I was having trouble sleeping last night, which always seems to happen to me on Christmas Eve and Easter Eve, even though it's been 15 years since I was "visited" on them. My oldest child is 18 now, my youngest 6, all of them are very inquisitive, and it's taken several creative "stories" to keep the dream of Santa & Easter Bunny. I thought it might be fun to share some of them (these are all real things that have been asked by my kids over the years).

Kid's Question: Why does Santa have the same wrapping paper as us?
Answer: Santa needs a way to pay for all of his elves so in their off-season, they make wrapping paper that they sell in stores like Target and Wal-Mart.

Kid's Question: Why do we have a closet full of presents?
Answer: Santa was running out of time this year, so he called me and asked if he could drop the presents off early.

Kid's Question: How did the Easter Bunny know I wanted this <insert toy, book, ect..>?
Answer: <Kid's came up with this on their own> Easter Bunny borrows Santa's Snowglobe (from the Disney's Santa Claus movies) while Santa is on vacation so he can watch everyone.

Kid's Question: What happened to our Easter Baskets? (This happened last night, I was really tired, tucked the kids in, took the baskets into my closet to fill them, so I could just set them out after they were asleep, but of course, the 8 year-old needed a drink of water).
Answer: Easter Bunny was here, but heard you get up, so he left quick and took your Easter Baskets with him to fill them.

Kid's Question: Why did <insert friend's name> get $5 from the Tooth Fairy and I only got $1?
Answer: It was really dark in <insert friend's name> house and the Tooth Fairy grabbed the wrong bill out of her pocket.

This is some of the questions I've had to come up with. What "stories" have you had to tell to your children?

Side Note: Once my older children loose the magic, there is a standing rule that if you tell the younger kids, Santa/Easter Bunny/ Tooth Fairy won't visit you anymore (i.e. no presents). This has kept them from spoiling the magic for the younger ones. This is my hard-fast rule, because I had a brother that was 4 years older, and I don't even remember ever believing, I was very young <5 when he told me. Although, he also told me that Lincoln was killed in the Muppet Theatre, and I believed him for years.

My son: Mom Santa comes down the chimney, how does the Easter Bunny get in?

Me: Well he closes his eyes and wiggles his ears and then opens his eyes. When they open up he's inside.

My son: How does he get out of the house?

Me: The same way he got in.


He's 7 this year and starting to ask the questions like that (which was the big problem with the whole Easter Bunny thing last night). I think I have only a year left if I'm lucky and he's not outed by the bigger kids in the neighborhood by Christmas for him to believe.

Myoungest son said to me the other night while tucking them into bed,... "mom, you and dad are the easter bunny aren't you????"
I looked at him and laughed my butt off, and said of course not.
He then took back what he said, and then said "I know, Santa does it when he isn't working at the north pole right?" again I laughed, and said, maybe... He needs to do something in his off time. Maybe he guides the easter bunny or something.

He is 9, my 11yr daughter said that she heard him last year, with this wild thumping noise and stuff.

Kids, what is next?

We've always covered the Christmas Paper Question by telling them all moms and dads leave some extra paper for santa ... if he carried all the paper he needed, he wouldn't have room for all of the toys.

My oldest who just turned 11 in March, was told at school about how Mom & Dad are Santa, Easter Bunny & the Toothfairy when she was 9. I did all I could to explain why the other kid said it, but she knew I was making it up. I wanted to strangle the little brat who told her. He was in 6th grade (she was in 3rd)
She enjoys keeping up the act though for her younger sister who turned 8 in March. I am not looking fwd to her finding out about it soon.

One year, my neice told my daughter on Christmas Eve there was no Santa Claus. After we got home, she came up to me and asked if her daddy and I were Santa...I asked her did she think me and her daddy could afford the stuff that Santa brings her...she thought about it for a minute and with a BIG smile on her face said No!

My 11yr old knows theres no Santa or Easter Bunny, but he also knows if he doesn't pretend that there is one, then he gets no Basket or stocking. He also told my 5yr old that I have to call Santa or EB a couple of days before so they know what to bring and whether he was good or not.

We always use different wrapping paper for stockings.

Barb

Santa doesn't wrap gifts in our house, he's too busy!! So Christmas morning the kids know which gifts are from Santa cause they aren't wrapped.

Easy, we don't read'em!!
Seriously though, I don't think my kids clue into those type of things. Mind you they are 15 & 11 so Santa isn't a hot topic any more. Our problem was the letter left with the cookies & the question about how Santa got into our home when we didn't have a fireplace. There is a key you can buy called "Santa's Key" & it comes in a nice box with a story about how if you left this key on your door, Santa would use it. For years we left the key on our door handle (then we moved into a house with a fireplace). Santa would leave the key by the plate of cookies along with his letter (written by me using my left hand instead of my right). Santa is in a hurry, so his writting is a little messy .
When I was little my mom used to wrap all the stocking gifts, & I mean everything in the stocking was wrapped, right down to the candy canes.
Lots off trees died when I was a kid!!

I've always wrapped the Santa presents in paper different than ours and they come from the workshop wrapped. That's how I figured it out when I was a kid - all the presents had the same paper. Santa only brings a few things and we give the really expensive things.

My son is also 11 and has figured it out, but won't let on b/c he's afraid he won't get anything!!

When I was a kid, Santa wrapped some gifts, but the big ones were unwrapped. Our stocking presents were also all individually wrapped. I don't actually remember finding out that Santa, etc... wasn't real.

