Lots of holiday questions today! Once again, I’m not losing sleep over this, just interested in some discussion!

A month or so ago, a child at recess told my very “young for her age” second grader that “there is no Santa, it’s the parents” when he overheard her talking about her sister’s birthday presents. She came home pretty distraught, and clearly wanted me to tell her he was a moron. So...I did. I told her that maybe his family didn’t celebrate Christmas the same way we did, so maybe his family didn’t “do” Santa - but that in our family, we do, and I believed our Christmas would include gifts from Santa as long as we believed it would. She was satisfied, and I was relieved we wouldn’t be giving up the magic (we also have a five year old and a three year old, who “gets” it for the first time this year).

We were okay until at dinner last night she casually informed me that she thought I was the tooth fairy, and took her teeth, hid them, and put glitter on the dollar with glue. Oops. Since her sisters were there, I just shut it down with “Hmm...I think that if you hope for money from the tooth fairy, you need to believe in her.”

So - have you given thought to this matter? When/how you’ll transition from receiving from Santa to Enjoying other magic, like “being” a Santa? What will you do to preserve younger siblings’ beliefs?

Because my oldest is pretty immature, I figured she would want to believe longer, and have hopped the two oldest girls will “become Santas” around the same time. I hadn’t really thought much about the littlest, TBH. She’s a tough cookie and I’m not so worried, actually.

Our Adopt—a-Family has caused some questions this year (“why can’t Santa just do it?”) I explained that (a) parents also like to give their kids gifts and this mom can’t afford to and (b) maybe they don’t have a permanent home for him to bring gifts. I hope that continues to suffice! Don’t want to outright lie, but I’d like a few more years of simple magic!