So, how does the panel suggest, or indeed how did the panel actually, deal with a child realising the reality?
Should I feel guilty?
Should I initiate the conversation?
Should I just wait?
Should I worry about the child chatting to schoolfriends and either realising the truth, or causing someone else to realise?
I'm facing it, so I'd welcome your thoughts.
And I wonder who will be the first to say "What!?! Next you'll be telling me that....."
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Kids are not daft, they will figure it out. Let them think a silly old duffer for a while. :-)
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My 7 year old son started asking me coy questions about Santa a couple of months back, no doubt fuelled by conversations with school friends. I decided he might not be such an ungrateful wretch this year if I told him the truth, so that's what I did. Plus, he wouldn't ask for everything on Earth under the assumption that "the Elves can make anything Daddy". He knows well enough my pockets are only so deep!
He's happier because he can ask exactly for what he wants and gets a simple yes/no answer. I'm happier because I don't have to keep up the pretence. No magic lost really as I don't think even most 2 years old are truly taken in by the idea of a fat old man travelling on a flying sleigh, delivering presents to millions of children in a few hours.
Or perhaps we're all humbugs in our household?
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Pretty sure my daughter had doubts after age two when she needed a wee while stuff we had got from hiding places was piled on landing.
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I just kind of stopped believing at about age 8, without being "told", and I assume my two will do the same. At the moment, aged 7 and 5, they are both happily absorbed in the whole fairytale of it all. I'm happy to let it continue. They'll figure it out in their own time.
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Are you saying FC doesn't exist?
Who feeds the reindeers and pays the elves then?
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My daughter clocked at just under four that Santa's writing on the thank you note looked like my drunken scrawl.
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Of course they have doubts. The make-believe is for the parents, not the children. They collude in the mutual self-deception, because that's where the presents come from, and they know we love the whole pantomime of stockings, creeping into their room, pretended surprise in the morning.
There's no need to spoil it for ourselves.
Ditto the Tooth Fairy.
I am constantly surprised at parents' deliberate willfulness in refusing to believe how clever children are. They are nearly human, after all.
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>>I just kind of stopped believing at about age 8, without being "told", and I assume my two will do the same
Me too, and I'd assumed the same about mine. But one of them seems to be about to take it head on. Thing is, I don't think she's going to be happy about it.
I'm not sure whether to try and squeak past another year and let it come out of over the following 12 months, or to deal with it right now.
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She won't ask the question until she is 99.98% sure of the answer.
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>> I'm happier because I don't have to keep up the pretence. No magic lost really as I don't think even most 2 years old are truly taken in by the idea of a fat old man travelling on a flying sleigh, delivering presents to millions of children in a few hours.
>>
Saville again, surely not.
Sorry, coat already on...............
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I really don't know what you could mean! I hang up a stocking every year and every year it is filled! .. and that is what I tell any child who asks me about Father Christmas. I also say that I am not daft enough to question who fills it, just in case I find it empty. It has worked so far*...
We did make it plain to our children that the main presents came from us and were under the tree rather than in a stocking otherwise life would be very unfair with some children getting major presents supposedly from Father Christmas. My children, now all adults, still expect the same formula in the stocking - which includes toothbrush and toothpaste, shampoo etc. - great fillers especially in lean years!
An enduring memory of my late husband was the year he came back from living with his grandparents in India and his mother (who he had not seen for 5 years) decided he was too old for a stocking - aged 9.
* thanks to daughter, who has filled it for the past two years
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Bah. Humbug.
Signed: The Grinch.
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Is it me, or do Christmas threads appear earlier every year?
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It's because coppers look so young.
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The pretence and pantomime is worth more than you can imagine, my little lad spotted Santa in full gear sneaking about in his bedroom around midnight, Santa just held his finger to his lips in an exaggerated sssh, little lads eyes were like saucers and he breathed Santa! in exclamation, Santa sneaked out with a wave goodbye and a 'ho ho ho Merry Christmas', and little lad went and found his mum a couple of minutes to tell her all about it...he was 3 maybe 4 at the time and absolutely overjoyed, 30 years later i still wouldn't have done it any different....make the most of those times, they are over too soon.
