For the Non-Santa Households - Santa Questions from Other Kids?

I taught my kids to simply respond with what they want for Christmas. They don't need to respond *about* Santa because the question is really about what gift they hope to receive. Same with after Christmas! They can tell their friends what they got without addressing Santa. :)

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I taught my kids to simply respond with what they want for Christmas. They don't need to respond *about* Santa because the question is really about what gift they hope to receive. Same with after Christmas! They can tell their friends what they got without addressing Santa. :)

This just happened with my granddaughter. She's 3 and knows Santa isnt real. They were at a dept store right near the Santa picture taking spot while my granddaughter announced that "Santa is a fictional character people, he is not real.." Oh my. Of course my DIL is proud that her daughter is that smart, but I'm sure all the other moms hated it. I have found that people that don't believe in Santa are pretty much in your face about it just like people that yell at smokers. It's a cruel world.
You can't really make little kids rationalize "not telling" what they know. My DIL said she's just gonna steer clear of Santa while daughter is with her so those incidents dont occur. Your kid is 5, the rumor at school will be going around ... the kids will come home and tell their moms that someone told them Santa isnt real. It's the parents job to smooth it over with the ol' "some people don't believe in Santa's magic".... that's about how it works for the most part. We all learn the truth one day. I think it's fun to believe all things Christmas stands for, but hey, we all have our own gig. All you can do is go with the flow and let the cards fall where they may.

my MIL told me last night that when her kids were younger (about your son's age), when they were asked "What is Santa getting you?" they replied "Santa doesn't come by my house. But my parents are getting me a ___." (So basically, my MIL taught her son that Mom and Dad buy you presents. Santa doesn't come to our house.)

As for me and my 3.5 yr old, noone has asked him yet. We have told him that Santa and Rudolph and the songs about the glowing nose and the movies with the flying reindeer are 'pretend' and 'stories' just like all the other cartoons and tv shows and movies we watch.

That question used to confuse my daughter. I had to explain that they just mean what did you get/do you want for Christmas. We decided the stocking items would be from Santa, and that helped. I also told her it's not nice to make other kids feel that Santa isn't real (I had told her it's just a fun story to pretend) and not to say that to them. At one point, she really believed her dad was Santa. She asked him how he went to all the houses! That was funny. But then he got the kudos for the stocking items and didn't even know what was in there! LOL

Well, I just don't understand the big deal about allowing your child be a child. Your belief about Santa is from an adult's point of view. Your child deserves to get excited and caught up in the magic of make-believe. How sad for the kids who don't get to enjoy their childhood because their parents think it's ridiculous. Sorry I'm not agreeing with you on this one.

What I've told my kids is the truth about Santa, [including the real Niklaus being a good man and giving presents to poor children, and taking care of them during winter and such], and also the fiction about Santa [including that some children really believe that Santa is real, and will be bringing them toys, even though it's really just their parents doing it], and that it wouldn't be nice of them to tell children the truth if they really believe, so not to "spill the beans".

Fortunately or unfortunately, I can't tell you whether it really works or not, because they've mostly been around their cousins who also don't believe in Santa, or older kids who don't believe; they've never been in day-care, and we're home-schooling them, so they haven't been around a whole lot of kids their own age or younger who believe. [And please don't think that they don't get to play with other kids just because they're homeschooled -- they do, quite a bit, but so far either the subject of Santa hasn't come up, or the other kids don't believe it either.]

This is a tricky subject. I know a lot of people that have a problem with the whole Santa Clause bit. My brother was very upset when he found out the truth about Santa Claus and so he did not do it with his kids. We did Santa with ours, because I wanted my kids to enjoy the magic, but we did not go over the top about it. My oldest son was very inquisitive and started questioning the whole thing by the time he was around four. I did not want to answer his inquiries with out right lies, so I told him that the spirit of Santa was real. Well, that was a huge mistake, because then he thought Santa was a ghost! lol So, I had to set him straight and tell him the truth. But, I told him that the truth about Santa was a secret and he was not to tell other children that Santa was not real. To my knowledge, he never spilled the beans, not even to his little brother. In fact, we included him in the secret with his brother. Ironically, his little brother held on to the belief for a long time. We finally decided to tell him when he was about eight, because it was getting too expensive to have a big gift from Santa and a big gift from Mom and Dad!

Hopefully your son will not make a big deal about it with other kids. A first grade teacher friend of mine said she always dreads this time of year, because of the kids discussing Santa Claus. Chances are likely that there are many other kids that also don't believe in Santa Claus. So, even if he does tell, he won't be the only one.

