When my children, Ella, now 12, and Leo, 9, were little, I told them something that, at the time, felt almost rebellious in the world of modern parenting: Santa only brings stocking gifts.
The small, thoughtful bits and bobs. The oranges. The chocolate coins. The things that make Christmas morning feel fizzy with excitement but don’t require a small loan or a panic about whether you’re keeping up with playground trends.
Their reaction, at first, was a bit of confusion. When the kids were very small, I fell into the same trap many parents do and let them assume Santa brought everything.
So I had to re-explain, gently, that actually, Santa brought the stocking gifts and anything under the tree came from Mum and Dad.
When Ella was in her second year of school, so she was 6 and Leo, 3. Definitely helped that Leo was much younger, as he was just starting to understand what it was all about , so knew no different really. They accepted it without fuss. Suddenly, Christmas wasn’t about guessing what enormous toy might appear under the tree anymore, or whether their list would be fulfilled.
It was about the simple magic of discovering what tiny surprises Father Christmas could squeeze into the stocking placed outside their bedroom door.
From that moment on, everything changed. My children stopped asking for extravagant gifts – not because they didn’t want anything big, but because they understood where those gifts actually came from.
Santa does the stocking; Mum and Dad do the rest.
I started telling them this because I wanted to protect the wonder of Christmas, not strip it away. And the wonder, for me, has never been about the price tag of a present.
It’s the soft thud on the landing that you swear was Santa’s footsteps. It’s the sound of the reindeer bells – that you absolutely did hear.
It’s the glow of the fairy lights when you creep downstairs at 5am and the quiet hush when you open something small but magical: a Whoopee cushion, a pair of cosy socks, new pants – and believe wholeheartedly that it came from someone whose only job is to make children feel special.
Stockings are the heart of Christmas magic. They always have been.
All parents battle the narrative that Santa is responsible for presents. It’s everywhere, from other parents and TV shows to well-meaning relatives. Mine would ask Ella what she was asking Santa for that year.
And it means children’s expectations balloon quietly and quickly. By the time Ella was at school, she was confidently asking Santa for a trip to Disneyland and an iPad.
A sinking feeling hit. Santa had been turned into a limitless credit card. And I knew something had to shift.
Did I get side-eye from other parents when Christmas came up at the school gates? Oh, absolutely. One mum thought I was overthinking it; another told me, in jest, that I was borderline cruel.
But interestingly, I also had parents who told me they loved the approach and were going to adopt it themselves after realising how much pressure the Santa myth was placing not only on their finances, but on their children’s expectations, and their own mental load.
Honestly, that Christmas felt like the pressure evaporated.
Their stockings were overflowing with small treasures, like chocolate coins, books, a handful of tiny toys, a magnifying glass.
The children were giddy. They brought their stockings into our room and excitedly opened them on our bed, inspecting each item as if Santa had hand-delivered them straight from the North Pole.
They didn’t question why there wasn’t a giant box wrapped in red shiny paper directly from the Big Man. They didn’t think Santa had favourites. They didn’t compare their haul to anyone else’s. They simply enjoyed it.
And when they opened the bigger presents from us – the new bike and scooter that we’d chosen with care, saved for, wrapped in secret – they looked at me and my husband with genuine gratitude.
They said thank you. They understood. It grounded Christmas in reality without stealing its magic.