He learned in his own good time, simply never spoken of.
His own first little 'un is due next month, he'll make a fine responsible rather old fashioned dad, i wonder who'll be doing the Santa routine over the next few years?
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If they went to an English school they found out the truth in the first year. They havent told you in case you stop buying the presents.
So if you need to know, just say "what do your classmates say about Santa"
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>> So if you need to know, just say "what do your classmates say about Santa"
in amongst your dross, lies a little shining gem.
That works, I'll give it a go.
May I pass your phone number onto her if it all goes wrong? Indeed, also to my wife in case she thinks the upset is my fault.
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>> May I pass your phone number onto her if it all goes wrong? Indeed, also
>> to my wife in case she thinks the upset is my fault.
Yeah sure, After I have told her a few things about you the santa experience will be the least of your troubles.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 9 Oct 12 at 17:18
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You don't know anything you can prove.
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This is a woman we are talking about, when was proof ever necessary?
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Santa Claus is a wonderful source of joy and comfort to to fertile young minds - along with all the other stories involving white bearded old men in the sky.
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>> His own first little 'un is due next month, he'll make a fine responsible rather old fashioned dad, i wonder who'll be doing the Santa routine over the next few years?
>>
Nice tale GB.
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>> coppers look so young.
So do cabinet ministers. It's sinister.
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I shouldn't have too much angst about it. The word gradually filters out amongst kids, they rarely get upset, and to be honest, some of them play along with it. I think they're frightened that the supply of presents might dry up if they admit to knowing the truth!
I think the concept of Father Christmas is wonderful, I certainly wouldn't initiate any conversations about the falsehood of it. The longer they believe the better, it's a magical time of life.
(Edit: whoops, I seem to be saying the same as everyone else. Must be right then!)
Last edited by: Mike H on Tue 9 Oct 12 at 17:17
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The absence of the mince pie, glass of sherry and bite out of the carrot on the mantelpiece could all be explained away, as could the snowy footprint on the hall carpet (spray snow around a welly). But how do you tell them how you arranged the reindeer and sleigh flying over a neighbours roof they swear they saw twenty years later......................?
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I'm with the kids kidding the kidders school of thought.
Funnily enough this was a 3 way conversation with my sisters and a friend last week - my sister's rampant disappointment at their St. N's gifts (one mistook a compendium of games for the much wanted Monopoly and the other had bed linen one year) - I think my expectations were lower and can never remember such disappointment..
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>> But how do you tell them how you
>> arranged the reindeer and sleigh flying over a neighbours roof they swear they saw twenty
>> years later......................?
>>
I remember standing outside in the cold, jingling bells, pretending to be Santa's sleigh, one Christmas Eve, it totally convinced our son he was real.....
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Someone is going to tell me now that this site has been telling me porkies every year.
www.noradsanta.org/
I'll probably have to go up the pub now if this isn't true!
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Ok kids, an old man with long white hair and baggy clothes is going to come into your room tonight, but don't worry it's not Jimmy Savile.
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SWMBO used to help at a youth club for less abled (is that the right description nowadays?) children. Guess who got volunteered for the big, red dressing gown?
Our young children were taken that evening as a treat. They believed me when I said the man had asked me to go outside and hold his reindeer. To this day, they resolutely refuse to believe it was me, they swear they would've recognised me (they're now in their 30s).
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>> SWMBO used to help at a youth club for less abled (is that the right
>> description nowadays?) children.
My mother taught for twenty years or so from 1967 at a residential school for the moderately less abled (the term then was ESN- Educationally Sub-Normal). Sis and I attended a few Xmas parties as pre teens.
