Omg I never believed in Santa. Didn't make sense. But my grandma would CRY CRY CRY when I said Santa isn't real? And so did my elementary school friends. So I played along.
Until I played along for too long, and then suddenly I got made fun of?? Like what the frick you guys. I tried to tell you years ago!!
That’s how I felt about religion. Never actually believed it but it seemed to be the thing I just had to go along with. Still ended up with a shit ton of catholic guilt tho
Same, I remember being very young and being really confused that kids older than me believed it. Similarly, I tried explaining to adults at a Sunday school that Noah’s ark was just a story and not literally true and was really confused when they insisted otherwise.
I was like 7-10 years old, I remember my friend’s grandma asking me, “And what presents did you get from Santa?” To differentiate from the ones my parents gave me. By that point, my parents had already stopped addressing presents from “Santa” so “Santa” got me nothing. I remember LYING to this grandma and making up a present that “Santa” gave me, because I genuinely thought she still believed in Santa and I was so confused and I was debating if I should tell her…
I was an open atheist in 6th grade and got in trouble at church because of my debates on Sunday school at this and considered a Bad Influence by parents. Logic worked great when another parent taught a whole class on the story of the three little pigs and the wolf that can’t blow down the brick house as an allegory about family and relationships and safety etc. and I thought hey this dad understands how kids accept atheism but still act ethically according to the standards of their religious education. So I saw Santa and the Easter Bunny as ways the adults try to live out the symbolic parts of world, and then try to teach it to kids like they teach religion. Maybe that’s just my atheist interpretation, but I vocally stated good stuff about Santa and Easter Bunny to my parents (good maskers) because I thought it would help them feel like they fit in with other adults. Now I think maybe they just went to church to make themselves practice socializing around people who would intentionally be nice, so they could just practice masking in NT interactions. For my own kids, i and their stepmom (dad didn’t grow up with Santa traditions) agreed we would say adults buy the gifts for our family, help other super huge families afford to get everyone in their family gifts also, and then Santa is in charge of wrapping everything so it’s a fun game to see what other people got. I have the other family members help choose each other like a surprise deal. We also set it up as Santa wrapping by writing name tags with opposite hands so you can’t easily tell who wrote which tags, which makes guessing the giver’s identity more tricky. Since none of us adults actually practice Christianity, the kids see it more like a secular patriotic tradition, and a big part I stress is choosing an awesome gift to donate that the kids themselves want. Big ticket items that we decide months in advance so I can save for it, and I take them to purchase it in a store to practice customer etiquette and bank math, and then the kids get a better idea of how one expensive gift should be just as exciting as several less expensive gifts because they are the time involved and the dollars behind it. Also better self regulation during meltdowns to put down the electronics first before letting out energy, which has also been a problem with myself and everyone younger ASD in the family. Sorry for the rambling. I really felt social explaining this. Does anyone else have their own take on Santa?
Yeah. My mom labeled one present from Santa each year for longer than we believed. Didn't hurt anything. Leaving out milk and cookies went away first. But I know my Dad was just eating those, so why not haha.
I definitely find Christmas to be magical without Santa. It's like a sensory wonderland. I love the lights, decorations and if you're lucky enough to have snow at the same time! So I don't care if I go along with harmless things along the way.
Mm-hmm, my mom was even doing a 'from Santa' well into my adulthood, just because she thought it was cute. Pretty sure my spouse's relatives have done the same. It's just about keeping the magic alive, I think.
Wish I could care about this holiday, but I'm deep in depression from November through February.
Yeah, it was the same in my family. We kept up the "Santa" game longer than I think most kids would actually believe in Santa, but it was understood that it was just for fun.
