7QT Why I Don’t Threaten my Kids with the “Naughty List” at Christmas

A few years ago I heard a story about a friend who said to her daughter, who was about 4 or 5 at the time, “If you’re not good, Santa won’t bring you presents!” The little girl replied with something like, “Yes he will. I wasn’t good last year and he still did anyway.”

When Christmas gets close, I don’t tell my girls that they need to be good or Santa won’t come. I don’t tell them than an elf is watching them and reporting back to the big guy so they’d better behave. We do have an elf. Ours is Christopher Pop-In-Kins, who was recommended to me by Super Friend (he isn’t as popular as “Elf on the Shelf,” but he was actually the original, coming out in 1985, 20 years before the more commonly seen elf).

Our tradition is that we decorate our tree on the day after Thanksgiving. Then my girls put their letters to Santa into our, appropriately named, “Letters to Santa” ornament that my mom got for them when Miss was really little. In the morning, the letters are gone, the Christopher Pop-In-Kins book is under the tree, and Christopher (Lass always calls him “Mary Poppins”) is hiding somewhere in the house. He moves every night, but doesn’t get up to goofy shenanigans, because I don’t have the energy or desire to create elf messes and then clean them up again.

The Christopher Pop-In-Kins book does mention that he is a helper for Santa, and that he keeps and eye on kids and reports back to Santa before Christmas Eve. It doesn’t make a big issue out of it though, focusing more on how much Christopher likes little children and wants to be able to visit them. The book doesn’t say that Santa won’t come if Christopher tells him the kids were naughty.

I try to make our elf more of a fun little tradition and less of a “He’s watching you and telling Santa everything, so you better be good” kind of behavioral control. I don’t talk to my kids about being on Santa’s “naughty list,” and I don’t tell them that if they don’t behave, Santa won’t come. I’m not judging people who do do this. I get why they do. Before thinking about it a bit more in recent years, I used to occasionally make comments like, “I wonder what Santa would think about that behavior.” But it never quite felt right for me, so I don’t do it anymore. Here’s why:

1. I don’t really like the idea of Santa having a punitive role. He’s a happy, jolly fellow. No need to make him the bad guy.
2. I think it can be a little harder for kids to be on their best behavior at this time of year. Often they’re getting less sleep, or schedules are disrupted by activities. There’s so much excitement and hype (and sugar!) around them. That’s not to say I don’t still expect my kids to behave, but I try to be understanding of it being a little harder.
3. I try to emphasize that Christmas is about more than getting gifts. My girls write a letter to Santa every year and in it they’re allowed to ask him for one thing. Then I try to talk to them about all the more important things about Christmas. It seem that if I repeatedly remind them that they have to be good so Santa will bring them presents, that keeps the focus of the season on getting presents instead of the other things I want them to be focused on.
4. I prefer immediate and definite consequences for inappropriate behavior. The threat of Santa not bringing presents, because it’s mom or dad saying what Santa might do (or not do in this case), isn’t immediate or definite.
5. I try to make it a general rule not to threaten consequences that I’m not willing to enforce. I’m not willing to take away my kids’ Christmas presents, so I don’t threaten that “Santa” will do it, when I know he won’t (see the story above about my friend’s little girl!).
6. I think the admonishments to kids that they must “be good” at Christmas time to avoid being placed on the “naughty list” are too vague. It isn’t realistic to expect kids to not misbehave in any way for the whole month of December (or November too, depending when folks start talk of Santa). What is the cutoff point? How many times to they have to be “naughty” to get on the list? Can they get off it once they’re on it? How do they know? Seems kind of anxiety-producing to me, and there’s no need for added stress during the holidays, in my opinion.
7. I want my kids to realize that they should work on being on their best behavior all the time, not just to get something from Santa. When my kids asked me a few weeks ago, “Do we have to be good so Santa will come?” I replied, “No. You have to be good because that’s what we do. We always try to be our best all the time, not just for Santa.”

So. This are my two cents about Santa and the “naughty list.” Even still, because of the brief mention in the Christopher Pop-In-Kins book and the common theme of “be good or else…” in songs and Christmas movies, my girls have an idea in their heads that they need to be good for Santa. When we went to see him last week, Lass asked him, “How do you know who’s good and who’s bad?” He replied that his elves help him. I didn’t mind that she asked him that or that he replied in that way.

I don’t necessarily want them to think that Santa has no interest in children having good behavior. I’m just not going to threaten them that he’ll leave them out on Christmas if they don’t have it all the time.

 

Linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum for Seven Quick Takes Friday!