You see Busy goes to family day care where the carer who we love is really into Christmas and does talk about Santa to the kids so she knows who he is but she still hasn't worked out the bit about getting presents from him- which we aren't really promoting here at Chez chunkychooky.... but what do yo do?
Not tell her about Santa and let her miss out on all those magic feelings of waking up on Christmas morning and feeling like magic has happened?
...And the excitement of going to bed on Christmas Eve! I still rememebr the first words I heard every Christmas morning was my sister saying" wake up wake up its Christmas - Santa has been!!!" and the pure delight and excitement when Santa left a note under the tree saying to look in the back yard and when we did there was a tramploine!!!!
Can I really deny her this joy? Having her feel different to the other kids who are all excited about Santa?
And then on the flip side me feeling like I am lying to her about it and feeling bad?And I feel like the whole Santa things is just teaching her Christmas is all about getting presents and asking for more more more. That the whole focus will be "what am I going to get?"
I remember personally I was so embarrassed I still believed when my sister, who is older, worked it out way before me and was kind of in on "the scam". I felt really so confused for a long time trying to work out if it really was mum and dad... I just couldn't get my head around it.
A quick survey of friends revealed the following when they found out about the Santa scam:
" I remember it as a horrible part of my childhood- I couldn't understand why they lied to me"
"I was so devastated -not that mum and dad had lied to me but that there wasn't a person that kind n the world" ( what a sensitive little girl she must have been)
I know other bloggers feel the same and we have emailed each other about what to do. So this is what we have kind of decided :
Yes, we are telling her there is Santa and he comes and brings presents but only little ones because he has a lot to carry.
There is no way ON EARTH I will be forcing her to do a photo on Santas knee. She is scared of getting to close to him and we have done a lot of work about protective behaviours with her and not touching strangers or sitting on anyones knee that she doesn't want to etc etc so I am hardly going to force her for the sake of a (usually ugly) photo!
there will also be not threats of " if you are not good santa won't come"
We have done one of these for her which she loved - as she wants to talk to Santa but she is scared of him so this was perfect, thankyou to Sally at georgielove who blogged about it.
Later as she gets older she can make more presents for others.
She can donate some of the toys she never plays with anymore to charity shops before Christmas so others can snaffle a bargain.
Christmas will be about spending time with our friends and family and enjoying good food.
and probably lots of other stuff and traditions that we are still working on.
Its a work in progress...
meanwhile - aren't there are some shonky looking santas around.?
There will be a slight variation on this weeks softie giveaway due to time constraints. Chef has broken a couple of ribs falling off a ladder whilst installing a solar light on the toilet - he also managed to half land on a very scary cactus (see picture of toilet to see what I mean ) and has some serious spikes in him. Poor Chef.
So this weeks giveaway is going to be a present for you!!!! Hooray!!!