A friend of the head, otherwise unknown to kids, played the Santa role. Each present, one for every one of the fifty or so kids, was pulled out of the sack and the recipient trotted up and collected it. The younger ones wide eyed and believing the older ones who might have sussed sworn to secrecy. One year there was a lad of eight or nine outside the back door after breakfast the following day asking for a shovel so he could clear up the reindeer poo!
They also did an excellent nativity play albeit with rehearsals starting in September. OK Joseph and Mary's lines were simple and delivered with a Pontefract accent but the achievement from very low ability kids was, with hindsight, incredible.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 9 Oct 12 at 21:06
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Apparently a manhunt is being launched.
There have been allegations against an old man, who wears a disguise (including a fake beard) likes young children to sit on his lap, makes empty promises, and gives out sweeties......
There is also fears he may be seriously frustrated, as he has a large sack, and only comes once a year......
Last edited by: swiss tony on Tue 9 Oct 12 at 20:27
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I had a colleague who was in the Rotary - he actively looked forward to Christmas so he could dress up in a Santa suit at various supermarkets and events - down to snowy white gloves. There was always something a little strange in him in my eyes. No doubt these days he would have to be CRB'd but I doubt there is anything on his record. I just had that very, very just not right feeling....
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Lets see what I have in my sac for you little boy.......
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You are Gary Glitter and I claim my £5.
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>down to snowy white gloves.
Oh my Glub!
"Boaz & Jabulon!"
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There's a mawkish fifties American song that encapsulates this entire thread:
'I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
Underneath the mistletoe last night...'
You discover there's no Father Christmas by simple observation. 'Supervising the parental intercourse', psychoanalysts call it.
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>> There's a mawkish fifties American song that encapsulates this entire thread:
>>
>> 'I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
And you can hear her do it quite clearly at about 0:13:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFj4D11Wmn4
That's the classic Phil Spector/Ronettes version from the 60s; not mawkish at all :)
"Boyd's record [the original] was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church in Boston when it was released on the grounds that it mixed kissing with Christmas" :o
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Saw_Mommy_Kissing_Santa_Claus
Last edited by: Focus on Wed 10 Oct 12 at 06:33
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>> Phil Spector/Ronettes version from the 60s; not mawkish at all :)
No, it isn't very. I was thinking of the original version sung actually by a boy ...
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>> >> Phil Spector/Ronettes version from the 60s; not mawkish at all :)
>>
>> No, it isn't very. I was thinking of the original version sung actually by a
>> boy ...
Ah yes - I see what you mean...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI8spatbGEo
BTW re. the Ronettes version - it was the intro (with sound effects) which I thought qualified it
Last edited by: Focus on Wed 10 Oct 12 at 14:31
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>> >down to snowy white gloves.
>>
>> Oh my Glub!
>>
>> "Boaz & Jabulon!"
Why does everyone keep on blurbing about Champagne all of a sudden?
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I don't remember ever *really* believing in Father Christmas. Quite clearly men dressed up in Red Suits were only ever playing at it.
On the 'being able to afford it' point, my father always said Father Christmas sent him a bill for the things that had been purchased.
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I think children distinguish between the "real" FX and the stand-ins who dress up in shops etc.
They can be quite business savvy, and appreciate that FX must have an enormous workload so obviously has to employ assistants to cope with seasonal demand, ie Christmas.
So it is not inconsistent to despise the poor imitation FXs who are clearly just dodgy old men, but still pretend to believe in the real one who comes down the chimney leaving his reindeer tethered to the chimney pots.
Even though my 3 children are all teenagers now, it was still fun last Christmas to go through the full charade of stockings, mince pie, carrot etc.
The carrot was a bit nibbled, but forensic evidence (ask a 13-year old) showed the teeth marks were more consistent with a mouse than a reindeer.
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I asked my two yesterday what their school friends say about Santa. Both insist that it does not come up in conversation.
Maybe as Christmas draws closer and becomes a topic of conversation, then the unbelievers might be more vocal. As it stands now, mine are both firm believers. :-)
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Father Christmas - Old Navy
