Father Christmas - do your children believe?

[RachelG]

I'm curious to know what people feel about this.

I was brought up not to believe in Father Christmas. My Mum felt it was wrong to lie to children, albeit a "fun" lie. She also thought it would be scary for us to imagine a strange man coming into the house at night. And I think, secretly, she didn't want a fictional stranger getting the credit for all the presents!

My son is now 3, so this will be the first Christmas when he's really aware of what's going on - presents and all that. So I'm thinking about how to do the whole Father Christmas thing. I'm pretty sure he'd be scared if he thought a man came into the house in the night, as he's going through a phase of being scared of the dark and noises at night and so on. But I guess I could easily say that Santa left the presents on the doorstep and I brought them in.

So, what do most people tell their children?

Also, have any older children been upset when they learned that Santa didn't exist after all?

My dd is 11 and still believes. As does her 8 year old sister.
Which is odd, because some of their friends parents like to take credit for the pressies...yet they still believe..
Its incredibly magical thinking Santa is coming with pressies.
I wasnt upset when i found out, but I was disapointed as I would never get that magic feeling back!

My children understand the concept of suspended disbelief. And we celebrate Xmas in Sweden where Santa knocks on the door in the evening and comes in and pats children on the head. Noone has been terribly disappointed by disillusionment. It's a gradual process, beginning to feel that maybe that face under the beard looks a bit familiar- but even I still feel a magic trill when I stand by the window and watch for the first glimpse of his lantern coming up the road- and I'm 44. We all play along.

My almost 4 year old believes with all her heart. I think it's a lovely thing and gives a special magic to christmas.

Cory, I'm from sweden and have very fond memories of the thrill of hearing santa knocking on the door and asking if there were any good children.

No, we do Father Christms as a game, a nice story that makes Christmas more fun but my children aren't told that he is real (they know we bring the presents etc) - they still love the stocking & putting food out for FC & Rudolph though

My ds (nearly 8) used to believe, but stopped believing over a year ago (but didn't tell us until after last Christmas - maybe he thougth if he admitted it he wouldn't get any stocking presents!) We have always only said the stocking presents are from Santa - the rest are from family and friends. He doesn't seem at all disappointed that Santa doesn't exist, and nobody told him, he just worked it out for himself.

I think I believed when I was a child until I was about 9. I also wasn't particularly disappointed - my parents still used to deliver a stocking after I stopped believing, but I knew it was from them, not Santa. We`will do the same for ds.