Is Santa real, how do we know?

Drumpot

Somebody told my young children that Santa is not real and that we get them presents... Already told that person off but still trying to subtlety manage damage control. Our children were upset and while they told us they still believe I think there is still a bit of doubt in at least one of their minds...

We usually take them to an annual Santa thing but I was wondering if anybody else has this problem and came up with a solution that didn’t look like you were trying too hard to convince your kids but worked at least for a few years!

The title of the thread is the question I’m worried I will get if one of the children starts over thinking the idea of a stranger breaking into your house to leave you gifts when we have an alarm and dog !

Peatys

Bold kids think Santa is not real as they don't get anything from him.

Sinus pain

I always told my children - if you believe you receive from Santa people who don’t believe Santa doesn’t bring anything so the parents have to buy it. Simple and kinda true in a way

My child was told at 5 in school by two Muslim kids that "himself" wasnt real and it was only stupid Irish kids who thought this.

I said when we visit Santa, ask him for a special present when you see him in the shopping center, but dont tell your parents or leave it off your list. See if he gets it for you!!!

What do you know, Santa got the present...

I said 2 mins later that I had to go toilet and ran back to ask what it was.

Dozyart

We use portable north pole every year to do a customised video,it's well worth the few euro to have santa "talk" to them by name and about the presents they hope to get etc,i always act grumpy that he uses my email to send them videos to just cover the trail from us a bit more :pac:

Peatys

Dozyart wrote: »

We use portable north pole every year to do a customised video,it's well worth the few euro to have santa "talk" to them by name and about the presents they hope to get etc,i always act grumpy that he uses my email to send them videos to just cover the trail from us a bit more :pac:

We use that, it's great. This year they have a 10yr pass for 30 euro.

Peatys

Drumpot wrote: »

breaking into your house to leave you gifts when we have an alarm and dog !

Dog and alarm are no match for elf magic.

Loughc

Peatys wrote: »

Dog and alarm are no match for elf magic.

And everyone knows Dogs love Santa cause dogs have such sensitive noses they can sniff out just what a wonderful kind person Santa is...

Also I hear he shares food with the dogs as well... :pac:

omb0wyn5ehpij9

Some brilliant ideas for the OP in here

rubberdungeon

When our children were young, we spoke about ‘feeling Christmas in your heart’ if you can feel Christmas in your heart, Christmas is real!

iamwhoiam

Even when my kids were older and very doubtful I told them that Santa did absolutely exist .He exists in side the heart of parents and carers of children .Santa passed on his joy of wanting to make kids happy and every parent has that " special gift " in their heart .So his legacy exists and is kept safe by generations and passed on .

Loughc

This doesn't necessarily help the OP but the topic reminded me of this story and it's too amazing not to share.

I have a nephew who was getting to the age where he was questioning his belief. So that year he sneakily wrote two letters to Santa Claus... one which he gave his parents to "post off" to the North Pole with his younger's brother and another which he stuffed down the back of his Chester drawers.

The 2nd one started with "Santa if you are real I know you'll find this letter and know this is what I really want for Christmas" and the letter contained a completely different list of things he asked for and what he was telling people he wanted for Christmas.

Luckily his Mam was putting away washing and noticed an envelope sticking out (like all good Irish Mammys, they can sniff out your post anywhere and accidental open it of course) she found the letter and immediately got to work on that list.

On Christmas Morning when he went down to see his presents he just starting shouting "He is Real, he is real!!" And for a brief moment it wasn't about the toys or the presents, it was about a belief that some real magic happen and Santa found his real letter.

Needless to say even his parents were baffled that there was all these different presents under the tree

Drumpot

Peatys wrote: »

Bold kids think Santa is not real as they don't get anything from him.

It was an adult (their uncle who they look up to) that told them. I don’t want to write too much more about that cause I’m so f**king angry, they should know better and had no reason to tell them....

Some super ideas guys, thanks.... Keep me coming.

iamwhoiam

Drumpot wrote: »

It was an adult (their uncle who they look up to) that told them. I don’t want to write too much more about that cause I’m so f**king angry, they should know better and had no reason to tell them....

Some super ideas guys, thanks.... Keep me coming.

That is just so awful of the uncle and I would let him know exactly what he has done .

razorblunt

What an absolute clown of an uncle, how old is he? Is he a young teenager himself or someone that should know better?

We were always told that Santa is magic, time slows for him when delivering presents so that's how he gets around and why he can only do it once a year. The Santas in the shopping centers were his "helpers", all men who look like him and pass back your lists and wishes to him after you see him. I'll be following that approach I think.

I love the idea of an additional present but don't tell your parents! Great idea for some magic.

ainy

A few years ago a friend of mines son wanted a phone for Christmas from santa, he was 10 and getting to the point of questioning! My friend was adamant that he wasn't getting one, that he was too young and kept saying it to her son.
Low and behold santa brought a phone, (her son said when he opened it, oh mammy is not going to be happy!) She acted annoyed and gave out about santa for a few minutes but he still got that magic feeling and was happy!

CheweeB

We used to have this problem every year in primary school so our Head Teacher used to read the following to all the school....

Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897.

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

ouxbbkqtswdfaw

Why do we tell children a lie saying Santa exists? We don't tell them lies about anything else.

Peatys

htfyz2n0oei9cj wrote: »

Why do we tell children a lie saying Santa exists? We don't tell them lies about anything else.

Harsh world out there Owen. Believing in Santa, then becoming Santa are some of my favourite memories.

