Controversial Santa Stories That Belong On The Naughty List

My MIL doesn’t like me at all. She’s one of the typical moms who doesn’t want her son to be stolen away by another woman, so my existence alone is enough for her to resent me. It doesn’t help that I don’t practice her religion and that we don’t plan on baptizing our children. This is a mutual decision between my husband and I. For a little extra context, she sends me Bible verses and quotes about being subservient to your husband on a regular basis to get under my skin. After telling her very nicely and calmly to stop once, she had a full blown meltdown/tantrum about how I won’t let her save me, so I just ignore her messages now.

My daughter (4) loves Christmas. She loves decorating the house and helping bake the cookies and she gets to pick the tree out this year. She’s so excited it’s literally so adorable, she’s been talking about it since July.

She also is a very firm believer in Santa. She already has a mile long list of things she wants him to get her. Side note: she isn’t spoiled at all, some of the things on her list are random items she sees at the grocery store or things on our shelves. Our dog that we’ve had for six years is on her list. She just likes writing them (AKA making me write them).

My MIL was over today and my daughter was asking me to add another random item to her Santa list. As my MIL heard her say it, she immediately responds to her saying that Santa isn’t real, and that me and my husband are who buys the gifts under the tree. This obviously went over like a lead balloon with my child, but my MIL looked pretty happy with herself for the sh*tstorm she just created for me and for breaking my daughter’s heart.

I immediately told her to pack her sh*t and to get the f*ck out of my house and that she wasn’t welcome near my baby anymore. She tried to respond that she did us a favor and that our child shouldn’t be thanking a man who doesn’t exist for the nice things we do for her, so I responded that it was a rich statement coming from someone who has spent their entire life praying to a man who ALSO doesn’t exist. I also told her I was very sorry she let the devil breed hate in her heart, then I slammed the door in her face.

Husband is completely on my side and is completely shattered that his mom ruined something so special for our daughter, but we’ve received a few texts and calls from his siblings who think I was out of line and that I should be apologizing to her. I’m still so angry that I can’t really judge for myself if I’m in the wrong or not… I think she crossed an uncrossable line and that I’m justified in not letting her have a future relationship with my daughter or any other children we might have later.

My 6-year-old daughter is going through a big Santa phase lately. She loves all things Christmas, all year round. She has Santa themed everything and wears Santa sweaters. We don’t know where this came from since we’re not even that big into Christmas or anything, but whatever floats her boat.

She has a mean-spirited classmate who is always having to remind her Santa isn’t real, and after a while it surpassed the level of “cultural difference between families” to bullying. The kid was persisting even when it was obvious it was upsetting my daughter.

Now that they’re doing school at home it’s a lot harder for the teacher to intervene in stuff like this and we didn’t want to burden her with extra conflict management, but they also understandably discourage parents from jumping into kid interactions during class times.

So we just contacted the kids’ parents directly and explained that for whatever reason our daughter was very enamored by Santa right now so we’d really appreciate if they could ask their kid to stop bringing this up with her.

They didn’t sound particularly receptive but also said they’d take care of it, so we figured that was that. But then the taunting continued the very next day. And remained unchanged for the rest of the week.

Seeing it was clear nothing was getting done about this, I just told my kid her classmate probably thinks Santa isn’t real because he’s too naughty to get toys so Santa doesn’t come by his house.

(She understands there are also plenty of people who just don’t get Santa visits because they enjoy different traditions, the in-laws and all her cousins are Jewish, so no worries on that front.)

Long story short she “went to school.” The kid started taunting her again. She said he probably just doesn’t visit you because you’re not nice enough to get presents. Other kids in their breakout room heard this and he lost face.

His parents called and, in so many words, said we were a**holes because their son was technically correct that Santa isn’t real and we could’ve explained it in a way that didn’t invalidate him.

I feel badly about how things worked out, but also, they accepted zero responsibility for how their son bullied my kid and didn’t really do anything to try and mitigate it.

From Redditor u/SantaTHRWaway:

I have two kids ages 4 (girl) and 2 (boy). I work three 12s a week so I’m usually on kid-watching duty my days off. My brother and his wife have three kids (boy 13, girl 7, boy 5). I typically watch the two youngest throughout the week too, usually once or twice a week, more or less.

