I
think Darwin is still fully invested in the Father Christmas myth, and it was just the ‘we’re actually at the North Pole’ bit that he went along with (to be fair, we did at no point suggest that we were… it was just the elf that said we were, and I don’t think he intended for kids to believe it), but when Darwin
seemed to accept that, we let him.
To be fair, I’ve never really gone wholly in for the Santa thing, but they learn about it at nursery and you kind of get pulled along
We have all the gifts from family, but one gift from Santa in our house (rather than all gifts from Santa, which I think some families do), so I’m not sure if that ‘contains’ it a little? That’s not why I did it that way, but rather because I grew up really poor, and it was important to me that he realised that there were family and friends behind these acts of love, but still the magic of a Santa gift.
When Darwin was in nursery he asked for a play house, but the last two years he’s written to Santa he’s asked for ‘three lego minifigs’ (last year) and ‘a pot of black play doh’ (this year), so he doesn’t seem to ask for a big thing necessarily.
My hope is that when Darwin is fully aware he just moves into halfway stage something like your daughter has, MarkG, where we can play along, a bit like Darwin did with the North Pole idea.
How long did your girl stay angry with you/the situation, Jem? Hopefully not too long. Was it around Christmas time that she found/worked it out?