[Rocksteady]

My wife and I have 'conflicting' Christmas traditions. We are trying to work out a way to do Father Christmas for my son (nearly 3) without falling out!

For me growing up, all presents came to me and my brother from Father Christmas. There were no presents around the tree, they suddenly appeared on Christmas Day (on several occasions discovered in the small hours of the night). The explanation was that Father Christmas came and gave presents as long as you believed in him, after which your family had to take over.
I really loved this as a kid, believed in Santa probably into the first year of secondary school, and pretended to believe in him forcing my parents to sneak into my room and deliver presents probably until I was about 15. We had loads of fun with half-eaten mince pies, carrots, snowy footprints in the house etc.

For my wife, presents were labelled and given by the giver, building up around the tree towards Christmas Day. But Father Christmas also came in the night and gave a stocking full of smaller presents.
She really loved this as a kid and it went on in their house for the kids even into their 20s!

My wife feels that people should not be robbed of the enjoyment of giving the gift, and that it's important for children to thank the giver.
In my family my parents thanked the giver on the children's behalf, and the focus was mainly on making it as 'magical' for the children at Christmas as possible. Thank yous etc all happened as normal on birthdays and other occasions for presents, but Christmas was special.

In both our parents' cases one side of the family had strong Christmas traditions and the other didn't, so suspect this issue didn't come up.

Am really interested to know what other people do and how they've resolved the conflicting Christmas traditions conundrum!

[lagerstarfish]

Main present from Santa.

Other things that we have adopted that have been fun are

Elf on the shelf. Loads of fun. Ends up becoming a competition between my wife and I to see who can come up with the best idea.

Reverse advent calendar. Every day the kids choose an item to go to the local food bank collection. We take the box every week.

[Fultonius]

When we were you most came from Santa and some from parents family, signed by the giver.

Once we'd figured the whole thing out, we still got silly sticking fillers from Santa.

Haven't got kids....

[Will Hunt]

The bit where my wife and I are in parallel is that presents from relatives for everybody go under the tree in the run up to Christmas Day; Father Christmas (not Santa ffs, though I catch myself using it all too often) brings presents on Christmas Day (parents don't buy the kids anything).

Where we diverge (because I was a lucky sod) is that we had presents from Father Christmas waiting in the living room but also a stocking left on the bed in the middle of the night with smaller things in it. This is actually a master stroke because unpacking the stocking and playing with the contents gives the kids something to do in the early hours before they run into the parent's bedroom. It seems very extravagant now but thinking back on it the stuff in the stockings was never expensive.

We also diverge in that in our house nobody could enter the living room until everybody was up, showered, dressed, breakfasted, and teeth brushed. So once the presents were opened the playing with them wasn't interrupted by chores. Daisy views this as intolerable cruelty and thinks we may as well have worn hair shirts for the day and opened the presents on Boxing Day.

[JamieG]

Our family did stockings from Santa. Presents under the tree from friends and family. Had to write my own thank you notes (felt like torture). So like your wife’s tradition. I still loved the magic of Santa with the stocking. So exciting having an empty one at bed time and then full in the morning. We did mince pies, milk and carrots etc too. Good memories.

Could you do a compromise? Santa does stockings and one big present under the tree. The rest are from family etc.

[Oldmanmatt]

Now:
Main present, from us, under tree. Santa brings some fairly meaty stuff, but not too major. Presents from family and friends under the tree.
The kids have their own “Santa sacks”.

Growing up:

Parents sent Santa the main present, which came in the stocking, but was labelled as from them. In those days, we had a pillow case of presents and a “stocking” (usually actually a cut off leg from a pair of tights) full of fruit, nuts and silly little toys, puzzles and party stuff.

Oh yeah:

Thank you letters are like a religion around here. Miss some of Polly’s family and you’re off the card/present list next year.
And I mean letters, too. None of yer quick notes etc and within January.

[casa]

For as long as possible let them have the full FC experience. It is, unfortunately, true that this will not last for as long as it once did. Kids are growing up a little too quickly nowadays.
May lads are 12 + 10 and it was really nice seeing them fully believe in the myth. But that was at least 3-4 years ago now

[Oldmanmatt]

For as long as possible let them have the full FC experience. It is, unfortunately, true that this will not last for as long as it once did. Kids are growing up a little too quickly nowadays.
May lads are 12 + 10 and it was really nice seeing them fully believe in the myth. But that was at least 3-4 years ago now

We have 15, 14 and 12,12.
Absolutely certain they’re fully briefed on “Father Christmas” , “Easter Bunny”, “Tooth Fairy” and “Her Majesty’s Government”, being utter fiction.
That’s not the point.
It’s just a stupid family game.
The fun comes in working out new ways to “Evidence” their visits.
Snowy boot prints by the (fake) fireplace. Actual Reindeer hoof prints in the back garden. Emails, with cryptic treasure hunts, from “The Big Bunny, head office”, come Easter. IOU’s from the Tooth Fairy (busy night, ran out of change) etc.

