Are we the only ones doing without Father Christmas?

[Octaviapink]

We thought about the whole Father Christmas thing - telling the children there's a man with a big beard who lives at the North Pole (or Lapland or wherever) who comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve and leaves presents for good children - and frankly I couldn't stomach it. Lots of reasons:

1. Lying to the children. My DCs trust me, and if I tell DD a thing she knows it's so. I've never lied to her. I don't want this to be the first time and about something so crass.
2. The Victorian boogyman aspect of it - it seems to belong to an age where if you did bad things someone would 'get' you. I have friends who pretend their security system is Father-Christmas-cam and that he's watching them the whole time to see how good they are.
3. They find out pretty soon at school that it's not true, so you're probably only looking at a three or four year lifespan for the whole thing anyway when they genuinely believe (IME a lot of children pretend to believe when they're older so they get presents).
4. I still remember how devastated and disbelieving I was when I found out.
5. Buying a load of useless tat for stockings.

DD is 2.8 so this is the first time it's been possible to tell her things about Christmas. Anything we started now we'd have to continue. It just seems pointless and in some respects rather cruel. I'd rather we gave the children presents from us and concentrated on other aspects of Christmas. So Father Christmas is just a man depicted on some of the Christmas cards and nothing special.

I do feel vaguely guilty about the fact it'll probably be DD at school telling other children it's not real.

Are we the only ones?

I had doubts too re lying then remembered how utterly magical and fascinating it all was. I have such warm and fuzzy memories of Christmas that it's fuelled my excitement and enthusiasm as an adult.

My dd is 3 and it is all just pure magic

Hello OP, no you aren't the only one! We didn't do FC for DS1 as he absolutely hated it (hates clowns, FC, any kind of dressing up etc, always has). I found that once I explained why to people, everyone was very supportive. However, we were very discreet in not doing F and never ever ley him spoil the fun for anyone else. We just said FC doesn't come to our house, but he does to other children so no spoiling it for them. Now he is 14 he is over it, and happy to have a stocking! (Full of tat, natch). All other presents are under the tree and from named givers, as we have always done.

WHAT????

He's not real????

Tonight DH and I are going to fully explain the news story about child abuse to our five year old, she asked and we just can't lie.

Blimey there are an awful lot of angsty, overthinking Christmas threads on MNs at the moment.

Father Christmas, too many toys, taking kids to soup kitchens, charity cards etc etc.

Do what you do and let others get on with it.

No one cares.

I've only read about this kind of thing on MN. Probably because you are so odd in rl you don't actually have any real friends to bounce this idea off.

While I absolutely sympathise with your anti-marketing sentiment and understand that you don't want to lie to your children, I think you are running the risk of replacing one problem with another.

I think if your DD is the only one she knows who didn't get Father Christmas you run the risk of her not understanding your reasons and simply hating you for it / seeing you as the meanest parents ever! I know certainly in my "it's not fair" teenage mindset I would have seen that as more "proof" that my parents hated me (they don't, but that wasn't obvious to me at the time).

It's up to you to make your own Christmas traditions for your family.

So, if you do the santa thing, you don't actually need to do the coercive bit unless you want to. If you don't want lots of useless tat, don't buy any! You also don't actually need to lie about Santa unless you want to.

In your shoes what I would do the Santa thing, but not invest too much in the lie. Make it a game instead, so DD knows you're pretending to be Father Christmas.

FWIW I don't remember ever believing in Santa - I knew it was my mum and dad from a very young age. But I carried on getting stockings until I had kids!

Children love make-believe, even when they know it's not real. I loved Father Christmas and getting stocking presents even though I knew he didn't exist. And I didn't run around bursting other children's bubbles (as far as I remember!)

A small stocking (a satsuma, a couple of toys) from mummy and daddy playing the "father Christmas" game won't hurt.

Alternatively if you hate it so much, make up your own tradition involving little presents instead, but to opt our completely for the reasons you give is asking for trouble IMO!

If you hate the Coca Cola Santa why not do some research on what the traditions were before their ad campaign (St Nick, etc) and use those instead?

And anyway, how will you get those precious few more minutes in bed on Christmas morning when your DD is older when she's woken up at 5am all excited about Christmas, if she doesn't have a stocking to delay her jumping on you?! "Father Christmas" always brought us lego, which we built before waking our parents, I'm sure it was to help keep us occupied for a few more minutes!

