WDYD: Christmas and Santa....(LONG)

[AnnieW625]

We are Catholic so we are Christian and we have talked about both Santa and Christmas. The Christmas talk with has started a little early this year because we are prepping DD to start religious ed. preschool on Sundays so I want her to have a little understanding of who Jesus is, and I know DD can connect Jesus with Christmas to a point. I told DD that Jesus was born on Christmas and we celebrate baby Jesus' birthday every year and her response was "we get the tree and Daddy puts it on top of the car, and then it goes in my house." We have a manger scene that goes up too and last year we did an advent calendar for the first time. DD likes Frosty the Snowman, they showed it at her daycare last year, and she has also seen Raymond Brigg's Snowman movie about a little boy who builds a snowman that comes alive. The boy and the snowman go and visit Santa at the north pole, DD lost interest in the movie last year when that happened, but she still has some general knowledge about Santa and that he brings presents.

Growing up I believed that there was a Santa until I was 7 or so. I think my brother who is three years younger was about the same age, but since my sister and I are 10 years apart I think I had to play the whole "believe in Santa game" until I was 16. At my parent's house they still give gifts from Santa.

[doberbrat]

we are Catholic and believe in Santa. We've also taken dd to several huge displays at a local seminary where they explain about St. Nick being the predecessor to Santa etc. so when the time comes, we can say St Nick was real etc.

I believed in Santa for a long time and never distrusted my mother over it. fwiw, we never had the "santa isnt real" discussion. I asked the question once and my mother told me that if I didnt believe in Santa, he woudlnt bring me gifts and that was good enough for me. to this day Santa leaves me presents at my mom's house.

[katydid1971]

I believed in Santa for a long time and never distrusted my mother over it. fwiw, we never had the "santa isnt real" discussion. I asked the question once and my mother told me that if I didnt believe in Santa, he woudlnt bring me gifts and that was good enough for me. to this day Santa leaves me presents at my mom's house.

LOL My mother still says the same thing (and I still believe...and always will)
FWIW Santa doesn't have to be a person to be real, the spirit of Santa is certainly real.

[kijip]

Myths and fantasy are not lies and deceit. T "believes" in Santa the same way I believe in Santa. If you talked to him you would totally get that he believes but then he'll occasionally whisper or say "It's fun to believe" etc. Having a fanciful imagination is not harmful I think to children. He has watched me oversee 4 major holiday gift sponsorship drives and takes that as Santa needing help to do all his work. It's fun spirited belief, not a truism like "mommy and daddy love me" or "flowers need water to grow". A few years back he was asked and he said "I want to believe in Santa" to the end that since he wanted to, he did. It's cute and fun, not lying. It would crush him if suddenly mom and dad did not love him and shake his world view if flowers didn't grow with the right amount of water, giving up Santa will not be crushing and shattering.

Same thing with the Easter Bunny etc. Though T will be 7 or even 8 before the tooth fairy comes (we get baby teeth LATE and then lose them LATE) so I don't know if the tooth fairy will come into play or not. I might just buy them

[Jacksmommy2b]

This was as big of a debate in my house as circumcision!

DH is obsessed with Christmas. Obsessed. The man gets his Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving unless he can some how pull off getting it before hand. He hangs lights inside and out along with bows and ribbons and whatever else he can possibly come up with. One year I had to talk him down from painting a giant red bow around our living room - unforunately I'm not kidding.

I told him I wasn't a big fan of the whole santa thing and would rather not have that a part of our holiday celebrations and the man looked at me like I wanted to go boil puppies instead. I made the mistake of mentioning the whole thing to my parents who were horrified I would try to deny J something as wonderful as the 'magic of santa'.

I'm not a santa hater, and it isn't a religious thing for me - like the OP said, it just feels wrong to encourage him to believe in something that I know is not real. I don't see anything horrible or harmful about santa - it just doesn't really mesh with the way I parent.

So basically our compromise is that we just don't make a huge deal about Santa and I don't debuke it. If J is willing he gets a pic with the mall santa. I wrap most of the presents and will tag them to J from Mom and Dad, but M will tag one or two from santa and I don't complain. My mom on the other hand goes santa crazy and for as much as it irratates me I bite it back and smile in front of him. I certainly don't think it will do him any harm, but I just don't help enocourage it.

I'm sure this will get a whole lot harder as he gets older - but I'm not willing to compromise on flat out lying to him if he asks. Hopefully it will just continue to be a 'daddy thing' as daddy is Mr. Christmas and it won't be that big of a thing.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Same thing with the Easter Bunny etc. Though T will be 7 or even 8 before the tooth fairy comes (we get baby teeth LATE and then lose them LATE) so I don't know if the tooth fairy will come into play or not. I might just buy them

Or he could be like my ds. He just lost his 1st tooth and refused to give it up. He wrote a note asking for more time with his tooth. After almost 2 weeks he finally asked the tooth fairy, via note, if he could keep his tooth and get $. The tooth fairy let him b/c she knew how special that tooth was to him. When he lost his second tooth he didn't even make an effort to ask to keep it. He just kept it and didn't ask for $.

Beth

[Fairy]

Santa is absolutely real in our house until DS figures it out on his own (or someone blows it for him). As a Jew, growing up, I always wondered if he was real, too. A babysitter of mine got me "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus;" she didn't know we were Jewish. And I loved that book, and I didn't really understand that Santa was maybe not real. As I got a little older and I saw he wasn't, my parents, said, ok, look, you're right, there is no Santa, but you cannot ever tell anyone that if they believe he's real, cuz you'll ruin it for them. And so that's what we intend to do. He's real, but when DS figures it out, he is to keep the secret.

I'm actually worried that one of DS's friends who is not a nice little girl (that's another story) may say something this year.

The Reindeer are also a big hairy deal around here, too :-)

[GraceH]

As a Christian, I believe that the true meaning of Christmas should be discussed centrally - as well as celebration being a reason to give gifts -- even cooler, we have some Dutch background, so we can discuss some of the traditions of giving around the world that became the legend of Santa Claus
I LOVE Christmas - I love decorating - is it sad that I stash a small amount of cash each month just for Christmas decorations? - that said, Santa characters have been a little too much for my simple evergreen, white lights, red and silver jingle bells scheme...

[hardysmom]

Santa isn't real?

Say it ain't so.




We will believe as long as we want to believe.

Stephanie

[mecawa]

We do the whole Santa thing with the girls and will continue to as long as they believe/want to. We are also Catholic and we do discuss the religous aspect of it as well. To me childhood is the part of life where you can and do believe in all things magical, I want the girls to have/feel that same kind of innocence/magic that I had. Luckily Christmas is a huge deal for both us and both of our families, we don't have one weekend free when Dec. rolls around, it's parties and family activities all month long!!! I just remember how magical and exciting it all was and felt to me as a child and i want the girls to feel the same.