Mom and dad give books you open Christmas Eve; Santa brings toys and clothes on Christmas morning. This is how my parents did it, too.

Jesus says to spend more money on toys this year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a former teacher, I’d urge everyone to minimize the number of presents from Santa. I’ll never forget this first grader describing all the toys he got “from Santa”. His friend who lived in low income housing look shattered. I will die on this hill.

Poor kids learn the truth about Santa early.

Rich kids learn that the world really does love them better. Santa is real for rich kids.

We do a mix of presents from parents and Santa. Santa doesn’t wrap, so anything big and bulky comes from him. Santa also fills stockings. As the kids get older, I also like having Santa give gifts they don’t think we’d buy them. By the time school starts again, I’m not sure they remember who gave them what.

Santa is the stockings, under the tree are from people, parents included.

Santa getting credit seems like a totally mental anti-spirit-of-christmas lens to view this through.

That said I do think the less fortunate kids bearing witness to the kids who got 50,000 santa presents thing is real. So in our house santa brings 1-2 exciting things that 'mom would never buy us' and they do get presents from us. It keeps the excitement there but does not result in the kids going into school and talking about how santa brought an insane amount of stuff. I also tell my kids honestly that they should not be bragging about that stuff in school, you never know what someone else got and you don't want to make anyone feel bad.

Santa brings one gift in our house. Because my kids are twins, they were always the exact same thing or something big to share, unwrapped - PB chair, play kitchen, karaoke machine and microphone. Now that they're older, they're usually separate gifts but around equal in size/cost. They're not the biggest gifts under the tree, but they're something that they specifically asked Santa for and is usually something that "mom wouldn't buy" (which to my kids usually means it's something silly/frivolous/etc). One kid last year got an art set, the other got Snap Circuits.

Mom and dad gave the iPads!

Anonymous wrote:For us, it's family gifts Christmas Eve which includes things the kids have asked us for. Christmas morning is Santa which is bulkier and cheaper gifts so that the tree looks packed when the kids wake up

+1

Please take a hard look at your issues if you’re worried about Santa getting credit.

Truly no right or wrong here, guys!

In our house, Santa brings one or two (usually bigger) gifts and fills stockings. The rest are from parents, and then there are gifts from other family members as well.

Why do I do it this way? Because that's how my parents did it.

Santa gives a few gifts that are left in a santa sack unwrapped, and fills stocking. Wrapped gifts under thr tree are from mom and dad.

Your kids give gifts to others, right? So then they understand that people give each other gifts at Christmas. Would be weird to not give your kid a gift from you, but expect that they give to their siblings, cousins, grandparents.

One or two big gifts and stockings from Santa (unwrapped and displayed so they can start playing right away and yelp from excitement as they come down the stairs--will miss that so much when they are older!) and then the rest are from us and extended family.

My parents did all Santa until the last child didn't believe anymore then they put "from Mom and Dad" on the tags. Gifts from anyone else was credited to them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a former teacher, I’d urge everyone to minimize the number of presents from Santa. I’ll never forget this first grader describing all the toys he got “from Santa”. His friend who lived in low income housing look shattered. I will die on this hill.

100%. I was one of those poor kids once.

My mom was one of those kids (single mom told her there was no more Santa or Christmas when she was 5). So she made our Christmases wonderful so she could live the magic again through us.

Kids ask Santa for one or two generally big things. The rest was from Mom and Dad. In our house Santa doesn't wrap (I learned this from DCUM). There's lots of wrapped presents under the tree that are to and from various family members. Then Santa fills the stockings with candy and stocking stuffers and leaves the big gifts for the kids.