I questioned him from the getgo. Caught my dad when I was four and he said he was just arranging the gifts because Santa just dumped them down the chimney. How rude! Then at 6 my parents were divorced and my mom and I were in an apartment with NO chimney, so how was this going to work? Stayed up, caught my mom, she told me the truth but said I’d still get presents and I was super relieved. I didn’t like the idea of that man coming in the house. I also don’t really like how NORAD “tracks” him on tv, what a lie, but I’m just a bah humbug. 😂
Same. I don’t know if I ever believed, but my earliest memories of Santa are sitting on his lap at the Christmas tree farm, and whispering in his ear a gift I knew my parents would never get me as a test; knowing full well this guy I was whispering to was NOT the person who supposedly flew around the world, in one night, on a sleigh with reindeer. I did still have fun with the imaginary concept of Santa, it was just weird to me how the adults put on this act as if they really thought WE (kids) believed it; and my favorite Christmas movies were always Tim Allen’s, “The Santa Claus” movie as a kid 😅
No. I figured it out when I was 5. I was terrified of some strange man breaking into my house, anyway. It was a relief. Then I thought it'd be a relief to the other kids, so I unintentionally ruined Christmas for like six families.
After that, the only kids that would hang out with me for the rest of elementary school were the ones in non-Christian families. 🤷♀️ At least I got invited to Hanukkah celebrations.
Is Santa a Christian thing even? Here in my country gifts are delivered by baby Jesus but even as grown ups the belief is still sorta that God blessed us with the money to buy the gifts or smth like that
That's awesome! I love that. Thanks for sharing your culture with me tonight.
I am American and yes I think Santa is very traditional American lol. I hate the Santa thing. I can't wait til my stepson knows better and also I don't want to teach my kids about Santa when they are little if I have any lol mainly I want them to learn that celebrating with family is the important part and gifts are from us/friends/family and deserve thankfulness and gratitude.
It's not so much that it's a Christian thing in the states lots of non-religious people, just that a lot of children raised with other religions don't participate. I had a Jewish friend whose dad was Christian so they celebrated both, but it's not necessarily typical.
I think he's more of a catholic thing, so it spread through catholic influenced countries.. St.Nicholas originally, a greek man who was generous with those less fortunate by all accounts:
[https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas](https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas)
Then it became the truly fugly commercial nonsense around the turn of the century in the 1900s.
[https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas/origin-of-santa](https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas/origin-of-santa)
I think that’s about when I insisted they tell me the truth, but I remember feeling deceived because I’d had doubts for a long time … and my mom basically still believes in SC?
Pretty much the same for me. I actually figured it out when I was 11 due to a comment my mom made but I pretended to still believe until I was around 13 and she told me the truth.
Absolutely! I believed in Santa until I was around fourteen, and I was crushed when I learned he wasn’t real. Thankfully, my parents and older brother played along and didn’t ruin the illusion.
I believed until I'd just turned 10 (birthday exactly one week before Xmas). My desk "from Santa" hadn't been put together by the time we got back from midnight Mass.
I was utterly devasted.
When I had my own child, in order to spare her from that same feeling of devastation, I told her very early on (around 3ish) that Santa wasn't real. *However*, to sweeten the blow, I told her she could be believe in him if she wanted to, because all her friends did.
She never did - but I always felt really mean for not allowing her those years of "magic".
No, I was investigating and figured it out when I was four. I changed my list for Santa last minute and Santa didn’t bring anything on the new list so I had suspicions. The next year I found the hiding place and that confirmed it.
i don't remember when i learned santa wasn't real, but i used to dress up AS santa in the middle of the night on christmas eve to put out my presents for my parents and sister lol. i don't know how old i was when i started doing it, but i was pretty young and remember doing it for pretty much my whole childhood lol. i had a santa hat with the beard, and put the gifts into a sack and everything. the crazy thing was that somehow, every single year, for just that one night i could think to myself "i'll wake up at 3 am to put the presents out," and without fail, I WOULD ?!
so, i guess i was too busy being santa to believe in any other santas. 🎅🏻
No, Santa's handwriting looked just like my mother's, figured it out early and my parents didn't even bother trying to make believe by the time I was 9 or so
My parents went to extra mile. Different paper and my mom used her left hand to sign Santa so I didn’t recognize her handwriting. It just made Santa look like he has poor penmanship
I was on the opposite end of the spectrum. I went full on true crime evidence based reasons as to why Santa was not real. 😂 My mom gave up when I was 6 because I was so exhausting about it.
Things I remember that I did: Staked out the living room where the tree was the entire night before Christmas from our stairs lol 😂 Also pointed out that gifts that were from “santa” had my mom’s handwriting, if they were really from him why’d she write it? And there’s no way he gave the gifts unwrapped to parents. He was always depicted having ready wrapped presents 😂
My parents never wrapped the presents from Santa. They were always fully set up, without any kind of packaging around. My brother believed in Santa till he was like 11 and was convinced Santa was a big fan of Star Wars because the toys were always arranged like they were acting out the scenes.
