How does your family "do" Santa?

I chose "skip Santa, focus on Jesus", however we do celebrate the feast day of St. Nicholas. He comes and fills the children's stockings on the night before his feast day, Dec 6th.

We do not do Santa - instead we include Saint Nickolas - the origin of Santa (Sinter Klaus). Saint Nick's day - December 6th is celebrated and he also comes to help me wrap the gifts. The younger children love to listen at the door while Christmas music plays and Saint Nick and I chat and chuckle. Little notes are slipped under the door and treats are left for he and I to share. Then on Christmas Eve he returns to help baby Jesus (Nino Jesus) to place the gifts under the tree as well as the stockings in the bedrooms.

Saint Nickolas is a real Saint and Santa is a fairy tale. I guess maybe if families are really focusing on Baby Jesus as well as Santa it's okay - but when I was ten and learned Santa did not exist - not only did he disappear - but so did Christmas. I really did not care to celebrate it any more as the magic was gone for me. It was years before it meant anything to me again and I was determined not to let that happen for my kids.

I think we have found a good combination of a focus on Christ while also enjoying a little pretending but with a real Saint as the center of the imagining.

In our household, the kids believed in Santa until they were about 8 years old, and then stopped believing in God about a year or so after that.

The kids are in their teens now, but we still give lots of presents, enjoy our time together, and take time to reflect how fortunate we are. :D

We celebrate both Santa and Jesus' birth. My children believed in Santa until they were around ten. We still believe in "santa" just not the big guy in the red suit. We talk about the real meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate it. We talk about the twelve days of Christmas and their real meaning.
My ten year old son understands the real reason for Christmas and has even explained it to his friends.