We just finished putting up the Christmas tree. It took twice as long as it usually does because this year I let the FarmHands hand most of the ornaments. I am very protective of my ornaments. I have some from when I was little, some that were wedding gifts, lots & lots that QM have given us over the years. I can tell you the story behind each & every ornament. I honestly don't know what I would do if I was in my friend's shoes & had all my memories tossed out for a pool table.
Normally I only let them hang a few soft ornaments & I supervise that obsessively. This year I decided I needed to let go quite a bit & I let them hang about 75% of the ornaments. So the front, right, bottom of my tree has been very well decorated....the rest...well, not as much.
The kids are eating their first candy canes (they were amazed when I had them hang an entire box of them on the tree). I'm beat but still want to roll out the gingerbread dough before the day is over.
In the spirit of the holiday, I'm going to open up a debate of sorts. I want to know if your children believe in Santa Clause. Did you tell them he's real or did they pick it up on their own? Do you plan on telling them otherwise or allowing them to find out on their own? I want everyone to know that I believe this is a personal decision that I have no problem either way. I promise not to judge you how ever you answer. If you'd like to blog about it, please leave me a comment so I will be sure to read it.
Long before I ever had kids a friend of mine (who had 4 of her own) told me why she made the decision to tell her kids Santa was make believe from the very beginning. She said she didn't want her children to believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy because eventually
they'd learn the truth & that might make them question whether or not she was lying about God as well. That really struck a cord with me. I decided then & there that's how I would handle it as well.
I also have issues with being lied to. It always deeply shocks me when I find out someone lied to me even when I know that person has a history of being less than honest. I have tried to be as truthful as possible with my kids (while still keeping things age appropriate....i.e. when BabyGirl asked how Bitsy got in my belly I told her God took a little piece of me & a little piece of Daddy & made a baby to grow inside of me. She wasn't old enough for "the talk" but need her question answered. She does know exactly how the baby gets out). I would hate to have them question my truthfulness later in life because they found out Santa doesn't really slide down our chimney every year.
That being said, my kids still go see Santa at school and the Community Christmas Dinner every year. They still send him letters (emails now). BabyGirl sprinkled Reindeer dust in the yard one year (oatmeal with glitter mixed in). They still come screaming, "Santa was here! Santa was here!" into the living room on Christmas morning. I like to say it's all of the magic but none of the myth. I'm pretty sure that's how QM & Daddy worked things with Bubba, Princess, and me when we were kids. I remember setting out the plate of cookies but never really thinking a fat guy in need of a shave was coming to break in.
I know our way isn't right for everyone. So I want to know what your family does & why.
Normally I only let them hang a few soft ornaments & I supervise that obsessively. This year I decided I needed to let go quite a bit & I let them hang about 75% of the ornaments. So the front, right, bottom of my tree has been very well decorated....the rest...well, not as much.
The kids are eating their first candy canes (they were amazed when I had them hang an entire box of them on the tree). I'm beat but still want to roll out the gingerbread dough before the day is over.
In the spirit of the holiday, I'm going to open up a debate of sorts. I want to know if your children believe in Santa Clause. Did you tell them he's real or did they pick it up on their own? Do you plan on telling them otherwise or allowing them to find out on their own? I want everyone to know that I believe this is a personal decision that I have no problem either way. I promise not to judge you how ever you answer. If you'd like to blog about it, please leave me a comment so I will be sure to read it.
Long before I ever had kids a friend of mine (who had 4 of her own) told me why she made the decision to tell her kids Santa was make believe from the very beginning. She said she didn't want her children to believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy because eventually
they'd learn the truth & that might make them question whether or not she was lying about God as well. That really struck a cord with me. I decided then & there that's how I would handle it as well.I also have issues with being lied to. It always deeply shocks me when I find out someone lied to me even when I know that person has a history of being less than honest. I have tried to be as truthful as possible with my kids (while still keeping things age appropriate....i.e. when BabyGirl asked how Bitsy got in my belly I told her God took a little piece of me & a little piece of Daddy & made a baby to grow inside of me. She wasn't old enough for "the talk" but need her question answered. She does know exactly how the baby gets out). I would hate to have them question my truthfulness later in life because they found out Santa doesn't really slide down our chimney every year.