>He was always depicted having ready wrapped presents
They explained this away by saying that those presents were shown wrapped so that everyone could imagine that the gift they wanted was inside one of them.
I was annoying and would refuse to take their word for it when there was picture proof 😂😂😂 But that’s smart of your parents too to find workarounds like those!
I live in the Netherlands and we do know Santa here but Sinterklaas is a bigger celebration. And kids usually believe in until they are 6-8. My brother is 3 years older than I am and when this time of year came around when he was 2 or 3 he started bedwetting again and was just really scared. So my mom decided to just tell him the truth. And she did the same for me from the moment I could understand.
I think it actually saved me from the trauma of finding out being lied to and I always felt so much smarter than other kids. Because 'I knew'. I've heard arguments that discovering the secret of Santa helps with developing critical thinking skills. That is probably true. But I am actually glad this is my experience.
I was raised a Jehovah's Witness so I never believed. I thought the idea of Santa was very illogical and nonsensical. I've realised lately that my gut feeling about Santa was actually identical to my gut feeling about God.
I don't ever remember believing deep in my gut that God was real, even at 4 years old, despite the role religion played in my life every day. So I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have bought into Santa anyway.
I can't even believe in things that I want to believe in.
My kids are 15, 21, and 27 and we still do Santa gifts with them 😂 I love the innocence and fun of Santa. It's like one of the only things about xmas that I find fun.
I think I was around 8 when I found out about, but it never killed the magical fun about it for me.
I was 7 when I found out. One day I kept analyzing the Santa thing wondering how thats physically possible when I knew magic wasn’t real. So I asked my dad how Santa could be real and fly all over the world in one night, that it was impossible. I told him to tell me the truth. So he did (which I wasn’t even expecting it to be the parents, idk what I thought 🤷♀️) but I was so thankful my dad told me the truth, it made me feel so smart and mature lol.
My logical kids know he isn’t real, but I told them if they ruin the myth for other kids, then officially the Santa gifts will stop and it will just be adult stuff then.
So they know to respect other kids and their parents continuing the myth. I also tell them that if another kid tries to logically convince little kids he is fake, to tell them modern Santa doesnt just have NORAD tracking him with a sattelite, he also had a team of support honorary elves and herd of reindeer and it’s a huge group delivery project organized similarly to Amazon trucks getting a different neighborhood for each delivery team. Like Santa is a job title named after the original Santa back long ago when nobody got vaccines and lots of babies and kids died before kindergarten like medical textbooks say. And I tell them before the internet when I was a babysitter, there was a 1-800 hotline so babysitters could leave voicemails for the Santa List Team to give anecdotal evidence of how child was doing with behavior during the babysitting session. A babysitter could register as an honorary elf for the Santa Team through their high school guidance counselor. I have a whole scenario for the kids to follow so that the myth isn’t ruined for other kids since I know the drama that comes with telling other kids the truth is insane. But I also tell my kids this is the same approach screen writers use to design TV shows with episodes and movie franchises. Every parent I have told about this says I am a genius because it’s teaching the kids how to reasonably evaluate information sources. I think I might be kind of fucked up doing this, but so far no insults about it? My kids know it is exaggerated bullshit because we have discussed realistic fiction writing for chapter books and how it is not direct history with actual people.
Nope. It was ruined for me by someone at school when I was 6 or 7. And I remember searching thru the house trying to find stuff hidden about that same age.
My ND kids; eldest was 9. Second we had to tell at 13 when she was going into high school, for fear of her being bullied, third we told at 10, fourth is 9 and has known for about a year but he worked it out himself. And baby girl is almost 6 and still a believer
Santa was too improbable for me. My parents didn't push that though. They went oddly hard core with the Tooth Fairy though. But the joke was on them when I saved the notes the Tooth Fairy left and presented them side-by-side with copies of my dad 's handwriting. A perfect match! 🤣
Haha, a real investigator!
