ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

We did this last year so hopefully it was scarring enough that she won't want anything to do with Santa.

http://www.ivyheath.com/Year-Two/Twelve-to-Fifteen-Months/i-sGPKv9M/0/M/IMG_8274-M.jpg

When I came into my son's life at age 4 (about a year before the step-parent adoption), his mother was gearing up to tell him that there was no such thing as Santa. I objected strenuously to this, arguing that "kids need to grow up with magic in their lives" "it's part of the culture we grow up in" etc. etc. So we went about keeping up the Santa myth, and my wife added lots of other weird supernatural phenomena (for about a year my wife had him convinced that he was an alien and a little antenna grew out of his head when he slept, also that bad kids get left in the woods and turned into trolls). He kept believing until last Christmas, at age ten. I guess he figured it out with the help of some school friends or something. He felt pretty betrayed about us not being honest with him because we've always been a very open family. Why did we lie to him for all those years?

So in retrospect, we could have done without the Santa thing. I was discussing this with a colleague yesterday and she was like "Yeah, I grew up Jewish, so I just enjoyed running around knowing something other kids didn't know." Like, it probably wouldn't have been a big deal.

I'm not sure what my younger kid's take on Santa is. I'm definitely not taking an aggressively pro-Santa stance this time around though.

we never really did Santa "metaphysically" but writing like "from Santa" etc is no big deal. I mean still the tooth fairy visits because it's code for "mom gonna give us money"

Our son believes in Santa purely so I can threaten to phone him to report any bad behaviour.

arguing that "kids need to grow up with magic in their lives"

This is partly why I'm a fan of Santa. I remember Decembers from my youth as being a very sort of charged, magical time of year, with something mysterious and exciting in the air aside from the anticipation of presents. I have great memories of peering out windows with my cousins on Christmas eve trying to spot moving lights in the sky, and hoping to fall asleep before hearing the scrape of the sleigh on the roof. I do remember being a little bummed when I found out the truth, but it was short-lived and certainly worth it.

One year my little sister and her friend were growing skeptical, so they told me and my older sister that they'd hatched a plan to both ask Santa for his autograph in a note that they would leave with the milk, cookies, and carrots they set out for him. Later they'd compare signatures and would know the truth. We tipped off our dad and he went over to the friend's house late Christmas eve after everyone had gone to bed and signed the friend's note so they would match. It blew their minds.

I do try to avoid the naughty-and-nice/the elves are watching you aspect of it with my kids.

We are pro-Santa because they have cousins who currently believe Santa exists; I intend to pitch him as more a state of mind/feeling rather than an actual person, though.

"Every December, Santa possesses us and makes us buy you presents, but only if you've been good. Sleep well!"

I've been telling Ivy Santa is "the Christmas mascot," and giving her little mini TED talks on What Christmas Means to Our Family to which she responds with a thoughtful and studied, "Up! Up! Elmo! Crackers! CRACKERS! CRAAAACKERRSSSSS!"

My parents are horrified that we don't intend to make Santa a thing, or that we don't have a tree, and are trying to side step our chosen traditions by making a big deal out of their tree and acting like Santa is real. When Ivy's a little older I'm going to tell her that her grandparents never learned Santa wasn't real and not to spoil it for them.

When I'm a little older maybe I'll gin up enough courage to tell my parents to back the fuck up.

we lost control of whether santa is a thing a long time ago - it is not up to us - though we are occasionally solicited for advice about his methods and whether he is real, which we sidestep as wryly as possible

i mean we never intended for octonauts and ninjago to become a thing either, but despite their not-realness they play an ever-present part in our lives

BEEPS: "Can Santa read minds?"

ME: Me, playing along with the world's cruel trick on children just one more time. "Why, no, of course he can't."

lol ninjago

i've recently heard crap parents feed their kids like "santa has a meeting with all the parents"

that's what the santa myth needs. corporatizing. "every year we pay into a fund santa has set up and if you're good mommy & daddy will get a return when you're 18 to pay for college"

"Santa left you this Powerpoint presentation so you can understand your deliverables this season."