My niece has reached a stage where she is – and I don’t mean this maliciously – kind of an a**. She likes attention and she likes to act smart and has a bad case of sass. She’s not a bad kid but, well… kids are jerks sometimes and especially at her age she’s still learning empathy.

My brother told me she told her little brother a few days ago that Santa isn’t real… she learned “the truth” last year from some kids at school. My nephew was understandably distraught (although he’s recovered) and regardless of your opinion of the Santa lie, it’s pretty crushing to hear the truth at that age.

I was talking to my fiancé and we’re worried she might do the same to our kids, or my nephew might let it slip too. I don’t think simply telling her to not do it will work, and I can’t monitor her and three other children every second when they’re over.

This may seem like a silly worry but my kids love Santa and Christmas, I don’t want to ruin it. I told my SIL I’d appreciate it if she didn’t ask me to babysit in December… my mom and dad are willing and able to babysit whenever (they’re retired) so I think that would be a fine compromise.

My SIL was offended by my ask. She thinks I’m “punishing” them and my niece just for being a kid, and she promised she wouldn’t spill the beans. I feel bad that she thinks I’m criticizing her parenting but this is important to me. Does my request make me an a**hole?

From Redditor u/No_Poetry7930:

I (43F) have children with very large age gaps. My oldest is 25 that I had with a high school ex. Then we separated, and I married my husband much later. My younger two are 9 and 7. My younger children believe in Santa, while my daughter’s son doesn’t. She raised him not with the Santa magic, which is perfectly okay… I just rather not have it ruined for my children who do believe in Santa.

I was having Christmas at my house and I asked my daughter if she’d please talk to her son, because I wouldn’t like the magic ruined for them. I still put packages under the tree with “from Santa” on them, and leave out cookies and reindeer treats (bird seeds). My daughter told us she wouldn’t make her son lie, and my children are old enough to understand if her son decides to say something.

I told her if she wouldn’t talk to her son, they could spend Christmas at their apartment. My daughter didn’t like that and said I was choosing my younger children’s happiness over hers, and that I was being completely unreasonable. My husband supports me but thinks I might be being a little high-strung as our children are getting older. I just want to keep the Christmas magic alive. AITA?

From Redditor u/IKnowImWrongOkay:

I have three kids, (7yr,4yr,8mo) the older two have not been listening at all. They aren’t going to sleep on time, they don’t care if I take their electronics away, the older one yells at me constantly, I’m at the end of my ropes. I have presents from us the parents but Santa in our house comes the night of the 24th into the 25th. They’ve gotten art supplies and an apple gift card from him… but they’ve already gotten so much from us. Would I be the a**hole if I just spray painted some rocks black and put them in their (7yr,4yr) stocking while the 8-month-old gets a stocking with ‘Santa’ goodies and toy? Their elf already disappeared from them being so naughty and they couldn’t care less… it’s 1am here, they’re still awake, running around and yelling waking the youngest… I can’t take it anymore.

Would I be the a**hole of Santa gave them coal? I don’t even know if it would even teach them anything at this point.

From Redditor u/Cheesecake_Silent:

I’m a widower. My late wife’s family was very rich and my family growing up was borderline destitute. I’ve made something of myself but it doesn’t compare to my parents in law who were both petroleum engineers. I have two kids, 3M and 4F.

Christmastime is hard on my mom because she cannot compare her giftgiving to my parents in laws. For example, this year her gifts were all either handmade or knickknacks from the dollar store. She just can’t afford much and refuses my help (I’ve wanted to pay off her mortgage for 10 years now). Compare this to my parents in law who got them a PS5, two Switches, a new Xbox, and $250 cash each. My mom might have spent $50 in total for each kids.

Last year I wanted to say all of the gifts were from Santa, so my mom doesn’t feel left out. This charade didn’t last long when my parents in law made it clear to them what they got them. They don’t do Santa, or maybe they’re malicious, I don’t know. This year I put my foot down and told them months ago that there’ll be no names on gifts, it’s all from Santa.

They told me I’m diminishing their grandparenting impact and I should just be straightforward. Am I the a**hole if I don’t? We of course appreciate their gifts but this is even making me depressed, seeing even my own gifts pale in comparison. I got them new coats, new boots, and bikes for spring.