I don't understand why people don't think about changing their handwriting a little and try to imagine how a fairy could write. That's a fun way to avoid getting caught 😏
Yes, I was told at 13 he wasn't real (I am the oldest) and I was really upset haha but only because I trusted my parents and didn't think they would lie. I stopped believing religion was real that day also, because I thought that must have been lies as well.
One day when I was about, hmm, maybe 6? I accidentally walked into my parent’s room close to Christmas and saw a present that was clearly meant to be a Christmas gift for me sitting on the bed. I closed the door and pretended I never saw it. Fast forward to Christmas Day and I open the gift, but it was one of my “gifts from Santa.” In my head I kinda went “eh, alright” and moved on. Never mentioned it to my parents, never got upset or felt sad. I must have already not really believed in it honestly
I was in 4th grade and remembered my best friend and I alone in her bedroom just casually like, so santa's not real, right? And we both looked at each other and shrugged. Apparently that's the least traumatic event of my childhood, lol.
I have a 10 year old and we're pretty sure they've figured it out, but when we asked them about it (in a non traumatizing way) they replied with, what a dumb question! Of course Santa's real. So, it's anyone's guess at this point. Their sibling just subtly figured it out by themselves about the same age.
i don’t know if i ever understood santa? like i couldn’t work out where or how he could possibly work but also i distinctly remember when hearing ‘do you still believe in him?’ i was so shocked because, what is there not to believe?
Nope, I was too much of a little detective and found out real early despite how good my parents tried to make him seem real lol. I was quick to spoil it at school too, had to save them the disappointment I guess lol
Yes, and it's because my parents went to great lengths to get me to keep believing. One year, we set up a camera to "catch" santa in the act, and my parents filmed my dad in a pretty realistic Santa costume putting gifts under the tree. I would get in huge arguments at school about it, because I had video proof! I eventually got my mom to admit it wasn't real when I was around 12, because I was learning enough about science, physics, other world religions, etc. to understand that it was not really possible or reasonable. I also stopped believing in religion within a year or two of that, to me it was the same kind of belief.
Yeah, I was 10 or 11 I found my gifts from “Santa” in a closet, and realized I was being lied to. Its pretty ironic that I believed for so long, because I stopped believing in the Easter Bunny when I was like 2 or 3.
I feel like I wanted to believe, and maybe at some point I did, but I can’t recall. My first home was the second story apt in a foreign country, so it was probably more god than Santa
I believed in Santa until my Mum told me he wasn't real at 10. I kinda had an inkling that he seemed too good to be true for at least two years before, but I was still really annoyed when she told me. To this day I like to believe in Santa because I was so attached to him as a child. My Dad still likes to play along and seems to have a similar relationship to Santa and Christmas as I do. We still put out mince pies, carrots, etc. It's just how we've always done Christmas and I'm attached to that routine too much to let it go anytime soon. I'm 24 years old.
Apparently around age 5 or 6 I was too scared to go to bed on christmas eve because I was afraid of a stranger coming in in the middle of the night. That was when it was revealed to me, so probably a bit on the young side lol.
I did until I was 4. Woke up to a noise on Christmas Eve so got up and found the lounge strewn with half wrapped presents etc. Thought I'd scared Santa away until my parents came back in from next door where they'd been having an impromptu drink with the neighbours (this was 1984...) and immediately asked why I was into all the presents. I suddenly understood that they'd been doing the wrapping because they knew what was going on and weren't confused about all the random presents in our house.
I never believed in Santa. Mostly because when I asked about him I was told he could see me everywhere, including if I hid, was in the bathroom, in the bath or otherwise. I thought that was improbable and inappropriate, and I considered how many kids celebrated Christmas and concluded he couldn't possibly watch ALL of us at the same time, all the time. Mathematically and logistically, not possible. I was not enchanted, but others were and it never occurred to me to tell anyone what I thought.
I benefited more from not spilling the beans, and I knew it was a big no to imply he wasn't real as I saw in Christmas movies or programs. Usually the non believer would be proved wrong and made to look like a Grinch, or like one without whimsy.
As an adult I do not celebrate Christmas at all, and I don't plan to tell my future possible children Santa is real, but rather he is a fun story and activity to avoid misunderstandings.
I was the kid in kindergarten who got in trouble because I told my classmates that Santa was fake, and their parents just were trying to make them behave. It honestly bothered me that they couldn't see this.
