I don't proofread my posts before I publish them... cause I keep my thoughts au naturale.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Great Christmas Debate

So yesterday David and I find ourselves talking about Santa and gift giving.  I don't really like the idea of promoting the idea of Santa because it is not what Christmas is about.  But, I don't want my kids to feel like they aren't normal and not give them gifts, so I have told them that they get gifts because Jesus isn't around to give birthday gifts to, so they get gifts instead.  Yes, it may sound weird, but I just want them to know that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, not some guy in a red suit giving out presents.

But, my goal to not get them into Santa quickly faded when my daughter was 2 and everyone (including my then in-laws) felt the need to talk about Santa all the time to them around the holidays.  What did you ask Santa for?  Have you been good so Santa can bring you presents?  Blah, blah.  So, I just let everyone else do the Santa talking and I just never mention him.  I don't put "from Santa" on their gifts, they are just there.

So the debate is that David was raised that once the tree was up, gifts would start getting put under the tree from mom and dad and they would stay there until Christmas morning when they would be opened.  However, "Santa" would bring one BIG gift on Christmas Eve night and they would be surprised at what it was in the morning when they woke up.  Then they took turns opening everything.

What my family did was on Christmas Eve, mom and dad gave us a gift from them, then when we woke up Christmas morning, we were excited to see all these presents under the tree that were not there before.  The only things under the tree before Christmas day were gifts from relatives or the siblings to each other.  Then, we took turns opening everything.

So, we have the agreement on taking turns opening things.  But, I like the way my family did it better and he likes the way his family did it better.  There is no right or wrong, but if you know me, you know I like getting my way... which I probably will... but I'd like to hear any suggestions on ways to combine both traditions or what your family might have done differently!

1 comment:

  1. Most of our presents say they come from us, but we do put Santa on a few of them (of course this is for the younger kids, rather than the older ones haha). But we make sure we also talk to them about what Christmas is about....and it's not about Santa. We also tell them the story of how St. Nick started (for fun).

    As for how the gifts appear under the tree, we save ALL of them, accept for the ones from friends and family, for the big night. So when they go to bed, there's very few. But when they wake up in the morning they have all of the presents from us and the ones from Santa on the outside of the ones from us.

    They get super excited when they see all of those presents, but also appreciate that it doesn't all come from the fat man in the red suit ;)

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