I hate Santa

[Xerxella]

Ok, not really, but I'm REALLY annoyed with the whole Santa thing.  I have a 4 year old and we're pretty traditional, but I've never really brought up the Santa story.  People give each other gifts on Christmas and, oh yeah, that guy's name is Santa, but aren't you excited about going to Grandma's this year? 

Well, the park district preschool I enrolled him in told him the whole story.  But, does he give them his questions?  Noooooo.....  He saves those for me.  I really not interested in building this whole lie with lie on top of lie on top of lie.  However, I don't want to call his preschool teacher a liar either and have him be the one who goes to school saying there is no Santa. 

So far, I've answered with I don't know, I've never heard that, who told you that, you're preschool teacher, then ask her. 

Am I being too odd?  Should I just suck it up and tell the lie?  Hasn't anyone else run into this?  Or, am I the only one who hates Santa? 

[BennyPai]

We've had this battle with my MIL.  Grrrrr!  DP and I finally decided to compromise and tell the story and present Santa as a pretend game that we play.

That didn't work out -- I wish DP and I had thought that through completely.  Their imaginations are so alive at these young ages -- our girls quickly forgot that we were pretending.  My daughter just informed me that a laptop is not too expensive to get as a Christmas gift because, "Santa can bring it."

Right now, I HATE Santa.  Truly.

[alicewyf]

We're Catholic, so it's easy to say Santa is really Saint Nicholas, and we celebrate his feast day on Dec. 6th. He does bring presents!

[Xerxella]

I like the idea of telling the St. Nicholas story, thanks.  But that really doesn't answer the Santa Claus myth. 

Mom, how does Santa get to all the kids?  Do reindeer really fly?  Why do some kids not have trains?  Were they bad?  Teacher said that Santa brings gifts to good girls and boys?  So, maybe those kids just weren't good? 

AARrrrggghhhhhhhhhhh...... 

I really don't want to build lie upon lie, like Baby New Year stops time, magic makes them fly, whatever....

And, how does one explain that some kids don't have toys or enough food?????

And, how do you explain why he can't have EVERY toy?  But, mom, you don't have to buy it, Santa will..... 

How does anyone else handle this? 

[tooraloora]

I started out avoiding Santa altogether and planned to tell DD it was a pretend game some families play when it did eventually came up. When she started kindergarten, she found out allll about him at school, so I did take the "pretend game" route. She was a little bummed, but we seemed to move beyond it. Then Christmas came and a bunch of anonymous gifts showed up. DD decided that they had to be from Santa and that I only told her he wasn't real because we'd just moved and I was afraid he wouldn't find us. The relief radiating from that little girl was overwhelming. I ended up deciding to tell her that she was exactly right. Since then, I've started participating in a lot of make believe. The Tooth Fairy has collected two teeth so far, we've collected felted eggs hidden by the Easter Bunny, wee folk visit our garden, and a brownie helps me with the house work. I'm pretty sure deep down she realizes that none of this is truly real, but the magic is real to her and it makes her happy. Her childhood is full of magic, and though this might not be how I'd originally planned to do things, right now I can't see doing it any other way.

When it comes to questions about Santa, I mostly tell her "I don't really know, but wouldn't it be fun think about how it might happen?" Then we cuddle and giggle, talking about how it all might happen. Maybe he makes chimneys magically appear in the houses normally without. Maybe he shrinks down really tiny and pops in through the key hole. Maybe the raindeer fly because they've been sprinkled with pixie dust. It's a great opportunity for her to really put her imagination to work, and we have a lot of fun with it.

However, DD also knows that Santa would never dream of undermining the values of parents and certainly wouldn't bring an expensive laptop to a screen free 6 year old, that he (just like Mama) wants children to learn to appreciate what they have, and that as magical as he may be, Santa is still just a man and try as he might, he can't right all of the wrongs of the world. He can only do his best, just like the rest of us, and sometimes he needs a little help.

[nextcommercial]

LOL.. I'm no help.  I adore Santa!

[wishin'&hopin']

At our house, Santa will bring stockings...and that is it.  We'll participate in the Santa story for fun...but set boundaries around excess in our own house.  For St. Nicholas day on Dec 6th we will be packing up toys (in good shape) to donate as a way to start setting the stage for acts of giving being the whole POINT of all of it.  Then again, we have a 19 month old soooo no hard questions yet!