We don't do Santa either and I talked to my kids about the story behind Santa and how children really believe and how their families want them to believe etc. I told them that if someone asks them what Santa is bringing them etc. that it's okay to say what they want for Christmas. When I was younger, I never believed in Santa and my mom never told us he was real but when people asked me what Santa was bringing us, I told them. I never thought that they really believed or that they even thought I believed. It was just the thing you said. I was a good kid and played along...LOL A friend of mine in 4th grade asked how Santa came in our house since we didn't have a chimney. I said through the front door. Now I didn't believe in Santa and I thought my friend didn't believe either but was just asking to ask etc. But now I'm thinking that she probably really believed. I figured no one really believed except maybe little kids and that was just another way to ask what you were getting for Christmas. I told my kids that but they still proceeded to say "Santa isn't real" when people would ask them what they were getting. People were rude to them, kids told their parents on them etc. but I didn't worry too much about it. My kids aren't doing anything wrong so I let it go. I had my neighbor email me about my kids blowing it with their son so I told my kids not to say a word to them out of respect for the parents. In that case, the neighbor kid was sitting on our wall looking over our fence arguing about Santa to my kids so in that case, my kids were just playing in our own yard minding their own business not doing anything wrong. Just yesterday my son who's 8 told a 12 year old boy that there isn't a Santa because he was talking about Santa coming etc. The boy asked his mom and his mom said we'll discuss it later. I told my son that some kids really believe and not to argue with them about it. It's not a big deal how other families celebrate Christmas and not to argue about it. It's not worth a fight over it (I don't think they were arguing.) This mom is a good friend of mine so I'm not sure if she'll say something. My sister in law told me years ago that her daughter still believes and please tell my kids not to spoil it. I told my kids but I didn't stress over it. Her daughter just turned 12 and found out he wasn't real because she googled it after hearing rumors. My kids don't set out to spill the beans but when they're asked about it, they say something. I just live my life and celebrate Christmas the way that is special to us. I don't worry much about what other people are doing even if they get upset about it. I've had worse things said to my kids from other kids that I had to deal with and fix. I figure the kids will survive if my kids are the ones who spilled the beans. This was a long post but my oldest is 18 and my youngest is 19 months so I have a lot of experience with this subject...LOL

when people say things like "what's santa going to bring you?", I just tell them that we don't do the santa thing. That's all. Sometimes I get weird looks, but oh well. It doesn't bother me

You sound just like us!

So far we haven't really run into this problem. The people who keep asking our son what he wants from Santa are adults, and our son doesn't really want anything. So he basically says he doesn't know. He took pictures with Santa both yesterday (our traditional picture) and today (as part of our church festival), and each time he just said he didn't know what he wanted. I think it hasn't really registered to him that some people actually do believe that Santa really brings them gifts on Christmas, so it wouldn't occur to him to tell them that Santa isn't real.

I would just tell him that he wont get anything from you guys if he ruins it for others. If he is that smart, he will understand.
my husband is from a culture and country that celebrates Christmas as a minor holiday because of commercialism, but they dont even know what Santa is. I grew up with Santa as an Icon and a fear factor. When I finally found out the truth I was, lets say less that thrilled that my parents hung the whole naughty and nice thing over my head in the name of some presents. I went anti X-mas for awhile. Now that I have kids I see the importance of having fun and imagination. While we dont push or condone Santa's story or existence. We dont tell them anything negative either. He just isnt a HUGE importance for the holiday. Since the kids are still young 4 -2-1. We do get them a very small gift that we throw under the tree after bed time that has a Santa sticker on it. When the 4 year old asks who is it from then I say "Oh I dont really know its magic" They automatically write it up as Santa. I even got into enough spirit to up up a very small tree. However my girls are enamored by the area's outdoor lights and scenes when people go all out on decorating. They WANT us to do it too. EEK I dont think I can go that far. We plan on that for my husbands holiday Divali and I am preparing for a lot of peoples misunderstanding of it soon. Since that falls in the end of October, most people are going to think we are WAY TO early x-mas celebrators. OH WELL

If you celebrate Christmas, he can reply, "For Christmas I want ..." just like when I was a kid, and other kids asked me, I'd say, "For Hanukah, I want/am getting/got...." While I believe that you should teach your son not to blow it for the other children, I also think that their parents should teach their children that not everyone celebrates Christmas or gets things from Santa. He can tell them that Santa doesn't bring his presents, if they have questions about it, they can ask their parents.