If your teenagers don't believe

[noFC]

Does Father Christmas bring a gift for your dc regardless of age or just the believers? If he doesn't do you make up for it by getting the non-believers more to even things out?

Also, how do you manage this when your dc aren't with you on Christmas morning so will miss out on stockings and a Father Christmas gift under the tree? My two eldest will be with their dad this Christmas Eve and Christmas morning so won't be hanging stockings 😔

I still get a stocking if we're at my mum's for Christmas and I haven't believed in 40+ years!

I think it's awkward to create a situation where DC must pretend to believe so they get a stocking.

I really think adults overthink the make-believe element of Santa and it gets them into all sorts of trouble such as making up elaborate lies for DC and getting upset when they no longer believe.

I think it would be much better if we all follow the example of our DC and their richly incentive make-believe games. It's really irrelevant whether they actually believe they are an astronaut or a dinosaur or whatever when they're absorbed in a make believe game, they enjoy the magic of it anyway.

The magic of Santa is it's a lovely make-believe game we all play together. We can continue playing this game together long after DC come to understand it's just a game.

I worked out Father Christmas wasn't real when I was pretty young - about Year 1. If you'd asked me any day if the year other than Christmas Eve or Christmas Day if Santa was real, I'd have known the answer was no. (Although I may not have admitted it).

But come Christmas Eve, some doubt would creep into my head and I wasn't sure! I remember trying to stay up all night to prove to myself it was my parents (never managed it!)

And come Christmas morning when the stocking had appeared I got swept up in the magic of it all and just enjoyed it. Santa felt real then, even if I didn't always believe, as I was a child and the boundaries between fantasy and reality were much more blurred than they are in adult-world.

Father Christmas is a lovely game that we should play with our DC as long as they want to play it, not dependent on whether they believe IMO.

Mine are adults who come home for Christmas, their stockings are still filled by Santa. Even more important now we have Grandson coming too. Tbh very little changed once they knew and as adults they insisted that the same traditions continued.

If you believe, and put a stocking out, it gets filled. Dems da rules.

Your mum's not a believer, she presumably did stockings for you. You are not a believer, as you do the stockings for your kids.

Playing along is not believing.

For teens they hang up a stocking, but everyone knows who fills the stocking.

So for your teens at their dad's, you take a photo and they unwrap when they necf get to yours.

If there are younger children as well as teenagers, the teenagers can get involved in making the magic for the little ones.

There was a game we used to play on Christmas Eve: we children (older ones as well) would all be blindfolded in the garden and listen out for the sleigh bells, and an early present dropped into the garden. As the oldest, I was blindfolded first, so the little ones would see this. After their eyes were covered, my blindfold would be quietly taken off, so I could get involved in the making of the bell sounds. 😝We had to remember to put my blindfold back on before theirs came off, though.

This is spot on. My Y1 child has definitely figured it out (and was expressing doubts last year) but she’s firmly told me that it’s a story she wants to believe in and it all still feels magical.

Tooth fairy, for some reason, seems far more plausible to her.

I really think parents putting all their energy into the nation that “Santa is what makes it magic” are setting themselves up for a fall when their kids don’t believe any more. Surely the magic is time and enjoyment with family and Santa is just one of the many people who helps facilitate this?

Stockings and gifts still remain largely surprises here - one pre teen and one teen
BUT we never had a gift that we said was from FC. He was a delivery mechanism only if that helps
I still do stockings after they're in bed and place in my room for them to open in the morning. That is the magic for me. Surprising them with gifts at the same time.

We stopped stocking when DD stopped believing but play the present swap game in the pm instead so still get the same sort of gifts. I'd probably continue stocking until every one is a non believer.

Each person buys 5 universal gifts under £5 each, wrapped in paper, the more interesting the shape the better and all go in a pile on the centre of the table
A pack of playing cards are split evenly between all players
A second pack is then used, each card is turned over individually and when your card is called you can take a present for the pile - or take from someone else pile.
Go through the pack twice, much hilarity ensues as certain shaped parcels become highly sought after.
Far more fun than a stocking

In terms of teens being away, I wouldn't celebrate without them, I'd just shift Christmas until everyone was together. Starting advent calendars to align with your Christmas for little ones.

Bit off topic but what do you do with the stocking when your dc is still awake when you go to bed? Our young adult ds is awake until the small hours even on Christmas Eve/Day so i put his filled stocking on the landing
He will obviously see it if he gets up for food or the bathroom but needs must. Obviously it can no longer be placed in his room empty, removed, refilled and replaced!

Agree.

If I was like this with our two, they'd look at me as if I was completely batshit.

I see I should have put a disclaimer in the title to say non-believers need not reply. I thought the Christmas topic would be safe to post this on but evidently I was wrong🎅

Surely the view of non believers is helpful when you're asking what to do about non believers?

Personally I couldn't imagine forcing my teenagers to pretend they believed in Santa in order to get presents. If they want to play along with you and your mum fair enough, but they shouldn't be punished if they don't want to do that.

My teenage daughters still like to put cookies and milk out and use the Santa tracker on Christmas eve. There is no way my super-logical son would join in with that. I'm not about to make him feel shit about an aspect of his personality that he can't help. My only rule is he has to leave his siblings to enjoy Christmas as they wish.

You can’t dictate who replies to a MN thread. Honestly this the big of grown adults pretending they believe in Santa makes my toes curl. I’d have also found my parents massively weird if they behaved that way when I was a teen

Stockings in this house are next to the fire in the sitting room (because FC come down the chimney). Our teenagers know they have to go to their bedrooms early on Christmas Eve or they won't get a stocking because FC won't deliver while there are people about. Since they all know I go to bed earlier than them normally they are OK with that.

Stocking are left out
Mince pies, carrots and whisky
Still a race downstairs to see if he's been. Though have to drag the eldest out of bed.

But they don't get a present (used to be the 'big gift' ) from Santa now.

Father Christmas has always filled the stockings in this house. Token gifts, repeated year on year with a few other bits. The main presents have always come from us, the parents.

Every year my children would dress in their Christmas eve pyjamas, matching each other, and we film them saying, "It is Christmas Eve (insert year) and we are hanging up our stockings for Father Christmas." They did this last year aged 20 and 17. They still believe, and of course those stockings are always full on Christmas morning. Why wouldn't they believe?

We learned from parents with children before we had them, stockings are on the fireplace, never in a bedroom. There may be more than one stocking to make switching out an empty one for a full one very easy, no faffing around filling it. And there will be stockings here even if the children no longer live here because it is tradition and a bit of fun.

Dd14 doesn't believe any more but she humours me and we go through the motions of hanging it up etc and putting out the drinks and mince pie. She now selects something that DH would like (last year she left Father Christmas baileys and crisps 😂) and she knows that the stocking is a personal gift from mummy as I buy all the bits for it.

I don't think we've ever said Santa brings the presents, I think it's the kids that have told us that Santa brings the gifts and how it works. They will get gifts whether they believe or not. My older ones obviously don't believe as they say thank you to me, but we never had a conversation about is he real or not. I don't think I could get over invested in the details whether he brings stockings, just one gift or all gifts, it's a bit irrelevant to the magic of it all.

God who called the fun police? We all know this, it's just semantics. It's holding onto the magic and enjoying 'believing' in it.

My kids get stockings. Regardless of age and belief status!

Nothing changed when they stopped believing.
Nor when they became adults.