[PennyRoo]

I'm certainly not trying to encourage you to perpetuate Santa if it makes you uncomfortable, but where you see the "lie upon lie" I see the magic, as a PP mentioned.  (And we, too, have fairies that visit our garden and leave tiny gifts, like a blossom in a sea shell, and other magical things happening in our house.)  I feel like the things we are creating are the stuff of the most magical, wonderful memories of childhood for our kids.  Seeing my oldest DD (9 and still a firm believer) squealing with excitement as she looks into the sky and sees moving lights on Christmas eve that just have to be Santa's sleigh makes a believer out of me, too.

But to answer some of your specific questions, here is how we deal with some of the problematic aspects of Santa.

"No, Santa won't bring you a laptop because he knows that is something our family does not believe in for kids. I don't even have a laptop, for goodness sake!"

"Santa only brings you one gift, in addition to filling your stockings.  There are so many kids in the world who need gifts and it would not be fair if you expected more than one gift."

"There are a lot of families where parents cannot afford gifts for their children.  It is important that Santa concentrate on those families."

"I don't know - what do you think?"

[Just1More]

We've never really done Santa.  Last year and the year before we "played the game" at dd's request.  But, that's all it's always been to her.  She checks in, now and then, "Really, it's just the grownups, right?"  "But then, how did..."  And I just smile and shrug.  It keeps the magic without the lie.

We've talked about how it's a fun game that grownups like to play with kids.  AND we've talked about how it isn't a good idea to walk around talking about how Santa really isn't real because some kids are really enjoying the game and it might make them sad. 

We have lots of imagination around here, and lots of magic.  You should see Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie at work around here...but, I'm not a fan of actually setting forth something as TRUE, and then saying, well, we were just pretending with you.  A child can know the truth, and then decide to pretend and imagine.

OP, I would just tell your ds the deal.  And I'd email the teacher and give her a heads-up about how non-cool it was to just assume that everyone does Santa...

[Mummoth]

What I want to know is, how come the parents that don't want to do Santa get the believers, and people (like me) who do want to do Santa get the natural born skeptics?! DS told me Santa isn't real because he looked up the chimney and the hole is way to small even for him... I told him that Santa isn't really human, he's sort of like an octopus and doesn't have bones, so he can go through any hole that his teeth can fit through, but that adults don't usually tell the kids that because they don't want them to be scared, and Santa is really nice so you don't have to worry about it. 

[Xerxella]

Wow thanks you guys have given me alot to think about.  I don't know about the whole magic thing.  My family did the standard Santa thing, but I never believed in it.  I just realized (it must have been early on because I don't remember ever believing) that all of that was impossible.  My parents just let it be and told the story, but didn't really try to convince me.  I think if they tried really hard I would've felt that I couldn't trust them. 

But on the other hand, I DO want my kids to have the magic of childhood.  I don't know, I guess I'll just fumble along as I go and if the kids need to believe, I'll let them believe.  Otherwise, I'll just be my realistic self.  (I feel the need to add that we do have alot of imaginative play and fun, it just doesn't come out in type.)

Thanks tooraloora for your story.  I could see seomething like that happening. 

[fritz]

We're a rather secular family, but we love the Christmas decorations, and both DH and I grew up celebrating Christmas with a variety of holiday traditions, some of which we're continuing with our DS.  But we didn't want to perpetuate the Santa Claus myth, and since all our family is long distance, it doesn't come up very often.

DS was introduced to the fictional character of Santa Claus through some movies, so Santa was never a big deal...just another character in silly movies.  As DS has gotten older (he's 6 now), he's picked up that there is a certain way that Santa's supposed to do his job/be portrayed, within the confines of whichever movie he's watching, but DS hasn't really had a lot of questions about Santa, so it hasn't been much of an issue for us.  (I should add that How The Grinch Stole Christmas--cartoon version--was one of his favorites for a long time, so he understood that cartoon/make believe characters can get away with a lot more inexplicable behaviors than real people, which is probably why DS hasn't gotten too hung up on how Santa is supposed to be able to do everything that he does.)

We never wanted to lie to our kid either, so we never tried to make Santa something to believe in.  However, DS has known for at least a couple years that a long time ago there was a real man (Saint Nicholas) who came to be associated with the spirit of giving.  And that lots of Christian families (kids in particular) believe in Santa Claus, and that's okay.  There are also lots of other people who don't believe in Santa, and that's okay, too.  Respecting the beliefs of others was what we were aiming for.  We left it up to DS as to whether he wanted to believe or not.  He knows we're the ones who give him presents (so he gets to make a wish list, or dictate items for me to write down on the list, but he knows he's not going to get everything on the list).  There's plenty of magic in DS's childhood (in fact, right now he's deeply in the throes of belief in Disney fairies again), so we don't feel we're depriving him of any significant experience just b/c we don't hype up Santa.

[tbone_kneegrabber]

I am a Santa hater.  I hate that he bring gifts to "good girls and boys," thus implying that kids who don't get stuff are "bad"  I hate that some families get 5,000 Santa presents and others get 1 and then the kids with 1 gift think they've been naughty.  I hate the idea that a strange man/person/octopus would break into your home, eat your food, and may or may not leave you gifts.  I hate that for 364 days out the year you would tell your kid to NEVER sit in a strangers lap, but in Decemeber folks are forcing their kids, through screaming and crying to sit on some stranger at the mall's lap!  I hate that because I don't celebrate Christmas and other people do I'm suppose to lie to my kid and/or make him keep the secret!

Ok......deep breath......

We don't do Santa, (we don't celebrate Christmas, but Dp's parents do and so we go there).  It has not yet come up (DS is 4) I suspect this might be the year he hears about it from someone, although more that 50% of his school are Jewish and 2 or 3 of his teachers are Jewish so he most likely won't be hearing about it from the teachers!  If it comes up, we are planning on telling him that Santa is a character like Little Bear or Frog and Toad or Fancy Nancy.  That some people like to play games involving Santa.  That I do not want to play games involving Santa.

as an aside last year if ds saw a picture of Santa and asked who it was I would say Satan.  I did this for my own amusement and because he was rather difficult for other people to understand last year and so I knew that if he repeated it no one would be the wiser to what he was actually saying.  This year he is much easier to understand and I realize that I can't do that, because some well meaning person will hear him refer to Santa as Satan and feel the need to school him.

[SweetSilver]

Santa is a story, a fun story and that's that.  That was always the way of it in our house.  That guy dressed up is the guy dressed up like Santa.  Sounds really dull, but it doesn't seem to take the fun out of Christmas.

Funny, but I just posted on a Tooth Fairy thread before I spotted this one, but I'll write it again.  We started recording the "Tooth Fairy", "Easter Bunny" doing their jobs.  The Tooth Fairy has been, variously, their dad, the cat, me.  This isn't trickery, or even an attempt at it--it is most obviously us (or the cat, or the chicken... or not the chicken actually that's a bad idea....).  They get a kick out of guessing who will be doing the work in the next video, and of course they love watching the videos over and over.  I don't see any lack by treating the whole Santa-thing this way, and we don't feel like scrooges, either.  And, yes, "Santa" will be making an appearance this Xmas Eve.  But he won't be the chicken, I've convinced myself of that.

(BTW, my youngest still had a little trouble fully convincing herself that Santa wasn't real, despite our talking about it.  That's just the brain of the 4yo at work.)

[JollyGG]

Even at 4, my kids got that different families have different traditions and beliefs.

In our Family Santa only buys one gift and it's not typically an extravagant one. He also throws some candy, an orange, and a new toothbrush in a Stocking. We don't talk about him much or do much surrounding him. We choose to spend most of our holiday focusing on what we want to get for other people. I think Santa is a much bigger thing in families where all the gifts come from Santa. But I want my kids to enjoy the giving as much, if not more than the receiving so celebrating Santa in that way doesn't work for us. My kids have always seemed okay with that.

[AAgrippina]

as an aside last year if ds saw a picture of Santa and asked who it was I would say Satan.

::snort:: I wish I'd thought of that.   If I ever have another kid...

At this point, it's not so much that you would have to say your child's teacher is a liar but that other parents might not appreciate little Billy coming around and speaking truth to power over snacktime.  Maybe a diplomatic approach could be best? "Some people say..." "There are those who believe..." so that you can answer the questions as best you can without committing to the lie.

As for the magic, which is really the best part of the holiday season, you can bring it to your home in a number of ways. Look up winter celebrations around the world and find what works for you! (And seriously, while you're at it, read Dave Sedaris' "Six to Eight Black Men"--- it's a riot. It will give you perspective on our own country's weird holiday traditions.  http://   www.esquire.com/features/ESQ1202-DEC_SEDARIS)

[philomom]

He's a story person... like Madeline, Elmo and Dr. Suess's Sam I am ..... only some parents tell their kids he's real. Can you believe that? Please don't go around enlightening them, okay? They'll find out soon enough.


