For those NOT doing Santa....

[wife&mommy]

How do you handle the "Is Santa coming to see you?" or "Are you excited about Santa coming?" or god forbid "Have you been good for Santa this year?", etc questions that every adult outside our home seems to ask??? My kid can't even answer them yet (17 months) and he is getting asked that. I don't want to go into the whole spiel about us not doing Santa. I don't want him constantly questioned about something we aren't doing, but I'm not sure what to do about it???

[annethcz]

When they were little, my kids usually answered, "I don't know." Now that they're older, they typically say that Santa doesn't come to our house.

I've found that we don't get questioned much about Santa- there are just so many people in our community who don't even celebrate Christmas, people don't want to offend by asking questions that might not apply to the family.

But since you are getting asked about Santa, stepping in with a short, "Santa doesn't visit our house" should be sufficient.

[wife&mommy]

You don't think that would open it up for them to say "why not?" or something? I guess they probably would assume it was for religious purposes so maybe that wouldn't say anything further. But there are those that just don't know when to stop, and those are the ones I guess I'm more concerned about. I just don't want to go into the whys with strangers.
Thanks though.

[flminivanmama]

my kids are old enough now to say "we don't believe in santa" to the people that ask them... since they all say those exact words that's probably what I always said

[mamablair]

Our DS is only 15 mo. so we haven't had to deal directly with this issue yet, but DH and I have discussed it. We aren't doing the "Santa thing" although we may tell DS that we might play Santa, that there maybe a present under the tree from him or a present at Gma and Gpa's house from him (especially since they will have Santa gifts no matter what we would prefer : ). We're just going to not make an issue of it.

This will let DS still have the fun of Santa, this might also ward off some akward moments when people ask. Maybe an answer of "Santa's not real" or "Santa is really Daddy and Mama". People might get annoyed at his lack of naivety but it's true. I guess we'll see...

[Periwinkle]

My preschoolers know all about Santa. But they know it to be a fun story that people like to tell at Christmastime. So when people say things like "Is Santa coming to your house???!!!" they say "Yes!"

The way I think about it, the question "is Santa coming" is just like any other idiom or colloquialism we use, and my children know it as such. They know it really means "will you get presents at Christmas".