NBSR: This is a Christmas related question

KateLouise

I was thinking today about approaching Christmas without making it all about the gifts with our kids (2 and 4)

I started thinking about the traditional letter to Santa. Our local post office will send a letter to a child from Santa, if the child sends a letter or email. Which I think is some thing a bit fun.

Then it occurred to me that generally we discourage the idea of requesting gifts. That gift registries and the like need to be approached with thought and courtesy. We want to teach our kids that gifts should be accepted and appreciated for the thought.

So does the letter to Santa contradict all of this, or is it just a fun thing, and you can use plenty of other teaching moments to teach your children nice manners when receiving gifts.

Amstreagle

Yeah I agree you're overthinking this. it's Christmas and at those ages just let them have fun with asking for a gift from Santa for being good through the year. If you want to teach them to be thankful and grateful for "Santa's" gift to them maybe you could have them write (or at least help) a thank you letter to Santa and put it away to give them when they get older. Just a thought. DS is still too young to understand the concept of Christmas or Santa so I personally haven't been through this yet.

dufferoo

Yeah, to me it's just a fun thing to build the hype for Christmas morning. But if you're concerned, why not teach your kids to write a few friendly sentences beyond just the gift list? Kinda flesh out the old guy as a little more than a mere benefactor.

KateLouise

Yeah I kinda figured it was a fun thing, but I just hate it when I see kids being bratty over gifts at Christmas, or any other time.

So I don't want to instill a sense of expectation in my kids.

But I know the my eldest will be thrilled to get a letter from Santa

sschwege

Always nice to see you!

I haven't actually done this yet as this is the first year DD is actually starting to really get into the whole Santa thing.  But I saw this idea where your LO's list is like this:
Something I want-
Something I need-
Something to wear-
And something to read-

I like it because it's short and means they have to put more on it than just toys. 

KateLouise

Those are some great ideas, thanks ladies,

@MandJS and @sschwege lovely to see you ladies as well!! I hope all is well with you both!

CoPilot2012

And it's also a valuable lesson to teach your kids that if they don't get something from "Santa" that they really want, they can save up their own money or chores etc to get such an item.