112

At what age and how do you tell children about the truth of Christmas? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by Clymene@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

113 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm writing this as someone who has mostly lived in the US and Canada. Personally, I find the whole "lying to children about Christmas" thing just a bit weird (no judgment on those who enjoy this aspect of the holiday). But because it's completely normalized in our culture, this is something many people have to deal with.

Two questions:

What age does this normally happen? I suppose you want the "magic of Christmas" at younger ages, but it gets embarrassing at a certain point.

And how does it normally happen? Let them find out from others through people at school? Tell them explicitly during a "talk"? Let them figure it out on their own?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago

Just don't play into it. My parents never did the Santa gifts thing from the beginning. All our gifts were from mom, dad, grandma/grandpa, etc.

I never got a "talk" that I can remember about Santa not being real, it just never was a thing.

No magic was lost for me or my siblings. Christmas was still our favorite holiday of the year. Still had tons of fun decorating, making cookies and gingerbread houses, making gift wishlists, going out to get a tree, putting up lights, getting up early Christmas morning to open gifts, etc.

Most magical time of my life personally as a kid during the season, nothing was lost by not believing in Santa bringing me presents.

Emphasize the important things about the season. It's about generosity, spreading joy to others, celebrating friends and family that we don't get to see often, etc. Don't make it consumeristic. I wish my folks had taken me and my sibs to help at some sort of community function around the holidays. Although as we got into our teens, we would do food drives and toys for tots, etc. Which was good.

this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023

112 points (93.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43781 readers

969 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS