How do you 'do' Christmas?

[loeylo]

Her stocking and one larger but not main present is from Santa. Her main present and everything else is from us. We send everything to Santa and he delivers it all.

Stocking is just small wooden toys, bubbles, toiletries and suchlike - all low value items.

When we were growing up our main present was from Santa (not always the most expensive, but the one which I wanted most or my biggest "surprise" - one year it was a hamster) and a few smaller presents. I definitely would have questioned why my mum and dad didn't get us anything but my grandparents did.

 

[k4th]

Originally - Santa brought all the presents (from us). Presents from family/friends were labelled.

Then dd started questioning why some presents were from people she knows (so she had to write thank-you's) and why others were all from Santa. She thought Santa dropped them at other people's houses for her - but then why were they labelled??!

(Yes - she's too smart for her own good )

So now, people buy the presents and send them to Santa. Santa brings them back to children on the nice list. This led to dd asking if she could send a present in case there were any children whose mummy couldn't send a present! So this year she chose something she really liked in Sainsbury's & put it in a box for a local children's charity that is at the front of the shop.

She still gets these two stories mixed up occasionally, but she takes what she wants from them.

I love Christmas and want her to get all the magic of it! We make a huge deal of the tree & house lights. We're doing elf on the shelf etc. I have very fond memories of Christmas & the magic of it, so I want her to have that, but also be grateful to people who have been nice enough to buy her things.

 

[Willow82]

Thanks everyone. He has his heart set on the paw patrol lookout tower and asked santa for it when we met him yesterday. I think I was a bit concerned that if the stocking is filler items only, he will think that santa didn't listen to him, even though we have bought it him. I think what we might do is stocking and paw patrol toy from santa, everything else from family.

 

[SarahBear]

Ack! I said "let's believe in Christmas," but what I MEANT to say was "Let's believe in Santa Claus." I did edit my post above so it doesn't say "christmas" anymore.. Ooops!

 

[_Meep_]

Haha. It's a very sweet thing to say either way. I would imagine she won't be a full-on believer as she's already aware it isn't really real? But it's still cool that she wants to try believing.

 

[SarahBear]

I think she just likes the idea of pretending he's real. For a kid like Violet, pretending he's real is just as exciting as believing he's real. She's pretty into Easter and we do the Easter bunny. However, our "Easter Bunny," is a stuffed bunny. It's very clear and obvious that we're pretending. I think maybe we'll leave out milk and cookies and a reindeer snack on Christmas Eve and might label a present as being from Santa. I think I'll just make sure my kids are aware it's pretend and I'll play along since Violet's into it.

 

[Midnight_Fairy]

Mine know hes not real but tradition we leave mince pies.

Xx

 

[_Meep_]

I think she just likes the idea of pretending he's real. For a kid like Violet, pretending he's real is just as exciting as believing he's real. She's pretty into Easter and we do the Easter bunny. However, our "Easter Bunny," is a stuffed bunny. It's very clear and obvious that we're pretending. I think maybe we'll leave out milk and cookies and a reindeer snack on Christmas Eve and might label a present as being from Santa. I think I'll just make sure my kids are aware it's pretend and I'll play along since Violet's into it.

That sounds nice. I bet she will love that!

 

[Boo44]

I am an (almost) 35 year old adult and I can honestly say I never once wondered why my parents didn't give me presents. Everything for us was from santa. That's what made Christmas so so special! It doesn't mean you have to have a lot.

They will get labelled presents from family and that's really nice too

Can't wait!

 

[Eleanor ace]

We say that stockings and a few presents are from Father Christmas, the rest are from us. I kind of wish we'd just said stockings were from Father Christmas but hey ho!

 

[kbwebb]

The only thing DD has asked for is a yoyo. All year long shes asked for one (she saw it on peppa pig i think).. so the yoyo will be from santa, plus an elsa dress as i know she would LOVE one. All the other presents are from us.

 

[PrincessTaz]

We do a few presents from Santa and most of the big ones are from mummy, daddy and family but we send them to santa for him to deliver on xmas eve x

 

[JumpingIn]

We give our son presents labelled 'love mummy and daddy'. Family members give him presents labeled 'love granny' etc. They're from us and we don't pretend they're not

 

[SarahBear]

Violet commented again last night "let's believe in Santa." I talked about leaving cookies and things for the reindeer. She said she didn't want to "because Santa doesn't really exist." OK, which is it! Should we pretend he is or should we not? She was OK with the idea of leaving him a thank-you letter though. Go figure. Pretend people can receive Thank you letters, but not cookies. We'll at least label a present for each kid as being from Santa. Leo is going to get a beach ball from Santa and Violet will get some doll house dolls from Santa. Perhaps I'll talk about the stockings as if they're from Santa too. I'm not sure what my brother-in-law and his wife are doing for Santa with their daughter. My husband sent an email last night to find out.

 

[_Meep_]

 

[jessmke]

We do a stocking and small present from Santa and everything else is labelled for who it is from. Presents from us and other family members are under the tree before Christmas, Santa just comes and brings a small gift and stocking stuffers on Christmas.

 

[_Meep_]

The Santa presents should be small/basically a bit crap in my opinion, so the family presents get the most attention, though the stocking is obviously still awesome.

So far this year, 'Santa' is bringing LO a magnifying glass, a pack of glitter glue pens, some child's scissors, chocolate coins, bubbles, a bag of colourful dry pasta shaped like farm animals, a chocolate mouse and a wooden owl that hoots when you blow into its head that she fell in love with at the herbalist's!

 

[Tasha]

We do all of them santa. Actually family and friends are labelled from them and DH and I give one present from us to the older three (its usually an expensive thing they can share) and one for Orion.

 

[faith82]

When I was growing up we put out our pillowcase before going to bed and santa filled it with presents. All the presents under the tree were from friends and relatives, clearly labelled so we knew who they were from. As far as I was aware mum and dad never bought us anything. I believed in santa until I was 10, no doubts whatsoever. I was genuinely shocked when I found some hidden presents just before Christmas! Never once did I wonder why mum and dad didn't get us anything. When I look back I can't believe it never even crossed my mind.
For that reason we do give our lo's a couple of presents under the tree from us.
They have a small stocking upstairs filled with small presents (by santa) that will fit in. They're not necessarily cheap. They jump on our bed in the morning and open them before going downstairs. They also put their sacks out downstairs and santa fills them too.
They don't have presents under the tree apart from the ones we put there because we go to our parents and their presents are waiting there for them from their grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Bit of a different way of doing it compared to others but it's the tradition we've set now and we love it!

 

[Tasha]

Oh I meant to say that I didn't get anything from my parents and I didn't think about it tbh. I know my eight year old said a few years back (we didn't get them anything back then), that we do so much for them all year that is why we didn't get them presents.