Enjoying the last year of innocence.

Chdamn

Chdamn

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Our son is 9 and we’ve done the elf on a shelf since he was old enough to talk.

Last year a student at school told other kids that the elf wasn’t real and that your parents did it. My son, a true believer wasn’t having it. He told that kid “Then how do you explain him popping back to the North Pole and then coming back to a different place in the house every day huh?”

Barry (our elf’s name) makes his appearance the day after thanksgiving. Since we left on Friday to head up to MD for a few days my wife had to “forget” something and run back in to grab Barry and then quickly put him up at her parents house when we got there.

On the drive home last tonight he wanted to discuss Barry and why he was only in different places in the den at their house. He had it all figured out. Barry doesn’t know their house that well so he probably didn’t feel comfortable popping around other places. But at our house he sometimes shows up in my room. But that’s probably because I always leave my door open a crack so he can get in.

I managed not to laugh but just barely. I was grinning like an idiot though.

Sigh, this will probably be the last year.
 
Next year do dirty elf on a shelf. It’s timed he learned how much fun pooping Hershey’s kisses in a jar can be
 
I have numerous happy memories of strange things that happened around the holidays. Once, while sleeping over at the Grandparent’s Christmas Eve, we set out a plate of cookies and a can of soda pop. It apparently didn’t bother me that their apartment had no fireplace/chimney.

The next morning, I ran to check and there were plenty of presents and only crumbs on the plate along with an empty can. I asked my Grandfather how it was that we’d left one brand of soda but the empty can was of another brand.

He, being exceptional at the efficient use of money, quickly answered, “Santa is probably so busy that he drank your soda on the way to his next stop and that’s the empty can from where he was before coming here”.

:D
 
We came home from the beach last night and my daughter (12) was walking all around the tree looking. What are you doing? You know Santa hasn't been here. I know dad I'm looking for Lou Tickleberry! Shit shit shit!! Ooooohhhh here he is hey Lou!!! My wife hid him thurs when we left. That woman is a saint!
 
My wife is a traditionalist. She gets pissed when I tell her it’s idiotic to give some fat stranger all the credit for the cool gifts we buy kids when they are little. We lie to them for years and then we wonder why they go ape shit as teens. They are stupid. If we’ll lie about Christmas then anything is fair game. The elf is just another part of the problem.
 
MacEntyre said:
If'n I had my kids to do over, I would teach 'em only about Jesus during this season.

They never did believe me when I tol' 'em about the tooth fairy...
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My family Christmases were all about Jesus - even on the morning of, no presents were to be opened until the bible was passed around and we all read from it.
But somehow my mom was still writing "From: Santa" on at least a couple of gifts until I was ... 18? maybe older? 40 now and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she gave me a bag of gifts today and one still said it was from Santa.
 
I honestly feel a little sorry for the folks making the bah humbug responses. When I was old enough to know there was no Santa and talked to my parents about it I was told "We believe in Santa in this house" She went on to tell me that he represented the magic and spirit of the season and no more was said about it. I still got presents from Santa until I left home.

I never once felt lied to or felt like I was betrayed or mislead by my parents. I sincerely appreciated their effort to maintain our magic and innocence as long as possible. Life is filled with trials and tribulations as you get older. I remember those days of wonder and excitement of the unknown very fondly and thoroughly enjoy being able to share that with my son right now.

My wife didn't have Santa growing up since she is Jewish. I know she feels like she missed out on that magic as a child and she leads the charge on all of this. She makes snow angels with the elf in sugar she spreads on the counter and cleans it all up the next night. She puts him around a board game with other toys of his. And she does all the shopping, giving most of the good gifts from Santa and the rest from us for Hanukkah.

When he finally figures out that Santa isn't real I'll probably tell him something similar to what my mom told me. And I hope, when he has children of his own, he enjoys this time of year as much as I do now.
 
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Both my girls are stubborn as cuss, so when their friends started talking about it we had to come clean earlier that we’d have liked because otherwise we feared they would have ended up in arguments at school. We never had the elf thing.
 
MacEntyre said:
If'n I had my kids to do over, I would teach 'em only about Jesus during this season.

They never did believe me when I tol' 'em about the tooth fairy...
Click to expand...


That is what we did. Never did Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc. Some people we know thought we were cruel for it. I don’t. We also made sure our kids weren’t jerks about it. We didn’t want them being the kids that popped the bubble for others.

