What is the Right Age to Have The “Santa Talk” With Your Kids?!

I’ve been having  rough time this year with my 9 year old daughter Savanna and whether or not she  believes in Santa! 

 

Savanna is right at that age where she’s really starting to doubt a lot, yet she still wants desperately to believe—for a mom, that’s some hard stuff to deal with!

 

 

My oldest daughter, Taylor, told me a couple of years ago (when she was 10) that she didn’t believe in Santa Claus anymore.  I was kind of caught off guard when Taylor told me, but I did everything that I could to ensure that the thought was hers alone and that she didn’t question it all before I reluctantly gave her the confirmation that she was looking for.  I’m not gonna lie—it sucked!  I hated that some of the magic of Christmas was suddenly just gone for her, but she seemed to take it all in stride.  Though I hated the thought of Taylor not believing in Santa, I finally came around and faced the inevitable (that my baby is growing up).  It’s taken me a bit, but I’ve finally decided that I love the idea of Taylor being “in on the secret” I kind of think that she takes as much joy in seeing her siblings excitement as I do!

 

I am not, however, ready to have two children who don’t believe in Santa!  And my daughter Savanna is so not the same easy going, let it slide off her back, kinda girl that Taylor is…nope, Savanna is NOT going to make this easy!

 

So, my question for all of you is this…

 

What is the right age to have “the Santa talk” with your kids?  Did you tell your children that Santa wasn’t real at a certain age or did you begrudgingly just confirm their suspicions ?

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PNP: Personalized Videos from Santa to Your Lil Ones!

If you have little ones obsessed with all things Santa at the moment you're going to want to pay attention to this!

Last year I happened upon a blog post talking about PNP (Portable North Pole) so I checked it out and was SO glad that I did!  PNP where you can get a personalized video message from Santa.  The messages can include Santa saying your child's name, your child's photo in Santa's book, specific toys that your child may want for Christmas, you can even choose the setting for where the video will be shot at (Santa's workshop, Reindeer Training Station, and more)!  This year I did a personalized video for Lil Man and Lil Diva and they were mesmerized while Santa was talking and both of them were SO excited that Santa was talking directly to them!  You can check out the link to Lil Diva's video below.  And if you have children or grandchildren make sure you check out the PNP you'll be so glad that you did!

Lil Diva's Santa Message

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On Santa's Lap

Every year my family has our annual Christmas Party. My mother has 7 brothers and sisters and between them they have 24 kids and 16 grand kids. Needless to say parties in my family are always big, fun, and full of laughter! Every year the husbands take turns dressing up like Santa for the little kids. I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to introduce my two little ones to Santa Claus before they saw the "real" thing at the mall. This is what happened.
My daughter was oblivious (I'm not even sure that she realized she was transfered from on person to another) she sat there and possed for her picture like the lil angel she is.
My son on the other hand...wanted NO part of it. He screamed, cried, and kicked Santa before Mommy rescued him! I did manage to get a picture...Ah blackmail for those bad teenage years!

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Christmas is Coming!!!

With Christmas fast approaching I thought I’d share a few of my favorite websites for everything from Letters from Santa to a Santa tracking website.

http://www.familyfun.go.com/printables

This site has every Christmas printable that you can imagine. Coloring pages, Christmas countdown calendars, ornament printable, even a build your own snowman printable that your kids can print and then decorate.

http://www.freelettersfromsantaclaus.com/free_printable_letters_from_santa.asp

With this site you can personalize and print a letter for your child from Santa. You can choose between 5 different letters and 3 letter designs. If your child has an email address you can also choose to email the letter to him or her. I have used this site for the past two years and my kids love the letters!


www.noradsanta.com

Every kid would love to be able to track Santa on Christmas Eve…well with NORAD's website your child can do just that. Starting in December your child will be able to go to the website and track Santa! This is also something that my kids have done for the past few years and they love it!

http://www.allthingschristmas.com

This is one of my favorite sites for Christmas. This site has everything; coloring pages, recipes, stories and Christmas carols. One of the coolest features of this site is its gift guide. You choose between men, women, teens, children, and babies, within those choices you pick different things that identify the person you are buying for, some examples are Handyman (men), Shopper (women), Curious (girl), etc. And it gives you a list (with pictures) of gifts that the person you are buying for may like. The best part is when you click on the picture of the gift it automatically takes you to the website that sells the gift so that you can purchase it! I love this site and I’m sure you will too if you check it out!

I hope this list helps in finding anything you can dream up that is Christmas related….if you know of any great Christmas sites please let me know and I’ll add them to the list!

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