Is Father Christmas real?

Thank you Nanadog.

Am I allowed to say that the is assisted greatly by a couple of ?

As a head at an Infant School we had FC visit our school every year. He came to assembly and then visited every class and brought lovely new games or toys for the children to use in class. He had to leave his reindeer in the supermarket carpark as Ms J (me) did not want them in the school garden in case they ate the plants. He always gave me kiss before he went back to work elsewhere and I always reminded him what he needed to buy for the supper we would share later... so he is very real to me!!

nanaej

Notso - sad, but heartwarming!

Thank you Ana. Having a life long belief in Father Christmas is very heart warming

Notso, truly lovely.

I told my daughter that I would never lie to her. So, when friends at school started saying Father Christmas wasn't real she said he must be because her mum said he was and her mum never lied . I think she forgave me eventually. But Father Christmas IS very real to me, in a spiritual/symbolic sort of way; as with what I was trying to say about the subject of poppies sometimes we need a symbol of something to make it tangible. Just cause something isn't real doesn't mean you can't believe in it.

Notso your story is to me about the real meaning of Christmas. It was very sad though, it must have been a very hard time for you and your family. I can only imagine what your father was thinking, let alone you.

I don't think my kids ever believed in Father Christmas. We didn't mention him at home. They'll have heard of him from the TV and at nursery school and so forth, but I think they always understood that it was something made up just for fun, so they enjoyed the idea in the same way as they enjoyed other stories. And of course they never had a nasty 'reality' shock because reality had never been out of their reach anyway. They still enjoyed putting carrots on the lawn for Rudolf .

Children are experts at pretending. We just made the most of that and made sure they knew it was pretending. Result: no problems.

I did go down the Santa route. The trouble was that I was so good at maintaining the illusion that my children believed till quite an advanced age and were very sad when I eventually told them the truth. My daughter says now that the early belief was worth the brief sadness as she truly believed the magic and will continue it with her children. I may encourage her not to keep it up for as long as I did though!

I didn't go to extremes with gifts and she also doesn't hold with spending huge amounts. She has asked me not to spend more than £25 on the 2 yr old and much less than that on the baby. I admit I'm having trouble sticking to the limit.

nanaej

I can't remember when absentdaughter realised that Father Christmas wasn't real but I do know that was 16 years old when she suddenly realised how she always got a £1 coin in her helping of Christmas pudding. Her surprised cry of "Oh, is that how you do it?" reduced a tableful of 14 people to helpless laughter.

We had the first sighting of my OH as Pere Noel, this morning. For some reason this always happens with small French children, maybe because beards are not so common here. Last year we were in the big shopping centre and the official Father Christmas pointed at him and said, "C'est Pere Noel". Coming to something when Father Christmas thinks you are Father Christmas.

I think he must be real at least hope he is as have just taken his outfit to the cleaners ready for its annual outing on the local charity sleigh in a few weeks. Hope he is real otherwise who is going to do the bins!

Exactly tangle

And he is getting his outfit and sack aired ready for the Toddlers' Christmas party! He is very real and quite cuddly.

My girls and now the DGC enjoyed the Raymond Biggs FC books..such fun!
Life is tough enough so a bit of magic here and there does no harm as far as I am concerned. The kids got stockings with little toys/novelties plus new underwear, socks & toothbrush but nothing huge. A bigger gift was under the tree and was labelled from Mummy & Daddy. Tried not to raise expectations too much.

Santa comes to our house every Christmas Eve. Where else would the presents come from? Of course you have to believe or else other people have to buy presents for you. Santa's magic only works if you believe.

* vampirequeen* absolutely

vampirequeen, indeed

Mind you , I do worry about that old man driving his sleigh at Mach 7 with no sleep and all those glasses of sherry inside him.

The reindeers are in control worry not

There' a web site that shows you where Santa has got to on his way round the world on Christmas eve. Two years ago, while everyone else was being very serious about it, DGS, aged 3, said, in his best Victor Meldrew manner, 'I don't believe it'.

I think I might have been 7 or 8. I had a sister and a cousin who were 4yrs older and they probably gave the game away.

I think its a "game" children continue with even when they know what's what. A fun conspiracy which children enjoy and enter into.
I do feel sorry for children whose parents don't go along with that particular bit of make believe.
They miss out on the magic of the idea and the secrecy which is part of the festive season whether or not you call it a winter festival or Christmas or what.

I do wonder though at what age my children stopped believing that I always knew when they were up to no good because all Mums have Xray eyes!

Bags. Similar to what I told my children when they were small. I could not bring myself to lie to my children but they just grew up knowing that FC was a traditional thing that it was fun to keep up. My daughter when she was was about two had a red coat and she dressed up as FC with a beard and distributed presents to those present.