You strongly feel that younger kids should enjoy receiving gifts from Santa Claus while they can. It’s so much fun sharing tales and legends of the jolly old elf with them. Telling them about your Santa experiences is a big part of the holiday. Their older friends and siblings have other ideas. In fact, they’ve spilled the beans on Santa. What do you do? Should you accuse them of dishonesty or fess up?
What is your younger child’s response to the big reveal?
Are they holding onto Santa Claus for dear life? Clearly they are not ready to give up on the legend of Santa Claus. Just let it go. If you say anything to older kids, make it something like, “Why would you say something like that?” It’s fairly non-committal. Hopefully the younger kids won’t pick up on it. What harm does it do to give them back their Christmas hero for a couple more years?
Are they upset that you may have lied to them? If so, you have your work cut out for you. Sit down and explain to them why you told them all about Santa. Tell them how much fun you had listening for those jingle bells as a kid. Let them know you wanted them to have just as much fun as you did. Believing in Santa is an adventure you didn’t want them to miss.
Use this opportunity to reminisce. Tell them some funny stories from your childhood that involve Santa. Explain how sad it would be if you couldn’t share these memories with them. Talk about how much joy Christmas brought you as a kid. Kids love to hear about when there parents were little. They especially like stories that prove you were once just a kid and made mistakes like they do.
Should you punish older siblings? While it’s certainly no criminal offense, calling Santa into question is definitely mean spirited. Punishment might be a bit over the top. It might be amusing to mention that since they no longer believe in the jolly old elf, there’s certainly no reason for them to receive presents from him any longer. That might at least teach them not to interfere with your parenting choices.
Don’t second guess yourself. Just because older siblings decided to spoil the little ones fun, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have told them about Santa Claus. After all, it gave them a few years of joyful, innocent holiday fun, didn’t it? That’s a precious commodity these days. There’s nothing wrong with wishing your kids the same wonder you felt about Santa as a kid. Won’t it be fun when you can share Santa again with the Grand-kids? Why should you feel bad about that?
More from Jaipi:
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Older Kids Criticizing Your Parenting Style? What to Do
Kids Growing Up Too Fast? Why Let Them?