How does Santa Claus do it in your home? And why do I forget each year?
I loved Santa Claus as a child. Loved. In fact, I made sure to stick little gifts in my mom’s stocking to make sure that she still believed in Santa (just in case she was really SC, I didn’t want her to find out.)
I want my kids to love him every bit as much. But each year, I kinda forget how we did it the previous year. My husband and I invariably have a conversation like this on Christmas Eve:
- Me: Was it one big gift from Santa and the rest of the presents from Mommy and Daddy? Ooh, but what about the wrapping paper? Does Santa always use the same wrapping paper? Wait a second, I know, we used plain brown paper from Santa!
- Him: That all sounds fine. As long as you remember that Santa always brings Matchbox Cars!
- Me: What are you talking about?!
- Him: And the kids have to do “the pose” like me and my sister did.
The pose? Clearly we had different Rules of Engagement for Santa Claus. I was passionate that everyone should wear matching Christmas jammies. Neither of us was sure what we leave out for Santa to snack on.
And don’t bother to ask my BFF Whitney what normal looks like, the only opinion she offered is: it is bullshit to wrap stocking gifts. Well, ok then.
Christmas morning means matching jammies and “the pose”
Another friend told me that Santa Claus brings the most commercial obnoxious gift that Mommy and Daddy would never purchase. That way, you can continue espousing the importance of independently crafted wooden toys and your daughter can still have her Barbie glam-o-rama dream house. I love that one.
So, friends, how do you do it? What are your Santa Claus traditions? Did you learn them in childhood or make them up as you go? And how the heck do you remember them each year?
“Another friend told me that Santa Claus brings the most commercial obnoxious gift that Mommy and Daddy would never purchase. That way, you can continue espousing the importance of independently crafted wooden toys and your daughter can still have her Barbie glam-o-rama beach house. I love that one.”
Oh, I love this one too and am totally using it. Since our little one is still under 2 we are using this year to figure out what Santa looks like in our house. Wrapping, no wrapping, one gift, all gifts / trying to get the emphasis off gifts. It’s a work in progress and will be for years I am sure.
Whatever Santa looks like at your house, I hope you have a great Christmas!
Ok, twist my arm. Here’s how we do it:
– Santa gives one main valued gift that the kid wants/has asked for. I say “valued” because it might not be big or expensive. (My son is obsessed with an alarm clock and that’s what Santa is bringing him.)
– What Santa brings is not wrapped.
– Stockings are from Santa and they are overflowing such that each person’s stocking has been placed on a chair or corner of the couch with the stuff coming out. They include things like socks, undies, toothbrushes, candy, and maybe a little wind-up guy.
– The rest of the stuff is wrapped and is under the tree.
– We leave a plate of cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer out and in the morning, they are 75% eaten (magic!)
I put so much thought and love into choosing the gifts we give our children for Christmas! I want them to believe in Santa, but I also don’t want HIM getting all the credit for my hard work. We choose 2 or 3 things from our sons’ lists, wrap them in secret Santa paper, and hide them until Christmas morning. They’re not the BIG presents, but are highly desired ones. The majority of their gifts, including the big-ticket items (this year it’s a bicycle and a play kitchen) are from their Daddy and me. I want them to know that we’re the ones who love them and are providing for them, while keeping Santa a special and fun part of the holiday.
Such good questions and responses! My husband and I are newer at this with a 3.5 year old who is just really getting it this year and an 11.5 month old who is clueless. We are trying to make up some of our own traditions by mixing in what we learned/grew up with and adding things that make them work for us. This year we bought a ginormous roll of double-sided paper from Sams club and decided that will be “Santa paper” forever. One side for big brother, other side for little sister. My husband sounds less sure about our younger one believing as long as the older one does simply because the older one might have trouble keeping up the charade if he stops believing. Therefore the paper should last long enough… I’m not so sure. We’ll cross those bridges when we get to them. We talked about what Santa brings/what’s from M&D, but this year that proved a little harder than we thought. This year its’ all from Santa to make it easy (we didn’t have any requests for big ticket things). Next year we’ll have to see what each wants and I think I’ll go with what most of you said about a couple cool things from Santa and the rest/best from Mom and Dad. Stocking gifts get wrapped in our house (help Whitney!), and there is always candy (my husband’s tradition) in them. When they are older it will include some more toiletry/essential items, too (my family’s tradition).
Remembering is probably going to require something written/typed….
Thanks!! Merry Christmas and have fun!
1) Family presents are opened on Christmas Eve and are wrapped. This started because my father (yes father!) isn’t patient enough to wait until Christmas.
2) Santa brings the “big” present, like Whitney said, the most desired or coveted present.
