As Christmas approaches, many parents will use Santa’s naughty list to influence their kiddos’ behavior. However, The View‘s Sunny Hostin is not one of them. Cohost Sara Haines, on the other hand, has used Santa’s naughty list this year, as her sons Alec and Caleb have not been behaving. Sara even made a video in attempt to motivate her two sons to change their behavior.
Sara showed viewers the video on the Tuesday, December 17, 2024, episode of The View. In the video, Santa speaks directly to Sara’s children. He warns Sara’s sons that he’s “watching” and that they have been a bit too “rambunctious” lately. Meanwhile, he praised Sara’s daughter Sandra, telling her that her name “is way up on the nice list.”
The conversation about using Santa’s naughty list as a threat started when cohost Whoopi Goldberg said, “a childhood behavioral expert is advising parents against making presents from Santa conditional on how they behave.” Admittedly, this advice confused Whoopi, as she “thought that was the whole point.”
To Sara, Santa’s naughty list seemed like a good way to reign her children in. However, she confessed that people have told her that she’s “shaming [her] kids through Santa.”
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“I’m like, ‘Well, Santa is always watching and they are not behaving,'” Sara explained. “They’re not just age-appropriate not behaving, they’re manipulating things and I’m kind of finding that balance between modern-day parenting and understanding them and regulating their feelings, and the ’80s and ’90s parents that are like, ‘I said so, so you’re gonna do that.’”
But this revelation seemed to make Sunny sad. “They can’t be on the naughty list,” Sunny insisted.
Sara justified her strategy, explaining that “they’re a little naughty and I don’t believe that Santa should be bringing a lot of things.” At the same time, she doesn’t see Santa resorting to coal.
Describing their bad behavior, Sara said that her sons have been “beating the crap out of each other nonstop” and “antagonizing each other,” seemingly just for fun.
Still, Sunny didn’t think that their bad behavior should stop them from receiving the Christmas gifts they want. “Adults don’t have to account for their poor behavior on a minute-by-minute basis,” Sunny argued. “They still get gifts.”
“Because they have money to go buy them!” Whoopi retorted. “This is apples and oranges, baby!”
Whoopi added that all parents have warned their kids that Santa is watching at some point. “When little kids are little, you say, ‘Listen, you are not getting everything you think you want because I’m calling him because you don’t understand. You’ve been really great and now, suddenly, you’re just out of control,'” Whoopi explained.
However, Sunny insisted that she has never used this tactic because her kids “are little precious cherub angels.” But Sara’s kids “are not,” she said. “I told them, ‘I’m not lying to Santa when he asks,’” she added.
In the end, Sunny insisted that “Santa forgives!” However, Sara disagreed with this assertion. “No, Jesus forgives. Santa holds a grudge,” she said.
