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Just start talking about Santa. I don't really think we ever formally "introduced" Santa. We just talked about Santa, talked about him bringing gifts, talked about asking Santa for gifts, showed him pictures, etc. He definitely didn't "get" it until last year, when he was almost 4.

So, in our family Santa brings gifts to everyone on Christmas morning (mom, dad, dd1, and dd2). All the tags say to whomever, from Santa. We talked it up to DD1 last year (she was 1 going on 2) and she didn't quite "get" it, but this year she's alllllll in. We live in an apartment and they recently did our fireplace inspection, so we told her they were getting the chimney ready for Santa. She thought that was pretty cool. Last year we did a Santa train ride, and this year we are going to see Santa's workshop at the local zoo (you feed reindeer and write Santa a letter and get pictures taken, it's cute). I'm way more over the top about it than my DH-- Christmas is my favorite time of year, whereas DH is just like meh, whatever, oh hey presents.

DS is 2.5. He "met" Santa last year and hated it. This year we've introduced several new shows/movies and he's sooo into it. He loooves the lights, trees, festive hats, music, Rudolph, everything. He is so freakin' excited. We just talk it up a lot.

I didn't actively introduce Santa, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do and eventually, when my son was in daycare, he was introduced to Santa (he was 3 that year) and we just went with it.
My kid was terrified of life sized characters, so we never did a picture with Santa because I knew it wouldn't go well, but thanks to his friends, he learned that you send Santa a list of things and you might get one of them at your house.

@wrkbrk: Yeah, I am also really big on NOT forcing my kids to hug or interact with Santa (or the Easter Bunny or Mickey or police officer or whoever). We will ask if they want to say hello (and usually DS1 gets as far as waving from a safe distance away), but that's it. I will never ever force my kids to take the screaming photo with Santa - I just think about how terrifying that is for them. And I'm typically a suck it up, buttercup kinda mom. And honestly, the reason we're not big on Santa (other than we ARE religious) is that the story is insane to me and DH. There's an old dude who essentially breaks into your house, eats your food, leaves you presents, is watching you constantly and judging what you do, and you're supposed to go sit on his lap at the mall and take pictures with him.

We've decided when the kids are older we will share with them the story of St. Nicholas, who was a real person and how he was very kind to other children and brought them gifts and relate to the season of giving. And yes, we're super unpopular in our family because of it and yes we are going to teach our kids to try and respect that other kids think Santa is magic and real, but yeah, the whole thing is weird to me.

I’m pretty casual about it. I tell DD that Santa is coming on Christmas Eve and we label one of her gifts as “from Santa.” I also take her to get her picture with Santa. That’s about it. I don’t think she’ll get it until next year. She’s about 6 weeks older than your DS.

We have a 2.5 year old and are in the same boat of this being her first year to really get what's going on, but kind of having the opposite experience - she came home from daycare talking about "I want Santa to come to my house and bring presents!" and pointing to the Santa ornament on the tree and saying that's Santa, he's coming to my house, etc.

This is awkward for us since we have always planned to tell DD that Santa is a fun game of pretend that we all play together, so we can let her enjoy the magic and the fun without ever lying to her. But at this point in her life I think she doesn't really draw a firm line between pretend vs. reality. She's just like, yeah okay whatever anyway where does Santa LIVE?

Our daughter learned who Santa was on her own at some point the last year, probably from daycare. We do not talk him up at all. We just have introduced the traditions we want to do, so we had gifts from Santa at xmas last year and stockings but she was too young to remember. Now at almost 3 she knows who Santa is but as far as I know she doesn’t know what he does. I actually asked her that question the other day and she said “Santa is my friend.”

She will be excited on xmas to find out her friend brought her a couple of gifts but we are still trying to keep it low key and we will NOT do the Santa is watching stuff, etc. and I do not want her to develop crazy expectations for what Santa brings her (I know there’s only so much I can control there as she gets older but for now it’s working to not talk it up).

@wrkbrk I'm going to call tomorrow and I'll come back and post what I find out. Maybe he's just picked it up from other kids, but I think it's not really appropriate for the teachers to be talking all about Santa.

Edit: he's pretty verbal for his age and it also wouldn't surprise me if he's repeating what other kids are saying. Hard to know.

@wrkbrk: I have not seen anything at school - crafts or decorations or anything in the classrooms - that has Santa on it. They've done snow, gingerbread men, ornaments for a tree, wreaths, etc. No Santa crafts, no Santa stickers (they get to pick a sticker when they leave like a doctor's office).

That said, they ARE having someone dress up like Santa for photos in the reception hall after the Christmas pageant if kids want to take photos and parents are being asked to donate "Cookies for Santa" for refreshments for the pageant. And one of the songs DS1 is singing at the pageant is "Up on the Housetop" which refers to Santa.

We send our kids to a preschool that's based in a church, but it is not overtly religious - they embrace "Judeo-Christian values" and say a blessing before each meal or snack, but that's the extent of it. They don't get like a Christian Christmas story with Mary and Joseph and the baby in a manger. However, they are definitely a school that celebrates CHRISTMAS with the trees and all that. I haven't seen anything celebrating other holidays like Diwali or Kwanzaa or Hanukkah.

As I said before, we ARE religious and don't like Santa as a myth, so I would be pretty annoyed if the TEACHERS were teaching something about Santa.

My daycare has a Christmas tree in the lobby. They brought in a Santa for holiday photos and host a Breakfast with Santa event at IHOP on the weekend. We don’t see any harm in participating in those activities. We point out Santa the way we point out Elmo in a book. LO is 19 months. I don’t think anyone has mentioned to LO yet that Santa brings gifts, even if they did he wouldn’t understand what that means right now. For us, Santa will be a symbol of Christmas, but not a gift-giver. All that to say, if other daycares in the area are like mine then kids learn about Santa from infancy! Our DCP is not religious based.