Who brings Christmas pressies in different countries?

[hunmummy]

This question is for any of you who are in mixed relationships, with kids being brioght up in two country's cultures.

In different countries, Chrismas pressies are 'brought' by different 'people' eg. Santa, three kings, little Jesus etc.

What story are you telling your kids? Also, does the story change when you visit grandparents/family from the other country?

hunmummy, that's such a tricky one! In France le Pere Noel brings all the presents, and delivers them all either at midnight on christmas eve, or christmas morning. With dh being british, when we visit his family they give dd presents that are 'from them' instead of Father Christmas, and presents start appearing at the bottom of english friends trees weeks before Xmas! But not in our house..... Then we go over to France to spend Xmas with my family and presents only appear from Father Xmas on Xmas morning. Dd doesn't mind, I have explained to her that we do not all celebrate Xmas the same way and that makes it more fun. She's happy as she gets loads regardless

This is a problem we run into every year - the way we get round it is to miss out the bits we don't like even if it means the children aren't experiencing a Christmas from both cultures.

In Argentina 'el nino Jesus' brings all the presents on Christmas Eve, and you open them then and there. There's no way dh and I are having our presents to the kids sent by baby Jesus so we have never gone along with that. Fortunately dh's family are very accommodating and they've been willing to do the British thing of saying presents under the tree are from individual people. (It helps that dh's family is small and there are no cousins around doing a different thing - I guess that would cause confusion) Then Father Christmas leaves presents in the children's stockings on Christmas morning.

It helps that the children are still quite young (4 & 2) so up till now they've been in bed by midnight on Christmas Eve when extended family come round to open presents from 'el nino Jesus'. So I suppose they miss out entirely on the Argentine style Christmas and then just do a British one the next day. By the time they're older I guess they'll be stopping believing in Father Christmas anyway and won't give a damn who the presents are from as long as they get them.

I am one of those people who loves Christmas and I tend to find it a bit of an anti-climax in Argentina - the fact it's mid-summer there doesn't help. However, I love the way it is not so commercial and about spending fortunes on toys. Last year we were in Britain and I was quite shocked by the amount of presents the kids got. This year we're off to Argentina where they will be given far far less.

not very different between Canada and England - I like to say Santa Claus as that's what I was brought up with.....and the use of SC is actually creeping in over here anyways. 'Father Christmas' has always seemed rather stuffy to me! DD ( almost 3) knows that they are the same person, just different names.

I grew up with father christmas in the Uk but here in New Zealand he is called santa...not much difference except last year when DS was misbehaving I told him that he needed to be good so that father christmas would leave him lots of pressies, he announced (age 3 at the time) that it didn't matter if father christmas didn't come because santa would leave him some instead!!!!!

I also do the full works, santa and rudolph footprints, fairy dust, leave food out, letters etc but it is much more low key here, friends thought I was mad!!!