It didn’t affect me much at all, actually. I was about seven or eight and said to my parents “Father Christmas isn’t real, is he?” and they confessed. So I’d evidently got the idea by this time that it was just a story for fun, nothing to be taken very seriously.
My daughter is three and has heard about Father Christmas at nursery. I’m wondering how to pitch him to her. I think as a story for fun would be ideal, because she’s very into stories for fun that she’s nevertheless quite clear are just stories. She enjoys playing along extensively with stories (e.g., her toy dinosaurs talking to her and her to them) without breaking character, but she doesn’t get confused between story and reality.
(I hope to bring this approach to religion as well. Reading a picture book of the Nativity to her—she’d grabbed it in a bookshop and talked her mum into buying it for her—I asked what each thing was and she said “That’s an angel. It’s a sort of fairy.” Can’t say fairer than that!)
Edit: It may be relevant that this was in Perth, Australia, where Christmas is in the middle of summer, it’s frequently forty Celsius on Christmas Day and the insane English-descended people still eat a roast dinner and people typically live in single-storey houses conspicuously lacking in fireplaces and chimneys. The entire set of Christmas traditions is clearly a ridiculously ill-adapted transplant that you’re supposed to enjoy playing along with for some reason. Now I’m living in London and we’re likely to have a white Christmas and my back yard looks like a bloody Christmas card, so the stories seem slightly more plausible. The reindeer will still have problems with the Sky dish and Father Christmas will still have problems with getting into the central heating, though.
I expect your daughter to become a frightening young woman, and I mean that in the most complimentary fashion.
(Also, I grew up in Florida, land of the charmingly tacky lit-up palm trees and santa-hatted plastic lawn flamingoes. I believe I was told that Santa came in through the patio if you had no chimney. As I already knew my mother was making things up, I did not press her to explain what happened if you had neither.)
I expect your daughter to become a frightening young woman, and I mean that in the most complimentary fashion.
She’s a cross between me and Arkady. She’s frightening already. We worked out by the time she was about six months old that we would have to protect the world from her, not the other way around. My goal is to help her not become the next Dark Lord. I am, of course, enormously proud of her.
Teaching rationality of any sort to a three-year-old is of course quite difficult, but that she has no confusion between reality and story—and doesn’t make up stories as excuses—is a pretty good start. Also, the Henson method—tell your kids ridiculous whoppers—is fun. And more fun because she gets that it’s just play. When I’m supplying the voice for her toy dinosaur, it tells her things like “I’m not a dinosaur. I’m not here. I’m actually over there. Go, look, over there!” She is delighted by this sort of absurdity. I expect other children would as well, particularly in a safe environment such as playing.
I had to laugh about people eating the roast dinner. I live in NSW, Australia and we emigrated from England in the mid 80′s. Oh the cultural cringe! Yep there would be Mum sweating in the kitchen with the turkey and all it trimmings and usually complaining.
huh, I’m confused why the roast dinner specifically sticks out – I get why the rest of the Christmas aesthetic doesn’t make sense but that part… just seems reasonable to me? (I guess I have a background assumption that eating oddly specific food for holidays is normal)
It didn’t affect me much at all, actually. I was about seven or eight and said to my parents “Father Christmas isn’t real, is he?” and they confessed. So I’d evidently got the idea by this time that it was just a story for fun, nothing to be taken very seriously.
My daughter is three and has heard about Father Christmas at nursery. I’m wondering how to pitch him to her. I think as a story for fun would be ideal, because she’s very into stories for fun that she’s nevertheless quite clear are just stories. She enjoys playing along extensively with stories (e.g., her toy dinosaurs talking to her and her to them) without breaking character, but she doesn’t get confused between story and reality.
(I hope to bring this approach to religion as well. Reading a picture book of the Nativity to her—she’d grabbed it in a bookshop and talked her mum into buying it for her—I asked what each thing was and she said “That’s an angel. It’s a sort of fairy.” Can’t say fairer than that!)
Edit: It may be relevant that this was in Perth, Australia, where Christmas is in the middle of summer, it’s frequently forty Celsius on Christmas Day and the insane English-descended people still eat a roast dinner and people typically live in single-storey houses conspicuously lacking in fireplaces and chimneys. The entire set of Christmas traditions is clearly a ridiculously ill-adapted transplant that you’re supposed to enjoy playing along with for some reason. Now I’m living in London and we’re likely to have a white Christmas and my back yard looks like a bloody Christmas card, so the stories seem slightly more plausible. The reindeer will still have problems with the Sky dish and Father Christmas will still have problems with getting into the central heating, though.
I expect your daughter to become a frightening young woman, and I mean that in the most complimentary fashion.
(Also, I grew up in Florida, land of the charmingly tacky lit-up palm trees and santa-hatted plastic lawn flamingoes. I believe I was told that Santa came in through the patio if you had no chimney. As I already knew my mother was making things up, I did not press her to explain what happened if you had neither.)
She’s a cross between me and Arkady. She’s frightening already. We worked out by the time she was about six months old that we would have to protect the world from her, not the other way around. My goal is to help her not become the next Dark Lord. I am, of course, enormously proud of her.
Teaching rationality of any sort to a three-year-old is of course quite difficult, but that she has no confusion between reality and story—and doesn’t make up stories as excuses—is a pretty good start. Also, the Henson method—tell your kids ridiculous whoppers—is fun. And more fun because she gets that it’s just play. When I’m supplying the voice for her toy dinosaur, it tells her things like “I’m not a dinosaur. I’m not here. I’m actually over there. Go, look, over there!” She is delighted by this sort of absurdity. I expect other children would as well, particularly in a safe environment such as playing.
Henson method? Quick Google didn’t help (some artist?).
I think this method.
That’s the one, thank you!
Possibly to do with the Jim Henson of puppetry fame.
Nope :-)
I had to laugh about people eating the roast dinner. I live in NSW, Australia and we emigrated from England in the mid 80′s. Oh the cultural cringe! Yep there would be Mum sweating in the kitchen with the turkey and all it trimmings and usually complaining.
huh, I’m confused why the roast dinner specifically sticks out – I get why the rest of the Christmas aesthetic doesn’t make sense but that part… just seems reasonable to me? (I guess I have a background assumption that eating oddly specific food for holidays is normal)