That being said, my kids still go see Santa at school and the Community Christmas Dinner every year. They still send him letters (emails now). BabyGirl sprinkled Reindeer dust in the yard one year (oatmeal with glitter mixed in). They still come screaming, "Santa was here! Santa was here!" into the living room on Christmas morning. I like to say it's all of the magic but none of the myth. I'm pretty sure that's how QM & Daddy worked things with Bubba, Princess, and me when we were kids. I remember setting out the plate of cookies but never really thinking a fat guy in need of a shave was coming to break in.
I know our way isn't right for everyone. So I want to know what your family does & why.
11 comments:
Well, I've posted about this very thing. My kids believe in Santa and I am SO SORRY I EVER STARTED THAT BIG OL LIE because it's just a lot of hard work - special wrapping paper, blah blah blah, and though yeah, it's part of the magic of Christmas, I still think it's magical even knowing the TRUTH. I.e. I still kinda like tracking santa on Norad, even though I know there's no such guy - just the fact that people go thru all that trouble for the wonder of the holiday? That's cool. And it's fun to watch it get closer and closer...
But man. What a bunch of work.
I guess I've never really thought about it. DD is only 2 this year and just discovered Santa. I don't consider the idea of Santa a lie as much as an ongoing story. I never had any trauma from finding out, and I didn't feel betrayed by my parents. I guess I've always had a pretty good sense of the difference between the real and the imaginary, so it doesn't bother me. I was the kid who wasn't traumatized by the flying monkeys or the wicked witch of the west in The Wizard of Oz. Sure, they scared me while I was watching, but once the story was over, the story was over. I guess that's my take on Santa Claus - it's a long story. Once it's over, I hope my child will reflect on how it made her feel when she was involved in it. You know, anticipation, excitement, joy of getting what you really wanted. So, I think I will be perpetuating the myth.
I've told all my kids he is real..The older two have heard from their friends he wasn't based on their stories of how they caught their Santa. But you know, every year, they still come and ask me if he is real at 15 and 14. Because some part of them believes, and when they look back over things they say they only told Santa..How would I have known?
My 7 yr old..is so gung ho and believes in Santa..I've told the older two, I don't care if you believe in him or not, you will not ruin it for her..Let her believe or disbelieve on her own.
You and I grew up with much the same method. My parents did tell us the true history of the real St. Nicholas who really did live a long time ago. But while we knew the Santa of today was makebelieve, we got to still have fun coming home to find our tree lit, the presents under it, and the cookies and milk gone with the guest book signed by the Claus couple. Some years it was neighbors who did that favor for my parents while we were out to eat (a rare treat back then) and looking at Christmas lights, and some years my dad would "forget" his wallet inside after we were all loaded in the van and he'd do it.
That's also how we celebrated the tooth fairy. The voluptuous tooth fairy (I know this because she left me a hand drawn portrait one lost tooth long ago) was played by no other than my dad. That would be why I called him to make sure he informed the tooth fairy that she owes him big when he gets a tooth pulled in a few weeks. Surely when you get a tooth pulled at age 60, it should count for at least an IRA deposit or something.
The easter bunny? We never did that, because it seemed too much like messing with a really solemn and important holy-day in our house. My G-ma Christmas Gift always loaded us up with candy until my parents nixed it, and we hunted for eggs, but we never celebrated the idea of the Easter bunny at all.
now that I'm a grown up, I still insist we celebrate this way. It's just too fun to let go.
I remember my mother always telling us "Santa's as real as you want him to be" Which kind of clued us in that he was make believe without coming right out and saying it. I plan to wait till Kara asks.. if and when she asks, I'll tell her the truth. I'm kinda with you on the whole thing. But I certainly still wanna play Santa.
