Thread: Weekly Poll: Where does Santa stand in your house??

I've been enjoying following the Santa Issues thread this week, and it inspired a poll topic. For one, because I've never been more nostalgic about the holidays than I have this year. With my oldest getting ready to graduate, and the other not that far behind him, I'm missing those early days of Christmas expectation and advent calendars and the like. ((sigh)) For another, because we have such a wide range of beliefs, family styles, and general life approaches here at SHS.com, that I think it's just fun to see where everyone is at on this one....

Let's see how Ole Saint Nick fares around here!

MH900446408.jpg

As I said in the other thread, we "do" Santa, but we've always told the kids it's a pretend game, so they've known since they were old enough to know anything at Christmas that dh and I are "Santa." But they have always enjoyed the game. They like to visit the pretend Santa (though they seem confused as to why he asks what they want for Christmas and one year Mushroom said bluntly that I was going to bring it and implied it was none of his business). They like to put the cookies out. They like stories and movies about Santa.

Ours are so little yet, but we celebrate Winter Solstice at home. Christmas is strictly a grandparent thing around here. I think when they're older we'll just tell them the same thing we plan on telling them about all other mythical creatures/gods that some people believe in it and others don't and they can decide if they want to believe or not. And then when they're old enough to understand we'll explain the historical significance and the different cultural things. At least that's how I imagine it will go.

I voted other since we take a traditional approach in that the kids think he's real but we don't make a huge deal out of it - no threats for good behavior, no footprints on the hearth, we don't even usually visit for pictures, no letter writing - although I guess some of that may change if they get a little older and still believe (at least the letter writing).

I guess we fall somewhere between option 1 and option 2.

My DW and I differ on our approach to this, although for once, I won. I like the magic of Santa and wanted our kids to experience it, along with the eventual discovery that comes later (which our older son already has made, non-traumatically). She, on the other hand, would have preferred telling them from the get-go that it was a story. But I figure they only have a very few years to have that wonder. Why not let them have it?

Older son at 4 decided Santa was a terrorist and became intensely afraid of him. He then passed this on to his little brother. Things got so bad as soon as christmas decorations started showing in stores that we had no choice but to tell him he did not exist. But thanks to family, friends, and teachers he was told other wise and it has taken just till last year to make him truly under stand that he is not real and he can relax. When he was 3 we had to kill the easter bunny because the idea of it bothered him so much he would not sleep, eat, and walked around in fear. So we also chose NOT to even mention the tooth fairy or any other things that could come in our house.

Other.
We did Santa, dd changed the story to a dog delivering gifts to her so we went with that. We never went overboard or tried to force her belief. Santa/dog filled the stocking and left one gift only at our house. We left out cookies and dd made a wish list but we did not do the mailed letters, fake footprints, making threats about behavior, or visiting Santa at the mall. A few years ago she no longer wanted to do Santa or the dog. We started a new tradition of filling each other's stockings and that has been fun too.

Dd also transformed the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy into dogs. She came up with the Christmas Schnauzer, Easter Beagle and the Dog Fairy because she was slightly afraid of the traditional characters but loved dogs.

Originally Posted by ercswf

Older son at 4 decided Santa was a terrorist and became intensely afraid of him. He then passed this on to his little brother. Things got so bad as soon as christmas decorations started showing in stores that we had no choice but to tell him he did not exist. But thanks to family, friends, and teachers he was told other wise and it has taken just till last year to make him truly under stand that he is not real and he can relax. When he was 3 we had to kill the easter bunny because the idea of it bothered him so much he would not sleep, eat, and walked around in fear. So we also chose NOT to even mention the tooth fairy or any other things that could come in our house.

I am sure that this has been so NOT funny IRL, but the telling of it - - I gotta admit - - is a hoot. This would make such a great parody of "The Night Before Christmas"...you know, with the kids waiting by their bedsides with loaded AK47's and such. LMAO

In DH's family, each child received a pile of gifts, all from Santa. That is until his mom and dad decided to tell the children the truth. DH never got over the idea that his parents had lied to him. He wanted no Santa for our children.

In my family, Santa had a minor role. He filled the stockings. The gifts under the tree were from family members. My parents never told us the truth about Santa, they just figured at some point that we knew. The stockings got filled until we left home.

Daycare took the decision about which tradition to follow out of our hands. The November our oldest was three, he suddenly did not want to go to bed alone and would wake up crying because a strange man was watching him and the man was going to come into his house. It took several days for us to realize that he was talking about Santa. It was November not December! To that point, we had never mentioned Santa to him. We quickly decided that Santa would not come to our house. We told our son that Santa was pretend. We also let the teachers know how we felt about the situation. We would have made more of a fuss, but we had already told the daycare (for other reasons) that we were removing him from their care.

We read stories about Santa and Saint Nicholas but stress that Saint Nicholas lived a long time ago and that Santa an imaginary character. We do tell them not to spoil the fun for those who play the Santa game. In our family, mommy puts fun surprises in the stockings and Christmas gifts are tokens of affection between family members.

We "do Santa" but he's kind of behind the scenes. The kids like to write letters to him and set out cookies but they aren't threatened with no presents or a bag of coal. Basically they get one or two gifts from Santa and he fills their stockings. All of the gifts get put out at night after they've gone to bed, including any from us or their aunts or grandparents.

we don't go see Santa and our major Christmas traditions focus around family and togetherness...