We have a tradition for this time of year of doing Advent calendars with treats they get with each night’s Advent reading. That has been a popular tradition, even as they get into their older teens. LOL
 
Yeah, I wont "bah humbug" you at all for this. I realized the Santa thing when I noticed that he and my mother had identical handwriting when responding to why the cookies I had left out hadn't been eaten. That said, there was no trauma, no "YOU LIED TO ME!" moment...I realized it was all innocent fun. Keep the traditions alive...even after he "knows". I still get presents from "Santa" at times, and I think its cute.
 
We let Santa and the Elf go last year. I think she was just playing along the last couple of years. I'll miss the innocence of it but I won't miss having to sneak around in the middle of the night. In addition to milk and cookies for Santa we also had to leave carrots and apples outside for the reindeer (the apple was for Rudolph). You can guess who had to sneak out of the house at 0 dark thirty to "eat" said carrots and apples. Plus having to remember to move the Elf every night was problematic at times.
 
well, when i was young, i milked the Santa Thing
even after i knew better. an offer i didn't refuse.
 
Somewhere I have a screenshot of my son instant messaging me when he was 8 asking if Santa was real. I asked what he thought, and he went into a long explanation about how Santa wouldn't be possible, so must not be real. He spent the next 2 years pretending to believe because his older cousin was so sad.

Never did the Elf. Always found it creepy. Seems like a NSA plot to get kids used to always being watched...
 
Chdamn said:
I honestly feel a little sorry for the folks making the bah humbug responses. When I was old enough to know there was no Santa and talked to my parents about it I was told "We believe in Santa in this house" She went on to tell me that he represented the magic and spirit of the season and no more was said about it. I still got presents from Santa until I left home.

I never once felt lied to or felt like I was betrayed or mislead by my parents. I sincerely appreciated their effort to maintain our magic and innocence as long as possible. Life is filled with trials and tribulations as you get older. I remember those days of wonder and excitement of the unknown very fondly and thoroughly enjoy being able to share that with my son right now.

My wife didn't have Santa growing up since she is Jewish. I know she feels like she missed out on that magic as a child and she leads the charge on all of this. She makes snow angels with the elf in sugar she spreads on the counter and cleans it all up the next night. She puts him around a board game with other toys of his. And she does all the shopping, giving most of the good gifts from Santa and the rest from us for Hanukkah.

When he finally figures out that Santa isn't real I'll probably tell him something similar to what my mom told me. And I hope, when he has children of his own, he enjoys this time of year as much as I do now.
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I have never met your wife, but she seems to have turned out pretty darn well without the magic of Santa. Guess there may be more than one way to skin a cat after all. IMO stability, security and love are what the kids need. How a family fills that can vary somewhat.
 
Ours in 9 this year as well, he has two younger siblings so we get to enjoy that for a few years as well but it will probably be his last year.
 
Our son, age 12, still goes along with the elf. We've had to think of crazier things to do each year now that he's smart as a whip. Last year and I whip out some mad photoshop skills to make a seamless image of the elf at the north pole and set up a "santa" email account so he could mail the pic to my son.

Not sure what we're going to do this year, but I'm sure that the doorbell camera is going to come into play
 
Chdamn said:
I honestly feel a little sorry for the folks making the bah humbug responses. When I was old enough to know there was no Santa and talked to my parents about it I was told "We believe in Santa in this house" She went on to tell me that he represented the magic and spirit of the season and no more was said about it. I still got presents from Santa until I left home.

I never once felt lied to or felt like I was betrayed or mislead by my parents. I sincerely appreciated their effort to maintain our magic and innocence as long as possible. Life is filled with trials and tribulations as you get older. I remember those days of wonder and excitement of the unknown very fondly and thoroughly enjoy being able to share that with my son right now.

My wife didn't have Santa growing up since she is Jewish. I know she feels like she missed out on that magic as a child and she leads the charge on all of this. She makes snow angels with the elf in sugar she spreads on the counter and cleans it all up the next night. She puts him around a board game with other toys of his. And she does all the shopping, giving most of the good gifts from Santa and the rest from us for Hanukkah.

When he finally figures out that Santa isn't real I'll probably tell him something similar to what my mom told me. And I hope, when he has children of his own, he enjoys this time of year as much as I do now.
Click to expand...

Hopefully, my response didn’t come off as bah humbug. I grew up not celebrating Christmas due to religion, so I have no affinity for it tied to childhood memories. For me, any magic of the season came/comes from how pretty the lights are, the smells of baking in houses and stores, and how friendly and helpful people were/are at Christmas time. I really noticed this when I worked at a bank and we dealt with a lot of retailers. Even though everyone was harried from the extra work, everyone was more cheerful, brought cookies in, held doors for others more, etc. That was awesome.

While we do Advent activities every year, I have some problems with tying Jesus to Christmas, too. He wasn’t born on December 25. But, again, I ain’t messing with other people’s traditions. It is a nice time of the year and I’m down with that.

