@traceyn We ask a lot of questions of our kids- “what do you think?” “How would you guess it worked?” We also never threaten with Santa or a call to him and we don’t have an elf. Santa brings the stocking and one gift while the rest come from us. We also talk a lot about the spirit of Christmas and of giving. Santa is definitely getting lots of attention as they’re getting older (5 and 3) but we try to keep Santa as a story and part of the tradition, not the only tradition.
@traceyn Our plan is to transition to something you want/need/wear/read when the kids are old enough to understand it but the thing that will stay the same throughout it all is that Santa brings underwear, socks, books, etc. Very basic things we need so that santa isn't bringing expensive stuff to our house and nothing to others.
@traceyn There's a great episode of Bluey (on Disney + I think) called "Veranda Santa." That got my 4-year-old playing Santa. She'll be the kid and have me be the mama/Santa leaving presents, then we switch. She isn't too chuffed about whether Santa is real. He's just as real as Daniel Tiger, Olivia, fairies, or any other characters in her stories.
@traceyn So over here we don’t do Santa but we have St Nicholas who comes between mid November and 5 December. We have decided that every year right before he arrives we’re going to tell the real story of Nicholas of Myra who was so kind and generous that we still celebrate his birthday annually by doing a big play about him in his honour. And after that we leave the subject alone for three weeks so her fantasy can take over. Every year she gets a little older our story will stick more. To be fair she’s only 1,5 so no actual experience yet with how well this works but it was a good compromise for us!
@traceyn Our daughter isn't quite old enough to understand yet, but our plan is to treat Santa as a costume people wear when they want to focus to be on the gift, not the giver.
@traceyn Just like most people here, I'm taking his lead. What's strange though, is he never believed in santa until this year. He's turning 5 in January. I told him when he was younger that santa is make believe, but when the holiday stuff started up he asked me again this year. So I asked him what he thought, and he said he believes he's real. So we're going with that this year. He's enjoying the magic of it, he's a very grounded kid must of the time so it's fun to see.
@traceyn Daughter is 2.5 and we are treating Santa like a mythical character. We explain the roots in the tradition of St Nicholas and that some people like to pretend. We will tell her the stocking is from us tomorrow.
@traceyn I plan on reading her the story of saint Nicholas and explaining that everyone can be Santa, and people play pretend. If she wants, we can play pretend in our house too
@traceyn My husband and I don’t generally lie about Santa. We told all of our kids that he isn’t real but a story we tell that’s fun to have on Christmas. The “magic” is in the story. When they were a little older we talked about what Christmas means to our family. We aren’t religious, though some of our family is fairly devout, and we don’t force any of our children to be, but we do celebrate Christmas as a holiday for time with family, friends, etc. We told our older children that it was a time to indulge in the story of Santa and Christmas joy, etc etc and that sometimes the fun of that is in pretending to believe in Santa. It’s kind of become an inside joke to our family. “Oh, Santa is coming! Hear his sleigh bells?”
@traceyn I mostly just lurk here because my kid is only a few weeks old, but I was super into the holiday season as a kid and believed in Santa for way too long. When my sister told me he wasn't real, it shook me to my core. I want my kid to have the magic of believing without the feeling of being lied to. I'm thinking we might do something like this post suggests. Essentially, when kids are old enough to start questioning the existence of Santa as a man, you introduce Santa as a concept and let them transition from believing in Santa to being Santa via anonymous acts of kindness and generosity.