3) Santa presents are NOT wrapped, how does he have the time?
4) Everyone has to wait until the cameras (still and video) are set up before going to see what Santa brought. If that means you get up before grandpa, my father, (who owns said cameras) you have to sit quietly in your room or the hall and can’t peek.
We’re at my mom’s house this year following her rules. We still haven’t decided if Santa is only coming to Ohio or if he will have stopped in Berkeley too.
Our Santa stuff is almost exactly the same as Whitney’s (great minds think alike!):
-One unwrapped gift for each of the kids under the tree. It’s the second best gift usually, because I don’t want him to get all the credit.
-We do stockings for all four of us with fun stuff inside — toys, crayons, coloring books, candy, magazines — nothing too fancy and nothing wrapped.
– All the other stuff is wrapped, and under the tree before Christmas Eve and it’s from Mom and Dad.
-We set out cookies for Santa and something for the reindeer.
-Santa leaves a thank you note for the treats and tells the kids how good they are and to be nice to each other all year long.
@Heather — cut yourself some slack and do Ohio only!
My husband and I have to discuss this stuff every year as well — he has strange traditions from childhood that involve Santa giving half the stuff under the tree! No way — Santa MAINLY brings the stocking. And maybe a couple of presents — but only things that the child has actually put in a letter to him. And not necessarily the biggest presents. Husband seemed okay wrapping Santa presents in the SAME paper as all the rest. No way! Santa either doesn’t wrap at all (if it is too big or unwieldy — like the pillow pets each kid is getting this year). Or he has special Santa-only paper featuring his likeness. And no writing/cards/tags on those presents. The kids are old enough to recognize handwriting.
Those who haven’t yet seen this site should visit and make a Santa digital message for their child. I think this bought me at least one more year of Santa believing for the older child:
http://www.portablenorthpole.com
I remember once when I was younger….okay a lot
younger…Santa brought me a watch. Inside was a tag that read,
inspected by elf #34. Very cool…..made me believe for at least
three extra years. I’m thinking I’m going to pull that trick out
this year for my 7 year old.
When I was a kid presents from Santa and Mom+Dad were all wrapped, but Santa was careful to use different paper and also (this was hard for tired parents to remember) – to write the names on the tags in a different handwriting than the ones from M+D.
Santa did the stockings too (yes, with toothbrushes and socks), and there was an orange at the toe of each stocking. (This was my Dad’s family tradition which ended up ruining the Santa myth for him at a tender age, when his younger brother thought to count the oranges in the fridge on Xmas eve, and count them again on Xmas morning.)
We did the cookies+carrots eating trick that Whitney mentioned. And, we had a fireplace and would lay out newspaper in front of it on Christmas Eve so Santa didn’t get the carpet dirty. Each Christmas morning there would be two big ashy bootprints on the paper – magic indeed!
I can’t imagine doing all of those things for my son…I don’t think. Maybe just the cookies+carrots.
It’s funny you wrote this because, each year, it seems as if we figure Santa out on the fly. My kids were small enough that it didn’t matter and we could improvise before our Santa rules and traditions became etched in stone. But my daughter just turned 6 and I think this year is going to count. I think we’ll do one big present from Santa with candy and stocking stuffers. And I was wondering this morning if I should wrap the stuffers but I like your idea better.
Happy holidays. Kristina
We had a BIG problem this year when my Ex walked in with the “main” present that I had intended to be from Santa. He announced, “This is your present from Mommy and Daddy.” Needless to say, I engaged in some major damage control!
Oh, one more thing. Santa puts an ornament in their stockings. Eventually I write their name and the year on it. My parents did this for me and when I got married, they gave me the whole box of ornaments to get my own tree started. (Side story: they became more observant Jews and stopped getting a tree soon after that.)
I forgot this year and remembered on Christmas Eve. So, I passed off cell phone charms from a nearby Asian market as tree ornaments. Good save, right?! Well, the kids loved them, but they are so small, there’s no way I can write their names and the year on them.
Whit, I can loan you my label maker to put name and year around the string. Nice work.
So, we are in Ohio with the extended family and Santa brought a ton of “stocking stuffers” but no “gift of value” and Holden was extremely confused and disappointed. Guess we’re gonna let SC have the one gift of value from the parents when we get home… some time between getting home and letting the kids in the house. But no more stocking stuffers, I’ve blown my wad and these kids now have 3 new toothbrushes each!
Santa wraps his gifts in brown paper that you’d wrap parcels in and a red ribbon…and the elves stamp it with a north pole rubber stamp.
He also puts their name with a rubber stamp…wish I could attach a picture in here.
I love the whole wrapped vs. not-wrapped debate going on here.