Mine knew the truth for years before I finally got them to admit to it. Why? "Because we got more presents that way!"
And they never spoiled the illusion for their younger cousins.
I'd say that makes them twice smart....
Well you never stop amazing me I love the way you are explaining Santa to your children. I think my 6 year old has figured it out. We have never really said one way or the other if Santa is "real" or not. I let them believe in Santa because my mom did not let us believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy etc... I always felt left out and different. So now I do let my kids believe but I think I will take a note from you and tell them the truth and at the same time foster their belief in something good and wonderful and magical...you know that thing we all call Christmas :) Thanks for the idea.
My 2 are on the cusp of belief.The younger still believes and I have done my best to make Father Christmas very magical, just how he was when I was a child.When my eldest questioned him last year I talked about the " magic of Christmas" and tried to let him down gently without lying or being too brutal.You start the whole " make believe" thing with your children with the best of intentions and its only at this stage that you start to wonder how to, not lie and yet not shatter their illusions.We went, as children, from believing to kind of knowing the truth, to really knowing the truth. But it was all unspoken. We kept up the illusion. What I really hate is when my boys come home ( as on this Friday ) saying " Nathan says there's no Santa because his mum says its her " So, Nathan's mum has sorted herself out and yet shattered the dreams of the other children in the class. Could she not let Nathan know, but tell him to keep the secret so as not to spoil it for other children who do believe ? Its a tricky one, isn't it ? We all just do our best, and that's all we can do.You don't start out to tell a huge lie, you just want to sprinkle some magic in their lives. S
My kids believe. I grew up in house believing, and once I found out my parents let me share in the magic of making Santa special for my brothers.
Santa is a little different at our house than others. You get one gift from Santa. It is not wrapped, and we have told our kids that we need to pay Santa something for it to help support the elves, materials, and such. My parents did this and it made us understand that we could not get anything we asked for.
I have to say as an adult I am weird I still believe in Santa. He is all the magic and good that comes during this time of year. Jesus is the reason for the season here, and we honor this as Christ's birthday, even thought it is not technically, but Santa is the magic part. Don't think that we don't give Jesus his part in the magic, but we want that to be something special all year not just during the Holiday season.
I was very upset last year when Yuri came home and said that a classmate told him there was no Santa. He asked me if it was true? I said I believe and if you believe or if you do not that is fine, but Santa is not just Santa he is so much more.
We do the tooth fairy, but no the Easter bunny. We do usually get a basket for the kids, but mainly we talk about the real part of Easter.
I don't think that there is anyone thing that is right or wrong... I just hope that no one ruins it for Yin before she gets a chance to really enjoy the magic of the holidays.
My kids know that he is not real. It was all laid out for them. What they chose to do with that was up to them. Syd insisted that there was a Santa and so we left at it that. I've always placed the emphasis on the birth of Christ and that is the ultimate reason for gifts. Everything else is just fun fluff on top.
This is so tricky, and my MIL made the comment over our trip that "let them be normal"...
I feel funny lying to my children about Santa Claus in the modern commercialized version.
I don't have an issue with St Nicholas, and the reason for his wanderings through towns to gift those less fortunate.
I was brought up with Santa being real, but we only got one big, or a few small things that were unwrapped and set up that were from him. However, I don't ever remember consciously thinking that some jolly old man in a red velvet suit would come sliding down my chimney to eat cookies, drink milk, leave gifts, and take some carrots back up to our roof for Rudolph and the rest. Of course, I also had 3 older brothers who knew, and, as Sarah pointed out, we just sort of went from believing to thinking maybe not, to knowing not, but I never felt lied to...
We haven't discussed this at our house yet...
I don't like the Easter Bunny, and will NOT do that at all. We'll provide some gifts for the children, but to me, the reason for Easter is too important to be celebrated by perpetuating another, outdated religious belief that a rabbit hops around laying eggs as a sign of spring's arrival, and the fecundity of the coming days and months. But I'm weird that way...
Post a Comment