bag Christmas Goodie Bags Assorted Wrapping Bags for Birthday Christmas Party https://amzn.eu/d/is8eNFN

It makes wrapping so easy, and the set I bought is on its third year. That takes the stress out of wrapping, and makes it easy to keep it all separate.

(My DS did start questioning Santa at 4, when we went to a party where parents supply the presents. He wanted to know why he and DC2 had the same wrapping paper, and everyone else had different).

The things from Santa will be in a stocking so sort of already wrapped. I wrap a few of the more special things in tissue paper (because it's easy and sometimes you can see the item through the wrapping a bit which normally isn't what you want but from Santa it's okay 😉) but leave most of it unwrapped. Any leftover tissue paper can be shoved back in the Christmas stuff for next year.
They also don't need tags or writing on of any kind of you store all the stocking gifts together.

Well my mum using the same paper is how I figured it out..

Always same paper here. One dc did comment on it one year but I just said he must have gone to the same shop as us. I'm not a fan of going to extreme lengths to drag out the believing phase (I know different paper isn't extreme but I think a lot of things people mention on mumsnet are!) They are teens now but Christmas is still magical to them even if they haven't believed for years. Do whatever you can manage this year

I bulk bought the extra large rolls of paper from studio with a gorgeous Father Christmas flying through the night sky scene. It lasted all through the three kids believing years. I kept it in the loft so they never saw the rolls.

Different paper and mine are 18 and 21

Santa never wrapped gifts when I was growing up and he never wrapped my children's gifts either.
We just found them under the tree or at the end of the bed.

I didn't say which were and weren't from Santa. I wrapped all in the same and I think they assumed all were from Santa.

I never thought about it.

A well mother is more important.

If you have any money to throw at the issue then present bags really speed up wrapping. Or silver foil scrunched around.

We ended up with three different colours for each child from FC and then different ones again for us after dh mixed up the presents one year and I had to partly unwrap to check which was which.

I do different paper for different family members so I don't have to write tags.
Santa also does different paper for different family members, so quite a few different types of paper. I really hate writing labels!

I think they likely will notice I’m afraid.

But it’s much more important that you look after yourself. I think a pp’s suggestion of putting any Santa gifts into the stocking unwrapped or using one gift bag/sack is a good one to make things easier.

I always used different, cheaper! paper from Santa, and the stocking presents were hastily and scrappily wrapped - no point doing them beautifully when it’d all be torn off in the usual early Christmas morning frenzy.

Which reminds me, I need to wrap dh’s stocking presents….

I wrap each child's gifts from Santa in their own colour paper. My DD always has red paper, DS1 always gets blue and DS2 always gets green with foster son getting gold paper. It's easier if you do this not to get gifts mixed up and put in wrong stocking. I use different paper for main gift from us but same colour scheme.

I have double sided paper this year, and have used the reverse side for the Santa presents. I am now wondering if my very observant 4 year old will notice 😂 I’ll have to tidy the wrapping paper away very quickly!