I started questioned Santa one year so my mum told me to write the letter in a room alone, seal it before anyone could see and never tell a soul what was inside. I was to post it then in the postbox which happened to be right across the road from us. Couldn't she go over and get it then after I went to school? This made her so angry, like it was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. Something along the lines of "Do you think I have all day to be standing out in the cold waiting for the postman to arrive?!? And don't you know its illegal for anyone to open someone else's post!"

The thing that helped cement my belief which I've mentioned here before, was my Dad on Christmas morning. We had a thatched roof and he'd be literally hopping mad, there'd be bits of thatch all over the ground. Rudolph ate a big lump of the roof! Those feckin reindeer!!!

There's just something convincing about parents getting angry. Like with the phone in the post above.

TheValeyard

htfyz2n0oei9cj wrote: »

Why do we tell children a lie saying Santa exists? We don't tell them lies about anything else.

Boooooooooooooo

ouxbbkqtswdfaw

Ok, I'm sorry about that.

uck51js9zml2yt

My 8&4 year olds know he's not real. Just like the tooth fairy and Easter bunny.


They are not traumatized in the slightest.....they just won't talk to me forever.....it has its plusses :)

Posy

Deleted User wrote: »

The thing that helped cement my belief which I've mentioned here before, was my Dad on Christmas morning. We had a thatched roof and he'd be literally hopping mad, there'd be bits of thatch all over the ground. Rudolph ate a big lump of the roof! Those feckin reindeer!!!

That's brilliant.

CheerLouth

What a clown of an uncle! I'd be so angry! Why do ppl insist on making children grow up before they have to?

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The thing that helped cement my belief which I've mentioned here before, was my Dad on Christmas morning. We had a thatched roof and he'd be literally hopping mad, there'd be bits of thatch all over the ground. Rudolph ate a big lump of the roof! Those feckin reindeer!!!

There's just something convincing about parents getting angry. Like with the phone in the post above.

That's brilliant! My dad used to leave a snowy footprint (made with a welly boot to make it even larger). My mam used to go mental over it every year!

My sister has had a similar issue with her 9 year old for the last few years - someone in the class told her. We've all done a lot of convincing - how could mamand dad afford all these presents, going to see the "real" Santa etc. This year she is getting them a trampoline as she hates trampolines and her little girl knows she would never let them have one

_Brian

My youngest is 10, she’s definitely questioning things.

She asked me straight out was Santa real or was it not just parents getting the gifts.

I said

“I wouldn’t be talking like that”, “it’s an awfully big risk to take is it not”,

she agreed and hasn’t mentioned it since.

Necro

Drumpot wrote: »

It was an adult (their uncle who they look up to) that told them. I don’t want to write too much more about that cause I’m so f**king angry, they should know better and had no reason to tell them....

Some super ideas guys, thanks.... Keep me coming.

Seriously? This is exactly why I hate extended families sometimes. I know my reaction if any family member told my kids Santa didn't exist.

But on topic, I got a lot of mileage out of Santa as a youngster as there were seven years between me and my youngest sibling. I remember all 3 sisters coming to me in confidence asking was Santa real on a number of occasions, and I'd always answer the same:

The moment you stop believing is the moment you stop getting presents from him.

Kept them quiet for another few years, and by then another of their siblings was convincing them :pac:
Drove my parents wild that I was nearly 16 and still believing

Peatys

Amira Scary Knife wrote: »

he's not real. Just like the tooth fairy and Easter bunny.

Come again? Don't follow you

Necro

Amira Scary Knife wrote: »

My 8&4 year olds know he's not real. Just like the tooth fairy and Easter bunny.


They are not traumatized in the slightest.....they just won't talk to me forever.....it has its plusses :)

I mean... that's fine for you (I find it incredibly sad for your kids, but it's your call, whatever) - just tell them not to wreck it for others though, some people like a bit of magic in the lives of their young kids for a while

Caranica

Miracle on 34th Street is great to watch with kids who question

It is actually sad and depressing to see people with kids who have Santa ruined.

Life is short, ****e and hurtful enough without having every little thing ruined on you. Santa embodies the hope that young people have.

Necro

OP as other people have pointed out - tricks, sleight of hand, events that can not easily be explained - all are likely to help you out here. You need to set up events that could not possibly (in their head) have happened without magic. Or you have to work out situations where Santa can know things that (in their head) you could not have known. Some good examples of that on the thread already - but in general you have to come up with ideas that fit your situation.

Necro wrote: »

I mean... that's fine for you (I find it incredibly sad for your kids, but it's your call, whatever) - just tell them not to wreck it for others though, some people like a bit of magic in the lives of their young kids for a while

I agree entirely with half of your post and not at all with the other half.

Agree that we have to have our own children take care not to go ruining for the children who have been led to buy into the narrative. I would even go one further than this - in that not only should they not be going around ruining it for them - they might even enjoy playing the game too and working on ways to play that game and make other kids believe more. In fact last year - long story so will give the briefest of overviews here - with the use of an alarm and a firework rigged to go off from our chimney we worked out a scenario that looked to other kids in our area like we tried to catch Santa in the act and we nearly did but he made a quick get away. Totally convinced some kids in an awesome way and me and my daughter really had a great time and a great laugh.

Disagree though that there is anything "sad" about it - or that not selling kids lies means they do not have magic in their lives. Quite the opposite. With the application of a little effort we can put a lot of magic into the lives of young kids. Without a single lie or piece of fantasy at all. And not just "for a while" as you put it either - but in ways that potentially might never go away and will keep that magic in their lives until well into adult hood. There is a wealth of magic many growns ups do not even know is there or can be shared with our kids - that comes directly from the real world - and while it takes a little more time and effort compared to the pre-packed easy approaches things like Santa and Easter Bunnies and Tooth Fairies afford - I think the effect, impact, benefits and more scale with that investment of time and effort. And last much longer.