From Redditor u/:xKameKev:

I (29m) have a sister (35f) who has three kids (11m, 9m, 2f) who I absolutely adore and love being their uncle. This year my sister decided their “big” Christmas gifts (a PS5, iPad, etc) are going to be from Santa. I’m glad my sister is well off enough to provide for her kids but I think it’s wrong for her to say they’re from Santa. My reasoning is that our cousin (33f) can only afford to get her son (8m) 1-2 video games for the system he already has but with the same caveat they’re going to be his “Santa” present. I feel like what’s going to inevitably happen on Christmas Day is the kids are going to compare gifts as kids always do and our cousins are going to get upset that “Santa” didn’t love them as much as my sister’s kids or they weren’t as high up on the “nice list”. I’ve always thought gifts from Santa should be fun but practical so kids don’t end up feeling bad about themselves. My sister is [calling] me an AH for saying she shouldn’t love her kids as much as she wants even though that’s nowhere near what I said. I just think she should reevaluate telling her kids where the big gifts came from. AITA?

From Redditor u/RedditThrowaway19744:

I have children ages 16, 14, 12, and 9. The 9 year old still believes in Santa.

My ex wife and I have been divorced for 5 years. We share time on Christmas no matter whose day it is, and we alternate every other year who has them for the Christmas Santa wakeup.

…except Santa Claus comes to my ex’s house whether it’s her year or mine.

Am I the a**hole here for not wanting her to do Santa when it’s my year? Her excuse – what she told my 9-year-old – is that Santa knows they live at her house too. So not only are we now competing on Santas but she’s putting me in the position of doing Santa at my house on her year if the logic presented to my 9-year-old is to be preserved.

I guess I could be the a**hole for denying my kids two rounds of Santa every year? Except I don’t think there should be dueling Santas. The lifestyles, shall we say, are by no means equivalent between the two houses.

From Redditor u/12is2old12:

My kid [12M] was playing with a group of kids at recess and one of them [12F] made some kind of reference to Santa Claus being real. My kid laughed and said, “You’re joking, right?” The girl was not joking and got very upset when my kid (and his friends) were basically like, “Uh, no, dude, Santa’s definitely not real.”

Well, I got an irate call from the girl’s mom last night. She said my child has ruined Christmas and wants him to apologize and tell her daughter that he was lying about Santa because he didn’t believe in the magic of Christmas anymore, but now sees the error of his ways.

When I asked if her daughter has any special needs, she angrily told me no, she’s neurotypical, but that she’s just a girl who loves Christmas and is now heartbroken. I told her that, respectfully, what she’s positing is an insane idea and that it’s unreasonable to expect 12-year-olds to maintain the Santa story with other 12-year-olds. She called me a Grinch (seriously) and hung up on me, right after insisting she’s going to take it to the school administration.

When I talked to my son about it, he said he genuinely thought she was joking because all of his friends have known that Santa isn’t real for years. He thinks it’s “super weird” that she still believes/d. I told him that I’ll stick up for him and that I agree his classmate is too old to continue the fantasy, especially if she is neurotypical. My son confirmed that she’s in his class and extracurriculars, and seems to function like a completely average 12-year-old.

But now I’m wondering if this isn’t compassionate enough to other people’s beliefs? I really do feel like 12 is way way way too old to sincerely believe in Santa unless there’s some kind of cognitive development issues, and I think forcing my kid to say that he was wrong about Santa is absolutely ridiculous. My husband thinks he should at least apologize for not being sensitive, but I’m really stuck on how a 12-year-old with normal thinking skills could possibly still believe in Santa and thinking that frankly it was about time unless her parents thought she’d ALWAYS believe. But I’m open to missing something here.

AITA? (And bonus, was my son the a**hole for not playing along about Santa initially?)

From Redditor u/aquafrizzz:

She is from a small village in Germany close to the Austrian border where apparently this is normal. I (British) came home the other day to see her showing our 2-year-old a video of “Krampus.” He looked a bit bewildered and I know he could very well have night terrors, he gets scared of everything. I asked her why she felt the need to show him that and she explained the tradition where if you are bad, Santa won’t come and Krampus will get you instead and hit you or something.

Now I am really ticked off. She says it is tradition and that I will be grateful in the future when I can use it as a way to get the kids to behave. I flipped out at her and told her that was manipulation and child abuse. She said she was grateful for it as a child because it taught her to behave at an early age and she kind of knew deep down it was not real. I just think this is the most effed up thing I have ever heard of.