Need help thinking up an excuse for Santa

iammumtoone

Torry_Quine wrote: »

Vicar apologies after saying Santa isn't real!

http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/headlines/10872312.Chippenham_vicar_says_sorry_for_Santa_gaffe/

Sorry but where in the article does it say he actually said Santa isn't real, it said he talked of St Nicolas who is the original Santa. My son knows about St Nicolas, he knows he delivered presents to the poor at Christmas time years ago, he still believes in Santa.

edit - my comment above isn't directed at you Torry for posting the clip, personally I think it is a slight overreaction of the parents part.

Torry_Quine

iammumtoone wrote: »

Sorry but where in the article does it say he actually said Santa isn't real, it said he talked of St Nicolas who is the original Santa. My son knows about St Nicolas, he knows he delivered presents to the poor at Christmas time years ago, he still believes in Santa.

He didn't say that Santa isn't real that's true, sorry but he did give a very different way of lookin at the Santa story from the usual one.

seven-day-weekend

iammumtoone wrote: »

Sorry but where in the article does it say he actually said Santa isn't real, it said he talked of St Nicolas who is the original Santa. My son knows about St Nicolas, he knows he delivered presents to the poor at Christmas time years ago, he still believes in Santa.

edit - my comment above isn't directed at you Torry for posting the clip, personally I think it is a slight overreaction of the parents part.

Me too, what on earth is wrong with talking about St Nicholas?

claire16c

The idea of being scarred because your parents 'lied' to you about Santa is ridiculous. Anyone who feels like that clearly has bigger problems.

What I would feel sad about would be being one of the only kids at school not told about Santa & being left out. Imagine when they go back to school are they going to be told by their friends they must have been naughty when they report they had nothing from him?

seven-day-weekend

But they still had presents...they were from Auntie Maud and Uncle Fred. It doesn't take a flying man in a red suit (how scary!) to deliver them!

However, I agree that it is not exactly a matter of scarring the child for life whatever you tell them about Santa.

My own thoughts were (and still are) that when they find out I've lied about that for years, why on earth should they believe anything else I say. These are just my thoughts and I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Even my husband does not agree, so we did 'Santa Lite' when our son was small.

daisiegg

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

But they still had presents...they were from Auntie Maud and Uncle Fred. It doesn't take a flying man in a red suit (how scary!) to deliver them!

When I was a child we had presents from family AND from Father Christmas. I thought that was normal. Do other people make out that presents from family members are actually from Father Christmas? Why would they do that?

seven-day-weekend

daisiegg wrote: »

When I was a child we had presents from family AND from Father Christmas. I thought that was normal. Do other people make out that presents from family members are actually from Father Christmas? Why would they do that?

I suppose it depends upon how you present Santa. Our son never had any presents from Santa, he just delivered them.

He was a very literal child and we couldn't even get away with sending him a present from the cat.

claire16c

But as most children believe the presents from Santa are only delivered if they are well behaved, that could leave a child wondering why were they not brought anything if the rest of their class was?

Same here Daisiegg - not all presents were labelled from Santa just a few.

I don't really get this disappointment thing either, surely most kids work it out for themselves it's not real. I've never thought of it as my parents lying to me, I thought they did a nice thing by creating a magical story that I believed for around 2 years. And seeing as most other children are told the same thing, I'd much rather have been 'lied' to than left out! I'd feel a bit cheated I'd missed out on the whole thing otherwise.

Although not scarred for life either way lol!

OrkneyStar

Just to clarify, we don't do santa because we think it we do any harm or whatever (of course that is debatable, some folk are scared/scarred by different things/experiences, e.g. apparently 'some' kids are scarred by not getting the best part in the nativity!), we just don't feel the need to do so. DS loves it and has a splendid time! Simple as that!
OP, sorry if I added to the debate, but I have tried to put my point across sensibly (mostly lol), parenting is not easy, and if you find a way that suits your family then fine. The main downside I can see with santa is 1. why does santa give more/better to child x/y/z- have I not been good? 2. using it to bribe kids. 3. perhaps some are a bit upset/sad when they realise it's not true!
I'm sure most of you are perfectly able to deal with this if/when it arises though, such is life!

notanewuser

Right, lets clear up something else that's been misread.

I DID NOT say that DH and I were "scarred for life" by the whole Santa thing. What I said was that we both REMEMBER the disappointment at finding out. That's 2 children, each brought up very differently to one another, almost 300 miles apart, with the same recollection. Were I an stanislavskian actress it would be my go-to memory for the emotional response surrounding disappointment. Having to continue the pretence on the say-so of our parents didn't feel good FOR US either.

There is nothing wrong with our decision to not follow the crowd. Every single one of DD's classmates might get given an iPad for Xmas aged 5 - that doesn't mean DD will be getting one just so that she's "not left out". Where will it end?!!!