Snort

I don't say "if you're bad he won't come."

FWIW I agree with the OP, I think it's all a big lie. But DH likes the Father Christmas palava so we do it. I try and put an arch expression on my face like my Mum did when talking about it so that they pick up it's probably not true, as I did, and I don't make a big thing of it. Only the stocking presents come from FC, I am not having any mythical being taking credit for all the expensive stuff, oh no.

And I found as time passed, that I have ended up telling loads of lies to the DCs:

"No, sorry, I've no idea where your trumpet is."

"No there are no more batteries. What a shame!"

"I can't buy you that, I haven't got any money with me."

"The car engine won't start if you haven't got your seatbelt on."

"Of course I didn't take one of your crisps when I opened the bag for you. Would I do a thing like that?"

etc

I can just about understand why you might want to explain to your dcs that Father Christmas isn't real but your reasons really do sound so horribly earnest and, yes, sanctimonious ( "Rank blackmail and bribery" ) I can't take you seriously. I can't believe you don't lie to your children ever.

On the subject of "acquisitive consumerism" (from a marketing director!?!) I presume you won't be buying presents for them?

I love threads like this, people can do what the hell they like as far as I'm concerned but it just confirms to me that what we do is absolutely right for me and my family. C'est la vie!

I don't care if you do FC or not. I would like to point out the bleeding obvious - I don't see much call for therapy due to a mistrust in parents by adults who were lied to about FC being real.

My kids are nearly 8 and 6. They go to a school with a lot of Muslim children who don't celebrate Christmas in either it's Christian or commercial sense, and who therefore aren't fixated with FC. I can confidently state that my children are still believers, although they ask some quite testing questions. To my mind, that's all part of the fun.

DS1 is currently working on a treasure map to leave for FC so that he can find more treasure to make presents.

DS2 has made those things where you stick cloves in satsumas and then throw away so his sleigh smells nice.

BTW< could you bear to tell her 'once upon a time...[origins of FC (you may need to brush up on this) ]...tell her how parents carry this on, and then leave a stocking so she can join in at nursery/ school?

I don't even remember finding out he wasn't the real deal but I do have super vivid memories of believing he was!

I say
'Father Christmas wont come if the house is untidy'

It works wonders, keeping the house in order in the holidays.

Loving your style, Mrs DV.

No, you're not the only ones doing without Father Christmas - I have never been able to bring myself to make up a story which I promote to my children year after year when I know that eventually they are going to find out that I was lying. When I found out about the FC lie I made a mental note not to trust my parents as much in the future.

Christmas can be magical as it is without made up fictional characters and it is, after all a religious festival anyway.

People on here saying the OP is selfish - that's nonsense. Most people don't want their children to lie, so why set a bad example by lying deliberately about anything (however well intentioned)

However, there are threads about this every year with people getting angry just because some people don't agree with Father Christmas. Some of us have a different way of looking at it.

I sort of see where you are coming from, but how on earth do you do it in practice? I take my little girl (2) to 3 toddler groups, each had a Christmas party with Santa, so I had to explain to her what it was all about.

We are a very matter of fact household but I have forced myself to get into the whole Christmas and Santa thing even though it feels a little bit silly...because I remember it when I was little...putting out the mince pies, carrots, milek and whisky on the hearth, laying awake listening for Rudolph on the roof, running through to see if Santa had been at 5:30 etc... I don't know when I stopped believning but it certainly didn't scar me as I can't remember it at all.

so I think this is one instance where you can let go and enjoy them being little tiny children who like a little magic.

as for the threatening...it never occured to me to tell her about that side of it, surely it is what you make it?

I works.
Try it.

The DCs even came up with their own reasons why it might be true. They think its because he might trip over things.

Mwah ha ha haaaaaa

Oh and by the way, I've never actually sat my kids down and said to them 'FC does not exist'. They know that some people do believe and I've explained to them that people can believe whatever they want but if asked directly if FC actually exists I say no.

I think you're a right old misery guts. Fair enough, she's your child and you can do whatever you want, but kids (and grown ups) love Christmas and there's nothing wrong with a bit of magic. You don't have to present it as fact.

I don't believe in God and I certainly don't believe that a virgin gave birth to a baby, but I've gone along with my son's nativity and all his questions about Baby Jesus without saying it's all a lie. How do you deal with that aspect of Christmas?