How Do/Did You Explain Christmas Presents to Kids?

[AlexanderSalamander]

My kids are 2y and 6m so I haven't had much explaining to do this year. But I've been thinking for future reference...

How do/did you explain these things to kids to keep the Christmas magic? :

1. Grandparents who we don't see much brought a bag full of wrapped presents to our house 5 days before Christmas. What do you tell kids to explain why we have these early?
2. Other people's presents. Did Santa drop them off at our house? Does he not deliver these ones to adults?
3. Did you go shopping with kids for presents for siblings/Mummy/Daddy/relatives? If so, how do you explain buying the presents (then Santa delivering them)
4. What other tips etc do you have to keep the Christmas magic for kids?

In our house Santa delivers the stocking, but all wrapped presents under the tree are from us / relatives.

Again for - Father Christmas only brings stocking presents. Presents under the tree are from people, including parents.

Basically don’t have Father Christmas delivering every present for everyone, makes no sense anyway especially with presents adults get each other

Father Christmas brings stocking gifts, anything else is from us, family and friends.

Santa brings all the presents from us. We don't buy ds(15) anything.

Presents from family are not from santa so they can bring at anytime but we preferred they were handed over, opened and got a thank you face to face whenever possible, even if it meant not on the day.

DS writes a list with only a couple of things on it- this year a couple of Harry Potter Lego sets. Santa brings these and a stocking. The stocking is cool because it has things Mummy has never heard of. This year a Camp Half Blood t shirt (Mummy didn’t know you could get them) and a Rick Riordan book about Egypt (Mummy didn’t know he’d written anything else except Percy Jackson.)
There’s always a soft toy at the top of the stocking, this year a cuddly Hedwig puppet.
Presents from other people and Grandparents go under the tree with names on and thank you letters are written.
We do a sack of fairly boring but useful stuff like a new dressing gown, books etc from us.

Also Santa fills my stocking and DH’s but presents under the tree are from each other. Stockings are things like socks, soap, new phone case and consumables like gin, coffee and chocolate.

In our house, your scenarios 1, 2 and 3 have nothing to do with Santa. They’re just people buying presents for each other. I never understand why Santa gets mixed up in the delivery of other people’s stuff.

SimonJT Wed 25-Dec-19 07:21:48
Santa doesn’t exist in this house, so my son knows that people buy him presents with their own money. It doesn’t stop him asking for a real dinosaur though...
........
I didn't do Santa either except explaining the story, St Nicholas, etc. We still had a great time and mine knew who bought what for him.

In our house Santa brings two main gifts and one between them... we give the rest!

See pic; Santa presents are the ones with blue trees. The other “piles” are from us.

It's much easier for santa to just bring the stocking presents. Then they can say thank you to everyone who bought them gifts and they're less likely to find presents that aren't meant to have arrived yet

Easy. Father Christmas only brings the stocking presents.

Santa brings stockings & a present wrapped in brown paper. The rest are from family & friends x

@HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime Those are some excellent ideas and points. My dd is 22 months so it's a future issue for us but I do think about it a lot because I teach in a school with some very privileged children and there's no way we'll be able to math the gifts around her in the future! Where we live Baby Jesus brings the gifts (yes it is as weird as that sounds - a newborn baby delivers gifts around the world). I think we will go with one big gift from Babetko Jesusko (so weird for a hardcore atheist parent but her granny enjoys it so there we are) and then everything else will come from us and the people who bought them. Ive been sneering at the elf but I actually like the sound of the elf bringing stuff to do so I'll definitely think about that for next year when it will be the first time she will really understand anything at all.

Santa only does stocking.

Family/friends should get credit for the presents they give!!

Father Christmas only brings the ones that he brings round in the afternoon, everything else I say who they are from before they open them so they can thank the right people after Christmas.

Presents to other people would be from people not Santa.

Santa only brings presents for the kids and they’re all from him in our house.

At my parents house they think Santa leaves them there but I’m waiting for the questions to start about them really!

When I was a child, Mummy and Daddy went and had a chat with Father Christmas before Christmas to talk about what DC would like and how much money there is to spend. Then Father Christmas makes the final selection and delivers. With usual caveats about him carrying a lot of presents for a lot of children so he might not be able to carry everything....

These presents were left in Santa sacks/large stockings for the morning.

Then presents from family and friends go under the tree, to be opened in the afternoon.

We have more or less carried this on with DS because it works well for us - Father Christmas is still magic but family get credit too.

Oh, and I should have said we don’t do stockings in the way a lot of people here seem to, but there are stocking-type presents in the sack and under the tree.

I say sometimes family buy you presents because they love you and it’s nice to give gifts, so it’s OK to open these before Christmas and they’re from, say, Nanny or whoever. On Christmas Day all the presents left under the tree are from Santa except any that are labelled from family. That’s how I explain it to the kids anyway, and they aren’t confused or anything. They know Santa brings some but family also give them gifts too.

presents from family are from them just like birthdays etc...

presents under the tree are from mam and dad

unwrapped presents are from santa

stocking/xmas eve box just are... never had to 'explain' them (never really had to explain anything really)

Santa brings the stockings and ONE gift in this house. Everything else is from the giver. Santa doesn't deliver gifts from other people, so anything from grandparents, etc is either given to them direct on or after Christmas day, or put under the tree if they've been given them in advance.

@testing987654321- lived here all my life and never even heard of this until this forum, definately a family tradition NOT a cultural one (same with if you wrap gifts or not or do the want, need, wear, read stuff)

Santa brings the stocking gifts here too. This has always been the tradition in my DHs family and although not in mine ( he bought / brought everything) I’ve adopted it too. In my case I decided to do it because the disparity of gifts between families. I don’t want kids in other families to wonder why they haven’t received very much... that must be particularly brutal I imagine.

In our house Santa delivers the stocking only, the other presents come from everyone else, and are put under the tree as and when they arrive

Same. I'd never heard of any other way of doing it before I joined MN. Had no idea Santa brings bigger presents in some houses.