Do you believe in Father Christmas?

I have already gone through 'the truth' about Father Christmas a few years ago with my eldest daughter, and now I have had to go through it a second time with my youngest daughter.

The second time around has been made more challenging due to Isabelle having a lower level of maturity and her autism means she hasn't naturally asked questions about Father Christmas in the same way as her sister did.

We made the decision to tell her this year for two reasons. The first being that she is eleven and has started her period and is naturally growing and moving into the next phase of growing up. Secondly, she gets extremely anxious every Xmas as she gets so over whelmed with the emotions of Xmas- excitement, happiness and even fear!

She gets scared of the thought of Father Christmas being in her room and seeing him. To be honest I don't blame her as its not until you get older that you see it from a creepy perspective of a strange man being in your house!

We already have presents and stockings downstairs so Isabelle didn't worry as much about him being in her room, but last xmas she was awake for most of the night and almost made herself physically sick from the anxiety.

This year we felt she needed to understand so she could actually sleep Xmas Eve.

Initially Isabelle did not react well to the news. She got very upset and confused and did not believe me. I then found this online and it really helped her to understand the tradition of Father Christmas and how he developed from St Nicholas.

‘Father Christmas was real, his name was St Nicholas and he was a carpenter in a village that wasn’t the richest of villages…One year near the festive season, he decided he was going to make wooden toys to leave on the door steps of houses he knew children lived in and wouldn’t get much else for Christmas. He continued to do this for many years and other villages heard about it and did the same thing for each other. As this was hundreds and hundreds of years ago, St Nicholas does live in heaven now, BUT others followed in his foot steps and continued to spread Christmas magic. We do still have amazing people who make toys for children, we do still have Santa workers to bring joy and smiles on people faces, we still do have kind people who feed people who may not have had food for Christmas and we do still celebrate the love for each other and share gifts. ‘Santa is very much real, he just doesn’t deliver toys to every house and his reindeers don’t fly, they are just to make the story of St Nicholas a little more amazing to younger children. (Elfie, 2016)

https://is.gd/Hpexpo