Oh yeah, couple of years back we faked cctv footage, when we had a camera covering a new puppy, of Santa’s visit.

[nik at work]

Stocking fillers only from Father Christmas.

Remember my mum explaining to me that some families can’t get big presents from Father Christmas, and you don’t want your kids going to school/nursery in the new year talking about their relatively big expensive gifts coming from Father Christmas and kids from other families feeling that Father Christmas doesn’t see they’re “as good” so they only got small things. Stuck with me.

[lagerstarfish]

One year I left landing tracks in the gravel at the front of the house, used some spare manure for reindeer poo and positioned some broken roof tiles on the floor.
I think that was the year when the ISS did a very visible circuit on Xmas Eve and the kids were totally into the idea that it was Santa starting his tour.
Ace

[nik at work]

And yes I’m well aware there are countless other inequalities in the lives of kids, doesn’t mean it’s not worth making just this one invisible gesture.

[Oldmanmatt]

And yes I’m well aware there are countless other inequalities in the lives of kids, doesn’t mean it’s not worth making just this one invisible gesture.

No need to justify. Personally I agree completely and it factors into how we do things now and how my parents did things then.

[lagerstarfish]

I've left my kids to find their own way around the differences in people's Christmas practices. I tried asking about what the kids at school from religious families say about it all and I realized that there was no need for me to say anything else. Kids are amazingly understanding of each others different beliefs.

[lagerstarfish]

Good point about making an invisible gesture Nik

[Rocksteady]

Thanks for all these responses and the reasoning behind traditions, really useful and interesting to see all the variations on the theme.

Loving the 'evidence' for Father Christmas too. The best thing we ever did was on a snowy year we had Father Christmas accidentally drop a present for my cousin at our house. We stuck it on the flat roof next to the chimney then left one set of fake bootprints and some fake hoofprints alongside the present. Wish we'd thought of the sleigh tracks too.

[ali k]

...presents from relatives for everybody go under the tree in the run up to Christmas Day; Father Christmas brings presents on Christmas Day.
...we had presents from Father Christmas waiting in the living room but also a stocking left on the bed in the middle of the night with smaller things in it.
...in our house nobody could enter the living room until everybody was up, showered, dressed, breakfasted, and teeth brushed. So once the presents were opened the playing with them wasn't interrupted by chores.

This was exactly the same in our house. I still get a stocking from Mum filled with chocolate and little presents. The magic of Christmas for me was blown when my Dad installed a security light on the garage which woke me up and I saw him carting presents inside.

[tommytwotone]

One thing that has happened this year which has created a LOT of disquiet in this house...kind of related.

Turns out our daughter (7 in Feb and still totally believing in Father Christmas [too right Will]) was told by one of the "older girls" at her after-school club that he isn't real and it's just your Mum and Dad.

Cue some enquiries by Una the day after, and a lot of calm-on-the-surface-but-scrabbling-around answers from me and her Mum!

I don't really care whether your kids believe in FC or not, but if they don't, they shouldn't be robbing other kids of the illusion.

[Steve R]

Lying to (or indoctrinating) your kids is out of order imo.  One of the most profound moments of my childhood happened in year 3 primary school on the run up to Christmas.  I was debating the existence of FC with a more streetwise girl in my class.  I generally have woeful recall of younger days but I can clearly remember the moment in our debate when I realised she was right and I'd been duped! 

[gme]

We still do the whole thing now and my kids are 19 and 16. We still haven't officially told them its not real.

Still label all the gifts from Santa. Still make ash footprints coming out of the fire. Still put out a mince pie, whisky and carrot and still get up shouting has he been yet.

I think my wife still believes in him and if he ever did pop down the chimney would be very much i told you so.

Its all a laugh and i never got some of the "right on " parents who told there kids when they were young.Bunch of miserable c**ts.

[Oldmanmatt]

Lying to (or indoctrinating) your kids is out of order imo.  One of the most profound moments of my childhood happened in year 3 primary school on the run up to Christmas.  I was debating the existence of FC with a more streetwise girl in my class.  I generally have woeful recall of younger days but I can clearly remember the moment in our debate when I realised she was right and I'd been duped!

