Question re the Santa and presents thing??

[poza]

This is the first time I've posted a message so I hope I'm doing this right but my question is regarding Christmas. My son is 3 and a 1/2 and this is really the first Christmas he will probably have more of an idea about what's going on. When I was a kid my parents told me straight away that Santa didn't exist and that any presents came from family and friends. My hubby on the other hand was brought up to believe that all pressies were from Santa (whether they were from family or friends). Although I'm not going to spoil Christmas for him by saying Santa doesn't exist, I'm not sure I agree with saying that all pressies come from Santa whether they are from family or friends. I would personally feel more comfortable saying that a certain number come from Santa but the rest come from family & frienes (whichever we decide would come from Santa and which ever ones would come from Santa). Bearing in mind my childhood where Santa didn't exist, what do other parents do for their children when it comes to what presents come from Santa?

Thanks
Aingel

I always got a stocking and pressie under the tree from santa (bought by my Mum) and all others were from family (grandparents etc).

If you do stockings , you could just fill it from Santa, a few small presents (socks etc, a clementine etc) and tell your ds that santa brings this.

If you want him to have big pressie from santa it can be helpful to tell ds that Santa's sleigh only holds one present per child - a useful method of keeping your costs down and keeping the magic alive...

Interestingly this has been being discussed on another board I'm on recently. The parents there (excluding Santa refuseniks) broadly divided into four groups

1. Santa brings stocking gifts only
2. Santa brings stocking gifts and one additional gift
3. Santa brings stocking gifts and several additional gifts (but still some from parents etc.)
4. Santa brings everything

I'd say that 2 and 3 were the biggest groups, with probably an equal split between them.

Thanks for those replies. It's been bothering me but I think I'd either go for:

1. Santa brings stocking gifts and one additional gift or
2. Santa brings stocking gifts and several additional gifts (but still some from parents etc.)

I don't want him to think that no one other than Santa brings him anything and asking hubby's parents usually results in "EVERYTHING COMES FROM SANTA!!!" and from my parents it's "SANTA DOESN'T EXIST". It's nice to hear what other people do )

Santa just bring the stocking pressies in our family but in dh's he brings everything which has been a bit confusing for my 2 but fortunately they seem quite happy with my version

I was thinking about this the other day, if you tell your little one that santa brings the presents do you put gift tags on them saying from mummy and daddy, seems daft doesn't it

We buy the children one thing each from us - last year was a joint present of a Robosapien. Evertyhing else that we bought was from Santa.

Santa also sends us a bill in January - and we pay him for the gifts that he delivered!

Santa only brings one present though

I don't understand this all presents from Santa ... doesn't make sense to me

whereas him visiting x million houses in one night by flying reindeer and delivering one present by shooting down each chimney (even in middle floor flats) makes perfect sense

it's magic

in every sense

If Santa only brings stocking + 1 pressie (as in our house) it is easier to explain why he can't have everything he wants cos "Santa will bring it if I'm good" etc etc, and also they get to say Thank you to Granny, Mummy etc.

My friend has just divorced. Her DD believes Santa brings everything so can't understand why this year should be different just now Dad's not around to pay for it!

I had no idea that Santa ever brought all the gifts. Doesn't that take away any enjoyment from giving and receiving between family members? Santa only ever brought stocking presents in our house.

Oh, and how on earth are you going to get both sets of grandparents "on message"?!

in our house all stocking presents and everything we buy for the children is from Santa. My family seem to want their presents to my children to be from Santa too (although I don't understand this), but presents from other relatives and friends are from themselves.

For our 2 we do as follows

santa brings stocking, filled with small things such as pencils, socks etc.
he then fills their sacks on the armchair with maybe 6 presents each - DVD, game, book etc.

Then under the tree we have presents from grandparents, Aunts and Uncles etc. We did this because we wanted them to realise that other people go to the trouble of finding them a present. When DH was small ALL his presents used to go into a sack, including ones from GP's etc. This confused him when he then had to write a letter saying thank you granny, when he didn't even know she had got him a present.
Everyone does it differently. Dh's hal;f sister was told that her mum and dad sent the money to Santa with a list of things to get her!

In our house the stocking things come from Santa. Everything else comes from whoever really sent them, including some things from us.

My son is also 3 1/2 so this is the first year we have had to deal with this also.

We have decided one gift from santa (a bit of a token gift really) which should fit into the stocking with a bit of cramming and then the magic is still a big part of christmas.

all other gifts under the tree are from us as parents and then we do the rounds of grandparents and their gifts are given at their houses so he has the association of who gave him what.

I think that if you say santa brings more than one present it means that in future your child could believe that money is of no issue and therefore ask for loads (like we did as children )it kinda sets you up for making each christmas bigger in terms of what you spend.

Someone I know spent £400 on a 2 year old, I kept wondering how much that would escalate to when they were 10.

Hi, I'm quite new on here.

When I was little stocking presents were from Santa and everything else was from relations/friends. In DH's house everything was from Santa. We did it my way with DS last year (he was only 11 months at the time, so probably wasn't worth the long discussion to decide what to do ), and we'll do the same this year so i think it'll becaome out family way of doing it. Like others have said, I think it's important that DS learns about saying thank you for presents, and how can he do that if he thinks they're all from Santa.

We never believed in Santa in our house either, and Xmas was still very very magical and wonderful without him - so its hard for me to get very caught up with Santa-stuff generally. But as dd has picked up the mythology from TV, friends etc I'm happy to do the stockings are from Santa bit - until the day she asks me outright, anyway
But pressies under the tree are from whoever they are from - definitely.

For my kids the stocking presents were from Santa and everything else was from whoever they were from. (We used to do the mince pie/carrot/glass of sherry by the fireplace too.)

Stocking presents tended to be both small and cheap (as opposed to just small - some "stockingfillers" cost a fortune ) - DH & I used to love listening to them opening and discussing their stocking presents before they would come in to show us what Santa had brought. V v v magical

We do the stocking is from santa too.

Hiya. In our house all presents are from family and friends. Santa just delievers them to our house. Like Royal mail but more dependable. We always take the girls to see santa at some point and he gives them a prezzie then.

i have a couple of presents that are form Santa and the rest from me, family and friends give their pwn presents.

When we were little Santa left a stocking full of small gifts plus one additional (larger) gift at the end of our beds. Everything under the tree was from friends and family. This is the way we will do things with dd (whos only going to be 19 mo at Xmas) whether dh likes it or not!

Isn't it funny how people do presents in different ways. It never occurred to me that there was any other way until I found mumsnet.

For the record, in our house Santa fills stockings, which are left at the end of the bed, and all the presents under the tree are to/from other people and labelled accordingly.