Whatever religion you may or may not be, kids everywhere have at least heard of Santa Claus. Then comes the dilemma. What do you tell your kids? Is he real? Is he fake? Just the “spirit” of Christmas? And if you are religious, sometimes you don’t want to pull from your religion and you wonder what to press for your children.
We chose to share Santa with Charlotte as a real person. I’m not sure it was a decision, it just naturally flowed that way. I have no memories of ever knowing Santa was fake, so it must not have been that traumatic for me to find out. Although she has visited Santa in the past at the mall, it has NOT gone over well at any time and last year, she refused to even get a picture with him. Judging by our Easter shot with the Easter Bunny, it was probably a wise decision. I think now being almost 4, she has started being less scared and more interested. Judging by all the princess and Mickey Mouse hugging she gave in Disney, I think we have a pretty good shot to see Santa this year.
To open up the Christmas season we bought an advent calendar, a My Little Pony advent calendar, and everyday she gets to open up a prize that leads us up to Christmas day.
Let me tell you that she was PISSED that she only got to open one day and the fun quickly turned to drama over this thing. Not that I blame her because anytime I get a chocolate calendar, I eat them all in about one sitting.
Yesterday, as we are sitting in my office talking about Christmas,
I said “Santa is coming in a few weeks! He is going to bring you lots of presents!”
she said “yeah, tomorrow?”
I said “no, in a few weeks”
She stops and thinks for a minute.
she said “Is he going to stay with us?”
Why didn’t I think of that? Of course she wants him to stay with us. I mean, this Santa guy is handing out presents. Seems like a perfect solution. She is getting wittier and wittier everyday.
She turns back to her game on my office floor building a block tower. She wanted to build them up, one by one, very high, and they kept falling over. Charlotte gets frustrated when things are not perfect, so after about five times of falling,
she said ” I cant do it”
I said “you can do it, you need to make a bigger base on the bottom, more blocks, and build up”
she said “But I cant”
I said “You can do it! Your doing a good job!”
she said “Are you just trying to make me feel better?”
Did I mention she is not even 4 yet?
~Trisha
I apparently found out about Santa when I was 4. I only remember my cousin (my best friend at the time) telling me and me saying “well that makes sense.” According to my mom, I was always more skeptical… she thinks I just let them tell me santa was real until I found out differently. I don’t remember being upset about santa not being real, I was just very very angry that people lied to me my whole life (hey, I was 4!).
Too cute on the story! DS doesn’t know what to think about Santa just yet. He is 3 1/2.
I just can’t get past not telling my kids the truth. We can pretend in Santa all day long, but he’s just pretend. Jesus on the other hand is real.
Our kids know the truth, that being that there once was a man who gave gifts to children, and it was such a nice thing that they called him a saint, and then he died. We pretend Santa, but they know it’s us putting things in their stockings on St. Nicks day(dec 6th). On Christmas it’s all about Jesus. We don’t ask them what do they want from Santa, we just don’t carry it that far. We did do all that with our first son and when he was old enough and found out the truth he said “Lets just tell the truth to my brothers from the beginning, it’s too confusing”. So we followed that lead. At the store my kids shock some folks when they’re asked what do they want from Santa, they say “nothing, Santa is dead, but momma will give us something good”…it’s pretty hillarious. They are overflowed with joy over receiving gifts so I have no guilt that I’m stealing something from them. They seem fine with it so it’s the way we go.
P~