For parents, there’s an inevitable day when their little one discovers the truth about Santa – and some children take it harder than others.
Christmas is a magical time, particularly for children who don’t question Santa’s existence as he brings gifts and they leave out snacks for him and Rudolph.
However, one mum was left red-faced when her eight-year-old kept questioning her about whether or not St Nick was real. She felt torn between telling him the truth and continuing to keep up the pretence.
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She turned to Mumsnet to share that over the “last couple of months”, her son has been coming to her with teary eyes asking, ‘Is Father Christmas real‘?
She wrote: “When I give teeny bits of truth like ‘it not real that he can hear your secret wishes’ (a problem we had last year was he ‘secretly asked Father Christmas to bring mummy something’!) he burst into full-on floods of tears and wails ‘so he’s not reeeeeal?!’ and the only way I’ve been able to console him is to then reinforce other bits of the fantasy, e.g. that we have to send Father Christmas letters to say what we wish for…”
The distressed mum said that he was “full of tears” once again when he approached her asking ‘so it’s not you delivering the presents?’. “I tried to distract them with ‘don’t we all enjoy the idea of magic?’ but he was insistent and said, ‘Do you deliver the presents???’ and, justified by the fact that I don’t – mainly it’s Amazon – I said no I don’t deliver them. Again, he looked so relieved.”
She said that she’d never had this issue with her daughter, his older sister, as “she stopped believing in a nice, gentle, mainly unspoken, way,” and helps “maintain the magic” for her younger brother, as she knows Christmas is important to him.
She explained her son is “genuinely so upset”, saying: “I think he loves the ideas so much and believed so completely, he genuinely doesn’t want to be told we’ve all just been telling him a big fat lie.” She said that she didn’t think he’d become so “emotionally attached” to the idea of Santa, saying that it was perhaps “stupid” of her.
Taking to the comments, people were divided. One wrote: “Why not just tell him the truth? Surely it would be better to ‘rip the plaster off’ rather than repeatedly disappoint and upset him over small aspects? There are plenty of ways to make Christmas magical (it’s about loving and caring for others) without lying to your kids.”
Another said: “Aw, 8 is still so young, and he seems to want to believe! I would encourage that for now, but maybe with a twist, like Father Christmas is the spirit of Christmas, and no matter who brings the presents his spirit is the one who drives it. Maybe sometimes we and Amazon help him out as he has so many kids to cover, and we are able to help out, so sometimes we get you some too.
“I realised really young as my mum kept leaving stickers on presents, I was only 4, I wish I’d had a few more years. If he wants to believe, I’d let him! You’ve only got a year or two left.”
Someone else penned: “It sounds like he is getting confused by your responses and reactions. Time to tell him as otherwise you’re dragging out something he is clearly quite bothered by.”