I think this is totally family specific and is fine however you've done it! We have always done a mix because that's how my parents did it so I just replicated without thinking about it. Santa usually gives a couple big gifts, maybe one joint big gift for the kids and then some smaller things come from mom and dad.

I can’t believe this whole getting credit thing is an issue. I don’t remember ever thinking about this as a child! It’s clearly obvious that once your children realize there’s no Santa theyll know you put in all the work. The whole thing about Santa is adding to the magic of Christmas giving them something super special they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. So bizarre to make it a one up with the parents.

“Santa” fills stockings and gives one gift. The rest is from family. We try to keep it small.

7 year old has known about Santa since she was 4. She still loves the surprise and theater of it (leaving out cookies and milk, etc), as well as the stuff from “Santa”. 4 year old learned at preschool that Santa isn’t real but still seems pretty skeptical/leans toward believing anyway.

It doesn’t matter. As long as Santa is in the picture

Parents provide clothes, books, and lego sets; santa provides the rest.

I never cared about getting credit and used to do all Santa gifts and one from parents. After I started that way I realized that I probably should have done more parents and fewer Santa presents so other kids at school wouldn’t wonder why Santa brought them less if they were talking about presents. One friend of mine does it where Santa brings the one big gift and the rest are from parents. Just depends how you want to do it.

I honestly don’t think it matters. Everyone does it differently. Just do what makes sense to you.

Anonymous wrote:We completely skip the entire Santa concept.

I have an adult friend whose parents did this. I've heard her talk dozens of times about how upset she was about this. She actually went to therapy about it as an adult because she felt like she missed out on typical childhood moments. She felt like she was just an accessory to her parents' adult life and they made no childhood concessions for her (like Santa, Easter bunny, tooth fairy).

Anonymous wrote:We completely skip the entire Santa concept.

Bah hum bug

Anonymous wrote:Santa does stockings, family does presents

This is so lame

Anonymous wrote:I like the "way" of santa bringing one/two gifts and the rest are from family. I believe I read about this starting because not everyone can afford 100s of presents, and if they are all "from santa" it looks like santa cares more about those kids, rather than acknowledging that their parents are just much wealthier. So I like for santa to bring a few gifts. I don't really pay much attention to what other people do though.

This is how I found out Santa didn't exist. I couldn't grasp why my mother needed to buy gifts for other children for toy drives, when Santa took care of it. We tell our kids that we're giving Santa a hand when we donate toys.

We do a mix - a few presents from Santa, a few from mom and dad. Any other gifts from family are clearly from family and are typically exchanged when we see them (not opened under the tree on Xmas morning).

We did this to minimize the whole Santa thing a bit. Plus, it helps personalize the gifts a bit more. Like, DH might pick out something related to an activity he really wants to do with DD and is excited about giving that gift (this is probably more relevant for the 6 and over set than the little kids).

Santa only gives one present -- that's why kids get different numbers of presents.

Classmates who got multiple presents supposedly from Santa? The others were from parents/family, who all think Santa is so much fun they give him credit for everything. "It's fun for them, so don't ruin it by telling, OK, honey?"

In our family, some of the gifts were from Mom and Dad and some were from Santa. Santa’s gifts were unwrapped, so anything cumbersome to wrap came from Santa. Little things also tended to be from Santa as stocking stuffers. The rest of the gifts were divided to form a rough overall balance between parent gifts and Santa gifts.

We completely skip the entire Santa concept.