I think the point (around here, anyway) is that he is ‘real”; for a given value of “real”.

Two years back, number 3, found out the hard way that the Tooth Fairy isn’t real (and, by extension, the rest).
He stole birthday money from his older brother (long story) and got caught, earlier in the year. He wasn’t done with the light fingers and had a habit of collecting change he “found” around the house (probably shouldn’t be recounting this tale, but absolutely certain he would never do anything like it again).
Anyway, after getting caught, he wasn’t allowed any money in his possession, we would hold birthday money etc, so anything turning up on him or in his room, was illicit. We randomly searched the room, school bag etc.
Bugger had managed to stash it somewhere.

Anyway, he lost a tooth. The Tooth Fairy here brings a quid. No more no less. They leave the tooth in a Simpsons shot glass, beside the bed and in the morning it’s a pound. Little sod comes down to breakfast all excited because the Tooth Fairy left him £2...
Cue rapid conference out of ear shot, thinking maybe we’d both done the money, somehow, by mistake. No chance.
Pack number 4 off to school early with Number 1 to escort and sit 3 down.

You should have seen his face.

But, it wasn’t the Tooth Fairy aspect, it was that he’d been caught.
I dare say he’ll remember that day far into later life and I hope he does.

He did a lot of housework over the next few weeks and had to earn back the money to repay his brother; but for sure, being made to call each set of grandparents and explain his actions (he has double the number of grandparents and the Romanian call was interesting) really sobered him.

[cheque]

Me & my sister used to get what we’d asked Father C for (one fairly major toy) in a pillowcase at the bottom of our beds together with a stocking (one of my Dad’s hiking socks) with little things inside. Presents from family etc. would be under the tree and we’d open them after we’d been to church (my parents are religious, not strict nutter religious at all but we did go to church when I was a kid) later in the morning. There’d be some presents under the tree that were from my Mum & Dad, always stuff we hadn’t asked for but that my Mum had either worked out over the course of the year that we’d like or stuff she thought we needed.

Surprised how late many of the kids on here believe in FC. I went to a pretty roughneck school with loads of kids whose parents had never played the Santa game with them at all so there was a strong “Santa’s not real, anyone who believes in him’s soft” energy. I started thanking my parents for the pillowcase presents from a pretty young age and they didn’t discourage me. The idea of Father Christmas visits was dropped once my sister was about 10 so I would have been 12. I think if your parents are religious then Jesus is the fictional character they’d prefer you to associate the festival with... It didn’t work but I did love Christmas- it was just a great family day with presents to me.

If I had kids I don’t think I’d mislead them about the existence of either but I do remember the dynamic of what you asked for being there when you wake up/ having to leave it to do something you hate/ coming back to even more presents that are all a surprise dynamic as being a total banger so maybe I’d do what my parents did but with some sort of family assault course instead of church. Fuck knows. 

[lagerstarfish]

Lying to (or indoctrinating) your kids is out of order imo. 

Helps them to understand indoctrinated people later in life

[Will Hunt]

I think we wrote a Christmas list once and the idea never caught on. I just can't remember asking for stuff and it appearing. You got what you got.


Every family does Christmas differently and I'm sure plenty of other people are like me in viewing only their way as the "proper" way to do things. I'm enjoying reading the responses but you're all barbarous heretics. Next somebody will be piping up to say they have an artificial tree 

[Oldmanmatt]

I think we wrote a Christmas list once and the idea never caught on. I just can't remember asking for stuff and it appearing. You got what you got.


Every family does Christmas differently and I'm sure plenty of other people are like me in viewing only their way as the "proper" way to do things. I'm enjoying reading the responses but you're all barbarous heretics. Next somebody will be piping up to say they have an artificial tree 

Guilty.

Tried a real one a couple years back. Didn’t even survive until Xmas eve. Puppy in the house that year...

Honestly, we only ever decorate the lounge. This year the kids have all decorated their own rooms too, but it’s the first time.

[webbo]

Lying to (or indoctrinating) your kids is out of order imo.  One of the most profound moments of my childhood happened in year 3 primary school on the run up to Christmas.  I was debating the existence of FC with a more streetwise girl in my class.  I generally have woeful recall of younger days but I can clearly remember the moment in our debate when I realised she was right and I'd been duped!

If you had told me that you still believed in FC when I first met you I wouldn’t have been surprised. I think you were about 19 at the time.