We chose to do it differently than most with our kids, but no way we are going to mess someone else’s holiday traditions up.

Now, we want to hear some dreidel stories from @Chdamn's Wife !
 
cubrock said:
Hopefully, my response didn’t come off as bah humbug. I grew up not celebrating Christmas due to religion, so I have no affinity for it tied to childhood memories. For me, any magic of the season came/comes from how pretty the lights are, the smells of baking in houses and stores, and how friendly and helpful people were/are at Christmas time. I really noticed this when I worked at a bank and we dealt with a lot of retailers. Even though everyone was harried from the extra work, everyone was more cheerful, brought cookies in, held doors for others more, etc. That was awesome.

While we do Advent activities every year, I have some problems with tying Jesus to Christmas, too. He wasn’t born on December 25. But, again, I ain’t messing with other people’s traditions. It is a nice time of the year and I’m down with that.

We chose to do it differently than most with our kids, but no way we are going to mess someone else’s holiday traditions up.

Now, we want to hear some dreidel stories from @Chdamn's Wife !
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Not at all. I have nothing against folks who adhere to the simple religious core of the holiday rather than the (let's be honest) Pagan aspects. Sharing what you do isn't humbug at all.

The spirit of the season is what's important IMO. Especially in the young and innocent.
 
My daughter is 8 and the she also is a “true believer”. I hear her talking to the elf when I am downstairs working. I never understood the magic of being a child until I grew up and lost it. I dread the day she no longer believes in Santa. I think it will break my heart because that is when I truly know she is growing up and no longer looks at things like a kid.
 
charliedeltajuliet said:
My daughter is 8 and the she also is a “true believer”. I hear her talking to the elf when I am downstairs working. I never understood the magic of being a child until I grew up and lost it. I dread the day she no longer believes in Santa. I think it will break my heart because that is when I truly know she is growing up and no longer looks at things like a kid.
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I'm going thru that again with G--kids.
 
download-48-1.jpeg
 
cubrock said:
Hopefully, my response didn’t come off as bah humbug. I grew up not celebrating Christmas due to religion, so I have no affinity for it tied to childhood memories. For me, any magic of the season came/comes from how pretty the lights are, the smells of baking in houses and stores, and how friendly and helpful people were/are at Christmas time. I really noticed this when I worked at a bank and we dealt with a lot of retailers. Even though everyone was harried from the extra work, everyone was more cheerful, brought cookies in, held doors for others more, etc. That was awesome.

While we do Advent activities every year, I have some problems with tying Jesus to Christmas, too. He wasn’t born on December 25. But, again, I ain’t messing with other people’s traditions. It is a nice time of the year and I’m down with that.

We chose to do it differently than most with our kids, but no way we are going to mess someone else’s holiday traditions up.

Now, we want to hear some dreidel stories from @Chdamn's Wife !
Click to expand...


Man, I have some of the craziest, wildest dreidel stories...
Said no one ever! Lol. I remember playing it with my sister and cousin but other than that, I can’t think of any good stories to tell.
 
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Chdamn's Wife said:
Man, I have some of the craziest, wildest dreidel stories...
Said no one ever! Lol. I remember playing it with my sister and cousin but other than that, I can’t think of any good stories to tell.
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LOL. Kinda like watching old Italian guys playing Bocci. You can't figure out how they can get so worked up over the game.

I made some dreidels for a class project in junior high. Played a record of the Dreidel Song and the other kids in the class played it. They actually had a great time and I heard one of the popular, stuck-up girls singing the Dreidel Song a couple times later that day. That is my only dreidel story.
 
cubrock said:
LOL. Kinda like watching old Italian guys playing Bocci. You can't figure out how they can get so worked up over the game.

I made some dreidels for a class project in junior high. Played a record of the Dreidel Song and the other kids in the class played it. They actually had a great time and I heard one of the popular, stuck-up girls singing the Dreidel Song a couple times later that day. That is my only dreidel story.
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In both kindergarten and first grade, I went in to my son’s class and brought dreidels and gelt and taught the class how to play as well as the song. It was very fun to watch them.
 
You have locked in on why us old codgers love our grandkids so much. In a world which is not content to just end our innocence, but trample, brutalize and run over it till there ain't nothing left, it is delightful to see children unsullied and naive about the depth of evil... in other and in themselves.
I am not a naif about the nasty nature of children, they simply are not sophisticated and developed enough to explore it yet, but that credulity and unspoiled goodness is something I relish and enjoy in mine. Hope that extends as long as possible with your son, and that he makes wise choices later as the inevitable changes come.
Had to smile reading this....
 
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