What is your family's Santa Mythology? I need some help - Page 2

[Polliwog]

At our house, Santa fills the stockings and brings several presents. This year, we couldn't find our stockings and Santa decided to wrap all the presents. The kids were with Santa when she bought the wrapping paper (one pattern for each child) so they were told that an elf comes a few days before Christmas and picks up the paper that the parents purchase. The recession has hit the North Pole, too.

Santa comes and leaves the presents under our tree and then enjoys a cold drink of milk and some reindeer cookies while the reindeer enjoy their carrots. Santa must have had too much holiday cheer at someone else's hat because he left his glasses at our house. And a white glove. And one of Rudolph's bells. And he left so quickly that his jacket got caught in our front door (no chimney here) and ripped. So, we have a piece of that too. Which reminds me, we need to send a package to the North Pole so that Santa will have his stuff for next year.

My five-year-old drew a card for Santa that he left next to the snacks. He had wanted to buy one, but I told him that Santa really likes homemade cards and he saves them in a drawer to keep forever. LOL.

[Bluegoat]

In our house, Santa (St Nick) comes on Christmas night and fills stockings - occasionally there is an item or two which, it turns out, he can't fit in. Santa has less spatial sense than one might expect. He brings a combination of things - this year crayons, a tone block, socks, long-johns, a rubber duck, chocolate, etc.

Santa MAY bring another, special gift. In the past, he brought a doll that dd1 asked for.

This year, he brought his special gift early. DD1 had asked for her own nativity set to play with, so Santa brought it on St Nicolas' Day, so she could play with it during the time leading up to Christmas.

At our house, he wraps things in the stocking, badly, with a lot of tape. He, of course, has different paper than we do, so you can always tell which gifts are his.

[mommajb]

Santa only fills stockings with treats and small gifts here. Most of our gifts are wrapped but I refused to buy any new paper this year and threw dark green bath towels over a bunch. We are working towards reusable and there are so many of us (5 kids plus my parents were here).

Historically we opened one gift on Christmas Eve, new pajamas from my Grandma. It has taken a while for someone to decide it is their thing to give the pajamas (probably because they cant figure out what I want) so that idea has been dropped.

ETA: We also do St Nicolas Day with a special candy, St Lucia Day with lussekatter or other Scandinavian treat as whims allow, and we'll be sure to be done by Jan 6!

[Hatteras Gal]

So in your family...

How many gifts does Santa bring? All of them? Some of them?
Santa brings one gift for each of us, and a joint gift for the kids. Santa brings the "big stuff."

Does Santa wrap gifts in a special way? My mom says the Santa gift is supposed to be unwrapped and the big 'wishlist' gift of the season--but I swear she never did that with me!

I wrap Santa stuff in the same wrap as I'm using for all the other presents.

If you open some things Xmas eve and some things Xmas day, what do you do? We had a terrible time deciding whether or not to open gifts Xmas eve or stockings. We did stockings, but did those come from Santa? From us?

This year, on Christmas Eve, we opened the gifts the kids made us at school, and the gifts they got each other at the PTA santa shop. And the gifts my best friend sent. Basically what was under the tree at that point. We won't put things out early. Even the boxes that come from my family don't get put out until Christmas morning.

So how do you handle Santa at your house?
I make sure the kids know that santa only brings them one present each. Because should we have a lean year and we can't afford much, they don't have to wonder why santa didn't bring as much as last year, kwim? We leave cookies and milk out for him before bed, and then he leaves a note of thanks on the empty plate. We put candy and little stuff in their stockings. This year it was Christmas cups, candy and $ from their grandparents. Stockings weren't very important in my family growing up, so I keep them low key.