After becoming a parent I quickly learned that other families have very different traditions when it comes to Santa, and as my girls get older navigating the questions that come from these varying traditions gets trickier.

Is It Time to Rethink How Your Family Does Santa?

In my house, Santa fills stockings with goodies and brings the one gift each of my daughters wants most. He leaves it unwrapped under the tree so it's the first thing they see when they wake up on Christmas morning. All the other wrapped gifts they see under the tree are from Mom and Dad.

We know other families where every gift their kids open on Christmas morning comes from Santa, and I still don't know to effectively answer when my girls ask why so and so got 5 gifts from Santa and they only got one.

I'm not here to tell you the way your family does Santa is wrong and that it needs to change, I just want us all to consider one thing that child social workers stress during the holiday season...

So far my daughters have not asked Santa for an expensive gift like an iPad, computer, or gaming system, but I'm sure that day is coming, even though I'd like to think we've taught them that is not a possibility.  I know I said earlier that Santa always brings my girls the one thing they want most, but expensive electronics is where I draw the line. Yes, I would feel awkward about my kids bragging about that big gift to the kids at school, but more importantly, if we're going to shell out that amount of cash, my husband and I totally want the credit for it!  Do Santa's elves even know how to make an iPad? I thought it was Santa's Workshop...not Santa's Electronics Lab. Just some food for thought.

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