Looking for advice!

[Humdingerydoo]

Hoping for some advice about what to do... My youngest child attends a non-Jewish nursery. He's very happy there, loves all his little friends and his teachers. The only problem is, he's now fully expecting Santa to show up on Christmas day after hearing all about him from his friends and teachers 😂 We don't celebrate Christmas though! I mean, we do embrace it in the sense that we enjoy other people's Christmas lights, watch Christmas movies and eat a kosher-style Christmas dinner because who doesn't like an excuse for a delicious meal?! But we don't do presents etc.

Am I going to break his heart if I tell him Santa isn't real?! I'm not going to say or do anything until after they've broken up for the holidays as I don't want him telling his friends Santa isn't real, but is that the right approach? Or do I just hope that he accepts it when I say Santa won't visit us as we're Jewish and already celebrated Chanukah? He's so little and I don't want to upset him, but I also don't want to have to introduce Santa. Never had this with older child as they attended a Jewish nursery. Has anyone else navigated this before? I feel like I can't be the only one with this issue!

I haven’t decided about the whole Santa thing yet but interested to hear what you choose. I did take the toddler to see Santa in the grotto just for fun but he doesn’t understand yet. When he’s older I dunno… I might cave and just do Santa as a secular thing, then he gets both 😆

My DDs went to a non Jewish nursery and we don’t do Santa. I think I just kept repeating that we have Chanukah instead and that’s even better as it’s 8 nights not just 1. I never said that he wasn’t real as I didn’t want them to spoil it for the other kids.

Even though DD's nursery is attached to a Jewish school, she is one of only a handful of Jewish children, so although Christmas isn't celebrated there, she hears about it from her little pals.

What I'm doing so far (she's only 3, so only just starting to understand) is massively playing it down and hyping up Chanukah. As with a lot of things we do or don't do, I focus on the good things about our way, and just explain that other people do things differently. So, when she asked if we could have a Christmas tree, I said no, but we have some amazing Chanukah lights this year - would she like to help me choose where to put them? etc. etc.

When my dd was younger, I didn't say that Father Christmas wasn't real, as I felt that it would just cause upset amongst other families.
He certainly appeared at her nursery and various groups we attended. I didn't do anything to encourage her in believing that he was real but placed far greater emphasis on Chanukkah.

I found Easter more problematic and was more direct. Her nursery was in a church hall and the curate came in and spoke to them about the resurrection. She came home and asked me whether my grandmother would come back to life. I explained that this was something that Christians believed but that as Jews, we didn't share this.

Sorry, I was in Mumsnet jail so wasn't able to report back! In the end, my older child mentioned to the younger one that Santa isn't real and little one asked me if he was right, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to discuss it. Younger child was pretty adamant he is real ("You're both wrong, of course he's real! I met him at nursery last week and I told him I want hot wheels for Christmas and then we saw him in Tesco!") so it was quite clear he wasn't open to being convinced otherwise so we left it. I had to remind the little one a couple of days later that Santa still won't visit us though as we don't celebrate Christmas and he accepted it. So problem solved! By next year he'll hopefully be attending a Jewish school so won't be as big an issue 🙈