No, we never did santa , either. Childhoods can have lots of magic and wonder.. but not lies. I never, ever lie to my children. I may water down a hard truth for a four year old, but I have never uttered a lie to my children.

And yeah, the parents who tell their kids all year to never talk to strangers and then plop their kids on santa at the mall lap of a random guy are twisted in my book. Then, even more twisted if the kid cries and you take a picture anyway.

[Emmeline II]

Originally Posted by JollyGG 

In our Family Santa only buys one gift and it's not typically an extravagant one. He also throws some candy, an orange, and a new toothbrush in a Stocking.

When I ready this thread it reminded me of "Charlie and Lola" where they get their "Christmas Wish" gift from Santa and the rest comes from the parents.

I didn't want to do the Santa thing for the reasons previously mentioned but it was really important for dh.

[One_Girl]

Some pretend characters are harder to take than others ime. I like the Santa stuff, though I did start to call it a fun tradition when I talked about it once my DD started school. I really hate the fairy stuff with a passion though and I don't think that my DD has suffered because I told her they are fun to pretend about but not real from the moment she asked about them. She decided I am wrong and believes in them anyways but I am fine with that as long as I don't have to pretend I believe in, or care about, a character that drives me crazy.

[milkybean]

Originally Posted by Xerxella 

I like the idea of telling the St. Nicholas story, thanks.  But that really doesn't answer the Santa Claus myth. 

Mom, how does Santa get to all the kids?  Do reindeer really fly?  Why do some kids not have trains?  Were they bad?  Teacher said that Santa brings gifts to good girls and boys?  So, maybe those kids just weren't good? 

AARrrrggghhhhhhhhhhh...... 

"The story of Santa says that".....

I grew up without Santa (domestic abuse in the family, dad in and out of the house, dad breaking in and doing things like setting the malamutes into the chicken coop when those eggs were our main source of protein, etc, so the idea of a man breaking into the house was NOT OK FOR ME) and MY magic was how on earth my mom managed to make xmas every year without money and without time alone and where did she hide the presents and how did she know EXACTLY what we wanted....  That was my magic, and it was so much more awesome than some dude with a beard coming into the house 5 feet from my bedroom and sneaking around....

We grew up with the myth of Santa, and a doll that only showed up on xmas morning, with cookie crumbs on his belly and his glass of wine (oh yes, not milk for our guy) emptied, and it was cool.  Don't know where mom hid it, as our house was 800 square feet...

Originally Posted by tbone_kneegrabber 

 I hate the idea that a strange man/person/octopus would break into your home, eat your food, and may or may not leave you gifts.  I hate that for 364 days out the year you would tell your kid to NEVER sit in a strangers lap, but in Decemeber folks are forcing their kids, through screaming and crying to sit on some stranger at the mall's lap!  I hate that because I don't celebrate Christmas and other people do I'm suppose to lie to my kid and/or make him keep the secret!

Ok......deep breath......

Love love love love love.

Originally Posted by SweetSilver 

(BTW, my youngest still had a little trouble fully convincing herself that Santa wasn't real, despite our talking about it.  That's just the brain of the 4yo at work.)

DS at 4 or so informed me that I was WRONG and that Santa really did exist.  It was weird for me, but it was a phase he went through, LOL.

We go to Disneyland/world a lot, and we have never once told DS that Mickey etc was "real", but he LOVES them MADLY all the same.  He sees the zippers, he knows absolutely that they are humans in suits, but he runs to them and hugs them and thinks they are awesome... 

And we're weird b/c the tooth fairy does show up here, LOL.  He tells me that I'm his tooth fairy, that he knows it, but I haven't confirmed nor denied it...  I like the mystery of how Tinkerbell knew he'd lost a tooth at a WDW resort, and how she managed to hang a little Harry Potter Lego keychain on our doorknob, when he had been to the Lego store with me that night and never saw me get the HP keychain!  That's the kind of mystery I adore.  :)

But he, just like me and my brother, is being taught that other kids still believe in these things, that they don't know it's their parents doing it (or not, in the case of the tooth fairy LOL), and that those of us in the know are not EVER to spill the beans.