What to do about my 6 y/o switching her “Santa” present late in the season?

I should mention, first, that we don’t really subscribe to the whole “shop for Christmas immediately after Thanksgiving” thing. I buy presents for people throughout the year if it suits them well, and save them for the next holiday. I’ve had most of my kids’ presents purchased well before Christmas and stowed in the attic. We usually start talking about Santa presents right before Thanksgiving, and I buy them without worrying about sales because I worked retail for ages and you couldn’t pay me enough to shop around the holidays.Before Thanksgiving, my 6 y/o told us she was going to ask for a PowerWheels from Santa for Christmas. It’s way too expensive for a Santa present, but she really refused to ask for something less expensive and, after talking it over with my husband, we decided we could make the PowerWheels a “joint” gift with her and our son, so we got it. Rookie mistake: she had not asked Santa for this gift either by lap or by mail.When we finally got in front of Santa a couple weeks ago, she tells him she wants this $170 LEGO Train set some kid brought to school for show and tell. I tried to talk her out of it, but each reasoning I come up with has been deftly parried. When I told her that Santa doesn’t bring gifts that expensive to children, she told me it’s not expensive because the elves make the toys. When I told her that she’d already wanted a PowerWheels, and Santa is a busy guys, she said she’s certain Santa will be able to get her what she now wants. When I told her she didn’t specify which train, she said it’s okay, Santa can look into the hearts of children and know what they want. She is 100% positive that under the tree this year will be a $200 toy and I can’t figure a way out of this that doesn’t -at least implicitly- “ruin Santa” for her. She’s even started using the A Christmas Story excuse, that since I don’t think she’s going to get it, she’ll get it, just like Ralphie got his BB gun.We have never bought an expensive Santa present for her. Last year was a $20 robot dog, the year before that was a $15 My Little Pony action figures, and the year before that was a $10 Snow White doll. The years before that we didn’t even bother to do a Santa gift because she had no concept of Santa, really. We just did stockings.In a way, it’s probably a good thing she switched. My husband and I decided that the expensive PowerWheels is going to be a gift from the two of us, and we’re going to stand firm to our values and not get her a Santa gift of more than $25.But how to do it? My husband thinks Santa should give her a $25 gift card to WalMart and let her use that and her Christmas money (she gets a big cash gift from one of her aunts every year that we usually put in her savings account) to buy a LEGO set she can afford. I really don’t want 667 tiny pieces of LEGO strewn around the house for me to step on and her younger brother to choke on, especially since she’s not good about cleaning up after herself. And, I’m really torn into two directions. Part of me wants her to have the magic that Santa means and not ruin it, but another part of me is feeling suuuuper sour about the whole thing, and yet another part of me is just dreading the disappointment on Christmas when she doesn’t get the stupid LEGO train.So, what would you guys do? Is there any solution I’m missing? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2EJ2jT3