I have friend that vowed not to 'lie' to her kids about Santa, Easter bunny, etc..... So, in their house, mom and dad do Santa's job for him cause he's too busy to go to all the houses in the world. It was that or the 5yo was gonna tell the whole kindergarten class Santa wasn't real. The kids are now 12, 10 and 8. Somehow, the tooth fairy lives though, lol.

Edited to add:
We also had no fireplace when we were kids. So after Mom and Dad were asleep, I'd sneak out and unlock the front door so Santa could get in. How I walked through the living room and NOT see the piles of presents I have no idea, lol. Found out years later my parents had no idea the door was unlocked all night. Good thing I grew up in a safe neighborhood!

A couple months ago my 6 year old daughter read a story at school about the tooth fairy getting trapped under a boy's pillow because he rolled over while she was making the switch. It made her late for 8 appointments. DD thought this was hilarious.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, on a Saturday, when same DD lost a tooth. I went to bed and totally forgot about it. The next morning she carried that tooth to me and said, "Mama, the tooth fairy didn't come." She was so sad.

I just said, "Well, how 'bout that. Maybe she'll come tonight."

DH was already in the truck waiting for us finish getting ready for church. I told them to go on out and I'd be right there. That's when I put the $$ in her room with a rhyming note from the tooth fairy about getting behind on appointments and sorry I was late. She LOVED it. She took it to school to show all her buddies.

I still felt like a terrible mom for a bit though.

It's great that you were able to not make her wait the whole day. I've almost forgotten several times, in fact, my husband gets up at 6am, so before we got to bed, I put the money in a ziploc bag and put it on his wallet, so if I forget, he can do it in the morning.

Our Tooth Fairy left a note with our last tooth too. My 7-year-old has not been brushing his teeth well, despite me telling him too, getting the blue mouth rinse that you have to brush off, ect.. When we went to the dentist a month ago, my son's molar was a huge cavity. He had to just have it extracted (it was a baby molar, so another one will grow in). Since his tooth was in such bad shape, my son wondered if he would get a whole $1 or anything for the tooth from the Tooth Fairy. I told him since it's only about half a tooth, he might only get $.50. Instead, the Tooth Fairy left a note saying, "Connor, PLEASE take better care of your teeth!", with the full $1. He believed her, told me the next day that I was right, and has brushed his teeth better since. Hopefully, this lesson will stick with him and he will continue to take better care of his teeth.

AWw, don't feel bad. I've forgotten too. But my son's room is usually such a mess, I told him the Tooth Fairy probably couldn't get into the room b/c he had so much stuff in the way. He cleaned it and next night the Tooth Fairy came.

we left teeth on the fireplace mantle or the coffee table so the tooth fairy could find it easier (and so the tooth fairy wouldn't forget to put the money out before going to bed! )

A friend of mine didn't have change for a $20, so that night she took a couple dollars from her son's piggy bank to help out the tooth fairy. Of course she put it back later, but I got a kick out of her telling it.

When my daughter was about 5 or 6, she started asking too many smart questions about Santa- did I mention this is the same now high school freshman taking four honors classes?? Her first question was how Santa got around the whole world in just one night- and I am like UH- Oh, think fast!! We had lived in Japan until she was 4, so here's the answer: remember when we lived in Japan, and is wasn't always the same time/day there as it was at Grandma's house?? That's how he does it, because it's not always the same time everywhere- she bought it!! The other one was how Santa knows if you are good or bad- this was before the Santa Clause movies- I brought up the magic snowglobe idea, and she was like no way, that's not true. the next week we were shopping in a store, and lo and behold, there was a snowglobe of Santa looking into his magic snowglobe!! She never doubted Mom again!!

My kids were doubting the "around the world" in 1 day thing too. This year, we put the Norad Santa Tracker all Christmas Eve (when it is Christmas in Japan, ect..) so they could track Santa. Just to make it extra "fun" (i.e. educational), we got out their Leap Frog globe and followed Santa on that with the Norad Tracker (which is like Google Maps Street View), so they could see how close Santa was to getting to them, in something they could hold in their hands.

Everything is a learning experience in our house

Some kids at school told me about Santa when I was only in kindergarten. My mom still thinks that's sad! But I had a younger brother, and I clearly remember having lots of fun telling him that I could see Santa, and Santa was watching. "If you're not nice to me I'll tell Santa!" was quite over-used from October on! haha It worked like a charm, too!

We had a friend (round belly, long white beard and all) who played Santa to my daughter from the day she was born. He even came to the house one Christmas Eve and was "caught" putting presents under the tree. Once when she was four she saw him in one of the local parks and nudged me that it was Santa. He came over to her and explained that he had to be out during the year in regular clothes so that he could keep an eye on the kids.

It was a wonderful way to keep her believing for years longer than most kids. When she was ten, she came home from school crying uncontrollably. Her friends were making fun of her because she still believed in Santa. We had a long talk and I finally admitted that he wasn't real.

She quickly sobered up, looked at me thoughtfully and said... "I guess this means there's no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy either,huh?"

My parents were totally anti-Santa when I was growing up. He just didn't exist in their book. So one year I decided to mess with them a bit. My sister had given me a mix tape that someone had made for her and she didn't want. So I took the tape, wrapped it up in secret with a note from "Santa" and hid it away until Christmas. While my parents were in the kitchen making breakfast, I took my gift and put it in my stocking, which was always last. Needless to say watching the looks exchanged between the two when a gift neither of them knew about was found in the stocking was highly entertaining.

Ironically, my mom has no qualms about my daughter believing in Santa now. Go figure.