Is Father Christmas real?

Exactly tangle

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!

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 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.

nanaej

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.

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.

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 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, truly lovely.

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

Notso - sad, but heartwarming!

nanaej

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!!

Thank you Nanadog.

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

notso

Thank you for your lovely thoughts Greatnan, but no need to be sad. The beat goes on

Notso - your story really made me sad. It must have been terrible to lose your mother at that age. I am sure you were a great support to your father.

Nanad!

Isn't ella real then?

I was 13 when my Mum died & I had 3 younger brothers and sisters. Mum died in August and the first Christmas after that loomed like the worst nighmare. My 2 year old sister had been very ill with measles, and against medical advice, Dad wouldn't let her be admitted to hospital because he was terrified that she wouldn't come back home. Like Mum. So in early December he gave up work to look after her at home.

This was in the days before benefits. If you didn't have a job you had no money. Two weeks before Christmas, when the 3 younger ones were in bed, Dad told me that he couldn't afford presents for all of us, so as I was the oldest I'd have to accept that the younger children would get presents, but I wouldn't. It's difficult to describe how that all felt, but I remember it with chrystal clarity. God only knows how my father felt.

That same evening, there was a knock at the door, Dad answered and I could hear murmuring in the hallway. He eventually came back in carrying a brown paper carrier bag with string handles half full of loose coins collected by his work colleagues. With tears streaming down his face he said " Girl. Don't ever let anyone tell you that there is no such thing as Father Christmas".

So to answer the OP.....yes, of course Father Christmas is real

I remember finding out when I was 7 or 8 and overheard my mother and her best friend discussing Christmas. Can't remember when my DSs found out, but GD, now aged 10, winked at her dad last Christmas when Santa was mentioned. Her brother (8) is extremely rational and I am sure he must suspect. The two younger ones in my other DS's family may still believe, but the younger one, aged almost 5, is a born sceptic and I'd be surprised if he hadn't been thinking about it!

Way back, in the days of small grandchildren, I was driving four year old DGD2 home from school when, 'I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus' came on the radio. She said, 'Granny, if I saw mummy kissing Santa Claus......I'd tell Dad!'

Two years later, with Christmas approaching again, the search for Madeleine McCann was given extra coverage on the radio. The same journey, the same grandaughter said, 'Granny, I can't understand why they don't just ask Father Christmas. He knows where everyone is.'

How on earth do you answer that?

The average age for no longer believing in our family is nine.

Nanadog, yes! Not sure about Ella....

My daughter will be very sad when her seven and four year old daughters realise there is no Santa. I am fairly sure GD7 already knows but is being diplomatic from her conversation last week, "Mum errr Santa could get it for me for Christmas." D1 is a drama teacher at a private school and teaches students up to Year 12, she writes many of her own plays and designs wonderful sets and has a huge range of gorgeous costumes. Nothing wrong with having a bit of imagination, it certainly didn't hurt my daughter who from a very young age has always loved fantasy.