How do you all keep father christmas alive

[happycat]

The other thread about christmas has got me thinking just how do you keep father christmas alive.Has any of you got any tips on how you can prolong this magical time.Anything different.Also how do you cope when you have an older one and they start to work it out,it hasn't happened yet.Saw my first christmas advert on t.v last night so its here.

Lol at your question, Ghosty (though not at your poorly tooth). My dd had a tooth that broke when the new one came through on top. It came out in three pieces over the space of a year and she claimed 50p a time for it!!

Mears/DL, I enjoyed your tussle over Santa. Mears is the clear winner - you were cheekily trying to change the rules, DL!

Ghosty, of course he's not right. When I broke my front tooth off earlier this year, the tooth fairy came and gave me 5 Francs!

FineVintage (still getting used to your new persona!), although I agree that vast quanities of chocolate eggs and bunnies and the like a la Clinton-any-excuse-for-a-profit-Cards are definitely commercial., the way I always understood chocolate eggs at Easter was because it symbolised the stone rolled away from Jesus' tomb. Hence the tradition for rolling eggs down a hill on Easter Sunday morning. Another more tenuous reason behind the whole egg giving thing is that it symbolises the new life that comes from the resurrection of Jesus.

GeorginaA - your're totally spot on about the early Roman Catholic church jumping on the bandwagon of pagan winter celebrations. It seems to be very widely accepted now that Jesus was more likely to have been born around May or June. Personally I find the meaning behind the celebration of Christmas to be more important than the symbols or the time of year that we do it.

Where did Dadslib go? Can't face a woman to admit he was wrong?

We were looking at a wonderful display of Christmas stuff in a posh shop last week. About three quarters of the way round, DD2(7yo) said 'There's only Santas and snowmen here, where's Jesus? I thought Christmas was his birthday?' I was quite touched that she was very aware of different aspects to Christmas and we did find the Nativity scenes eventually.

I'm a believing Christian but I also love the other magic of Christmas that is Santa, decorations etc. Ghosty - yes, yes; fantasy and make believe are all part of childhood and I can't imagine depriving my children of that part of the joy of Christmas. I wouldn't want them to be the killjoys either at school by telling all the other kids that Father Christmas doesn't exist. I worked it out for myself when I was six. I wasn't mortifed that I'd been 'lied' to - far from it.