To each his own, but in my house growing up, gifts from Santa were never wrapped. That’s how we’re doing it for our kids, too.
My daughters 14 months old so we are still figuring things out, but so far it goes like this.
Santa gets whatever item she asks him for. (I think it’s rude to ask Santa for more than one present) that will most likely be the big ticket item. I think we are safe until we hit the pony stage, and expensive tecnology should be after the santa years right?
Mommy and daddy provide the rest of the gifts, and I think we are cutting it off at 3 gifts each. Her birthday is in October, so she’s still got lots of new stuff. One toy each, one book each, and one nicer than usual essential that I’ve recently said no to in favor of something more practical. (like pink princess light up tennis shoes instead of regular ones, or a nice coat)
My family tends to send gift cards so we will most likely buy their items from the stores in advance and use the cards forbirthday shopping for others down the road.
We do stocking stuffers,’ candy, DVDs, (or I guess iTunes gift cards in the future) and books. These are unwrapped. I’ll have Santa coal candy in reserve though, just in case.
We track Santa with NORAD, leave cookies, milk, carrots for the reindeer, and watch Rudolph before bed. It’s going to be so much fun 🙂
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We visit Santa in early Dec, and the 5.5 yo is instructed to give Santa 3 gift ideas, and Santa typically brings one or two to be found (unwrapped) on Christmas morning. He also STUFFS the stockings with art supplies, toothbrush, and a small toy/book. Since our 5.5 yo gets up earlier than our 2 yo, he is allowed to play with the gifts from Santa but not open the other presents under the tree until everyone gets up on Christmas morning. (Santa also takes the time to set up any toys that need it, like train tracks, etc.) So, I’m glad Santa doesn’t take the time to wrap gifts at our house! This year it bought my younger child and tired husband a couple more hours of needed sleep after a busy Christmas Eve!
Also, we decided this year that we will avoid as many specifics about Santa as possible: no letters/phone calls/texts from him, and anything about how Santa works (e.g. “How does he use his sleigh if it’s not snowing?”) is answered with I simple, “I don’t know… Santa magic, I guess!” We think this might make it easier for when we eventually have to separate the legend from the reality of Santa. I respect that others have a lot of fun adding to the Santa experience, but that’s just not my personality. And I figure that this way I have less specifics to remember from year to year! Also, if we don’t build it up too much, there will be less of a distance to fall when the kiddos find out how much “help” Santa gets.
I had fun reading about others’ Santa traditions here. Thanks for the post!
My kids are still young enough that their Santa list is only a couple of items long (The 3YO simply asked for cars; the 6YO asked for tools and legos). Since what they asked Santa was so reasonable, Santa brought them what they asked for. But, Santa *does* use special wrapping paper. 🙂
I’m with Whitney on the whole wrapping stocking gifts thing.
Interesting post and comments about Christmas traditions.
I grew up in France so it was a little different for us (and now for my daughter):
– All presents are from Santa, and are wrapped (most likely in mismatched wrapping paper)
– Once the kids don’t believe in Santa anymore, the presents are from whomever bought them
– There is no sticking stuffers (is this mostly a UK/US thing?)
Marie, I think every family does it slightly differently so that’s why I ask. In my growing up home, I can’t recall if the stockings were stuffed with wrapped gifts but they were definitely stuffed with small trinkets. Also, I remember my aunts and uncles bringing over “stocking stuffers” and crushing the illusion that they were fully filled by Santa.
At 9, my kids are probably on their last year of believing. This makes me sad.
At our house, Santa brings the bulk of the gifts and fills stockings, and Lord knows Santa doesn’t have time to wrap! (I feel like this is bucking current trends in two regards, but oh well, that’s how it works at our house.) A few additional presents come wrapped under the tree from mom and dad — this definitely includes anything that in my mind is a “return” risk, because it would be hard to explain how I have the earmuffs receipt from Santa I think. : )
Oh – and Santa gives fun stocking trinkets (like gum, matchbox cars) but is also VERY practical. Every year he seems to leave lots of shampoo, scotch tape, lotion, band aids, and a nod to very olden times – one orange per person. The kids are used to this and do not question it. I love that it makes me feel better about the $$$ spent b/c a lot of it is stuff I’d have to buy over the course of the next several months anyway.
Exact same as Whitney except in my family we open all of the non-Santa presents on Christmas eve.
In our house Santa never wraps gifts, mostly because they are the larger items. Also beyond the stocking, anything Santa brings is designed to be for the whole family. Last couple of years were game systems board games, and similar shareable things. this year is a train table and other toys for the 9 and 2 yr old to share. Number of presents from M&D vary as we usually determine a per kid budget.