Not 'doing' Santa - part two

Ada_Doom

Not sure why you have bothered with the magic dust angle as you seem so delighted with your prosaic approach to Xmas.You remind me a bit of me. You are keen to tell others of fairly contentious decisions you have made regarding parenting, and it makes me wonder why. I know I do things like that too, I told my daughter where babies comes from age 2, told her I didn't believe in heaven, and have taken her on various busy protest marches where she has shouted "Tory Scum" at downing street with the rest of us. It's the delighting in telling others that interests me, I think it is the rebel in us! I let my children believe in Father Christmas though...

Xebnotlaw_2

Poppy9 wrote: »

nbf but why start a new thread if you want to continue the discussion from the old thread. Many posters like myself don't read all the threads and just join in on new threads as it's too daunting to read hundreds of posts!

Exactly! I'm sure that various important points were made in that thread but my whole point is this;
1) You are telling a little girl that Father Christmas does not exist, yet substituting him with 'magic'. That, I believe, is contradictory.
2) Whatever your point about other parents, it is not fair on the other children who still believe to be told "he's not real"... Just because your child has had the magic stolen away, doesn't mean others have to as well.
3) It does seem completely unnecessary to tell a 3 1/2 year old that he doesn't exist. What is the benefit of it to anyone? Childhood is a time for believing in the silly and magical elements of life, that is what makes it so special. To take that away from a child is like turning round and saying; "Right, you're X years old now, stop acting like a child and start pulling your weight." We don't live in those times, nor in that underdeveloped way. Plus, as I already said, you're only substituting one type of magic with another, so I REALLY do not see the point.

BitterAndTwisted

What sort of miserable wet-blanket of a parent would deliberately and consciously deprive their little kid of the magic of Christmas?

skintchick

Nope, Ada, it was just a follow on to the other thread (not started by me) which had a lot of discussion. And I don't intend to have all that discussion again here. People are welcome to find and read that thread or not, but I'm not going to repeat what I said on there, here.

I didn't put this on the end of that thread as by the end it was more about honesty and truthfulness than not doing Father Christmas.

Discuss or not as you all see fit, I won't be repeating my original comments, nor defending my position or what I do.

All I can say is that make believe is VERY different to telling your children FC is an absolute, and that the magic and joy that people attribute to FC is quite clearly achieveable in other ways, via make believe and pretend that is honest (DD knows the gifts are from me and OH).

That was the point, just to follow up on those accusations from the other thread. Any discussion ought really to follow on from that rather than repeat, but I'm not going to comment further, just read (maybe). I am pretty certain I have covered any questions previously, on the first thread (with same title so easy to find).

Xebnotlaw_2

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

What sort of miserable wet-blanket of a parent would deliberately and consciously deprive their little kid of the magic of Christmas?

The only possible explanation I can think of is that OP desperately needs some attention for one reason or another... Why else would you deprive your child of Santa and then broadcast it on one of the busiest forums in the UK?

Errata

Good grief, whatever happened to a sock containing an apple, and orange, some nuts, an annual and a bar of chocolate, and presents with gift tags from mum, dad and etc put under the tree?
I hope the OP's toddler doesn't spread it around playgroup that Santa isn't real, just a made up story. :eek:

madison-nyc

From what I remember from the first thread Skintchick's point was that she didn't want to/wouldn't lie and FC is considered a lie from her viewpoint.

candygirl

OMG your DD is the same age as my DGD, and I would hate to spoil the magic of Xmas for her.She can deal with all the dull and boring real life stuff, when she's much older:(:(

Ada_Doom

Thanks for spelling out so clearly for us the direction you want this thread to take. What is honest make-believe?

ecgirl07

Errata wrote: »

I hope the OP's toddler doesn't spread it around playgroup that Santa isn't real, just a made up story. :eek:

thats the thing, there are some commonality of experiences that make us, our family,our community and our society something more than a group of individuals. A wee belief in santa claus and the associated magic is one of them. I kinda pity the child in class who is the definite "santa doesnt exist" kid because they are missing out on the wider experience and they often know it.