I kind of want to do that now

"don't forget to file your TPS report on christmas eve"

shhhh be quiet for Santa's webex honey

more like:

"Make sure you update your FY16 good behavior goals by Dec 21 so Santa has time to review them and give me feedback before Christmas."

do people in the states hang plush santas out their windows, like he's struggling to get inside the house? I think they're hilarious but I remember my son had a stage where he would build gingerbread houses with the chimney loaded with traps to keep santa the fuck away

we don't do Santa Claus at our house. presents come from people, people that require thank yous.

yea agreed, though we're fine w/ santa being like a fictional christmas dude who is part of stories we read together, but he is not the one giving presents because he is just a character in stories, he is not real. real people give presents. nobody comes down the chimney in real life but we are fine reading stories where that happens.

we definitely got a tree, i am not catholic or christian even though i was raised catholic, but we like having a tree, we have lots of family ornaments and the lights are nice

Same here exactly^^^

I clearly remember telling my mum there is no Santa Claus. We were in the kitchen with mum's best friend when I made the earth shattering announcement. They both broke into hysterical laughter and one of them said 'Well there goes half your Christmas presents!! Hahahaha " and I remember think 'oh no! What have I done???'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueVPUsyrT0s

We went through this with

BEEPS: Is there really a tooth fairy?

ME: Do you really want me to tell you?

stare at each other for 30 seconds.

BEEPS: My friend from school got a two-dollar bill once.

xp
Parental death with betrayal frosting. Phoebe wins.

I feel like I've told my tooth fairy story before but here it is: I started suspecting that there was no tooth fairy around 7 or 8 so one day when we were driving somewhere I asked my mom who the tooth fairy was. She said, "Who do you think she is?" and I guessed the name of a woman who used to live in the same apartment complex as us that my two-timing father had been sleeping with. So my mom was like, gritting her teeth and gripping the wheel, "Nope. It's me. I'm the tooth fairy."

haha oh wow

loooooool

And you're all "You mean dad was sleeping with you too?"

He did have a type (women who paid small children for teeth).

fuck, that's hilarious

haha carl that's awesome

I'm not sure what my younger kid's take on Santa is. I'm definitely not taking an aggressively pro-Santa stance this time around though.

― how's life, Tuesday, December 15, 2015 8:11 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ok, day after I post this, I come home from work and the first thing I hear from her is "Daddy, unicorns are real!" Because apparently she'd seen this:

http://www.fox5dc.com/about-us/season-of-wishes/57638341-story

I've got a whole different problem now.

Ella borrowed this book from the library in September
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91KpE2-3cpL.jpg
and it's been non-stop Father Christmas/Santa pretty much ever since, with occasional returns to the hardcore Betty Boop obsession she developed in seconds after watching a single old cartoon on our local community TV station

wooooah, big image, sorry

though, frankly, that's how big it looms in my life, so the rest of you can deal with it too

Kids get to open all their presents a day early, due to having actual xmas day at their mums. Open dozens and dozens of boxes of lego, skylanders, lego dimensions etc etc.

Kid 1 immediately goes to the WiiU and, ignornig all his new Skylanders, fires up Splatoon which he's had for ever.

Kid 2, when he realises he has to wait for the Dimensions game to update on the PS4, wails "I have nothing else to play with!" while surrounded by piles of new toys.

>:|

Welcome to parenthood, Trayce!

*cries*

"What was your favorite part of our trip to Thailand?"

"Playing video games in Bangkok with [friend's kid] Joey."

lol

I have witnessed a decade of Christmasses if my niece being a goddamn asshole about presents

:/

After she came back from summer vacation I asked Beatrice's best friend what she liked most about the Alaskan cruise she had just come back from. 'I got to see 'Inside Out'!' LOL
Xpost

youth is wasted on the etc

stealth/non-stealth parenting tips for getting a little one to eat vegetables? have a 14-month old that just learned the valuable skill of saying "no." currently cooking up greens (kale/spinach/etc.) and dumping them into grilled cheese sandwiches (minimal cheese, healthy bread) and that seems to work.

Yeah I sneak chopped up veg that he didn't eat earlier into a pita with cream cheese. You can make big matches of pasta sauce with loads of veg in but apart from that I don't think you can really force it so I try not to make a big deal out of it

My wife grew an herb garden in the window as a little mother/daughter project. Once the leaves grew she was allowed to eat as much parsley etc. as she could. That's not "sneaking" per se, but she became invested in it. After that it wasn't hard to add other veg to her plate at meal time, although she's still particular about which ones.

12 hours! 7 to 7! Fucking hell!