How Do You Pull Off Santa?

[Bini]

I know some of you don't do Santa at your household. No biggie. So this is geared towards the parents that have Santa come visit. Up until about a month ago, DH and I had decided not to bother with Santa, and just straight up put everything wrapped under the tree. Then DH says to me that he thinks it would be fun to have Santa come visit our house. So now Santa will be dropping in. What is the skilful way of putting gifts under the tree without waking the entire household? We have a toddler and I'm pretty sure she'll just zonk out completely but we are having other family members this holiday. (I think they'll be good practice for tiptoeing around the house, hehe.) So come on experienced Daddy and Mama Clauses out there! How do you do it? Also, do you leave a glass of milk/juice and cookies for Santa, and carrots or celery for his reindeer? Lastly, if Santa visits, do you put any gifts under the tree or is it just barren?

[pam]

Of course my kids are grown now, but when they were smaller we did the whole Santa thing. There were gifts already under the tree but my kids knew those were from mom and dad and others. But Santa would add his gifts on Christmas Eve.

We did leave out cookies and milk for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer. We always made sure a bite was taken out of the cookie and part of the glass of milk gone.....oh and half of the carrot gone as well.

[Guest]

We kept it simple. We simply use different Christmas wrapper for Santa's gifts, put it under the tree with everything else when we get them wrapped (no special schedule) and we open all of the gifts at the stroke of midnight.

The story that comes with it... Mommy and Daddy are Santa's helpers.

No cookies, no fireplaces, no Santa suits. One year grandpa donned a suit and rang the doorbell at midnight but my kid (3 years old at that time) said... it's Grandpa! So, we didn't bother with that anymore.

[applepansy]

We always waited until the kids were asleep. As they got older and figured it out they kept up the ruse and insisted they believed. :)

Now with our grandson. We do Santa. And we have Cleatus (an Elf on the Shelf). :) We have more adults to help pull it off now. We are doing some fun things with Cleatus and Santa.

[pam]

My sister does Elf on a Shelf. Their elf is named Chippy.

[Guest]

We have Elves on Shelves too! We have one elf for each member of our family and they all get moved by my husband every night. I move his elf. So we all get to look for our elves. LOL.

[NeuroTypical]

I had a daddy daughter date, and revealed the true meaning of Christmas to my 12 year old. She's on board, and will be helping Santa show up with prezzies (if she can stay awake long enough for her sister to fall asleep - that's a big 'if'.)

[estradling75]

There really is a small age window in which one needs to deal with Santa. Too young and they don't care.. too old and they figured it out (but then you enlist them).

For us the first present arrives Christmas eve. This present is a new set of pajamas. Then we remind the kids that this is a very busy night and that he can only go to homes were the kids are asleep. They are positively eager to go to bed and get to sleep. This make things much easier when we need to bring out the presents from 'Santa'