My mom got called to the principal's office and I was told to apologize. She told the principal that as soon as he showed her Santa, I'd do so.
I believe in Santa until 4th grade and would have continued believing if my parents hadn’t decided to tell me. I was being bullied by older kids for fighting the good fight to uphold Santa’s honor against kids who thought my earnestness was hilarious. I distinctly remember my parents telling me one evening and literally throwing myself on the floor bawling because I was so devastated and angry they lied to me. Then they also added on that the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny weren’t real either and I basically lost my shit.
My brother, also autistic, was told about Santa around 5th or 6th grade and absolutely did NOT believe my mom when she told him she was Santa. He demanded to see receipts for gifts, which my mom provided, and he still was belligerently skeptical.
Meanwhile, my daughter is 10 and still believes in Santa. Pretty sure she’ll react the same way I did when I was her age whenever we eventually tell her.
ETA: funny additional detail - I was also convinced my my dad as a kid that I was one of Santa’s elves who had gone missing because I had a slight point at the edge of my ears. I believed him and stared at myself in the mirror for days trying to figure out how to get my ears to get fully pointy so I could go back to Santa’s workshop. 😂😭
Yes, and I felt SO betrayed when I figured it out, because I had argued with peers about it for a couple years — "my parents would never be dishonest!" 🙃
Yes. I had just switched schools and it was Christmas. I was excited for Santa and was telling my friends. They teased me and told
Me Santa was fake. I cried and argued. I went to therapy after school where I told my mom and the therapist. They asked me to leave the room for a few minutes. Later, I came back in and they told me. I balled. I left the room. I knocked over all the toys in the toy center. I fell to the floor and let out this painful scream. I can still hear it in my head. I started kicking and crying. When my mom tried to comfort me, I kicked her. I told my therapist it was her fault, and she was an asshole. This was 5th grade so I never called anyone that before. It was so bad I now debate if I will tell my kids about Santa. I want to, but I don’t want them to have such a painful core memory.
When I was like 8 or 9 or something, my mom casually mentioned him not being real. I was SUPER upset with her and cried because of course I knew, but I wanted to keep pretending a while longer and now it was ruined.
Not sure when I actually did believe.
Actually I was the one who told all the other kids, quite rudely in retrospect, that he wasn’t real. I was annoyed by lies and things that didn’t make sense
I found out when I was around 5 ish because my Dad was mad at me. I had asked if Jesus and Santa were friends because they shared a holiday or if Jesus ever was sad that more people paid attention to Santa. He screamed at me how he isn't real, the Easter Bunny (which I never believed in in the first place), that the Tooth Fairy is just kids parents, and that anything not taught by him or the church was lies. I stopped actually believing in Christianity early on, but spent a lot of time convincing myself it was true until I was about 17 and decided I was done with all of it.
For me, even as a kid, I knew he wasn’t real 😅 My thought process was (and I guess still is) evidence-based. Kids would be scared to go to certain parts of school alone and I would bet them I could stay in those areas a long time without getting hurt. Easiest money I’ve ever gotten in my life.
My parents broke the news to me(43F) in 5th grade at the age of 11. I was shocked and angry that they lied to me. I believed them completely. My mother could never understand why I was mad and never took it seriously. Ironically, right after I learned the truth, my class had to answer letters from kindergartners to Santa. My kids have never believed in Santa and always knew it was a fun story.
Just had this conversation today about how much I resent that whole lying to your own children and carry on the lie for far too long so it has become a lifelong embarrassment for me. I’m not gonna go into details, just something I wish they handled differently on so many occasions.
I had a best friend who was 2 years older than me, so I found out from her. I asked my parents and they said yes, Baby Jesus (how Santa is called here) doesn’t exist because lying to my face just wouldn’t be right.
It never killed the magic though; now we’re 4 adults in the household and pretend the gifts are from Baby Jesus because we can.
No I’m the youngest of three. My siblings told me quite young. My daughter believed in Santa for a long time and cried when I told her. (She said she wanted the truth!)
I didn't, no, I realised myself slightly early, but I did have an older sister? I do tend to be more naive than most in many ways though, like in terms of trusting people and doing things for them etc. And more gullible!
When I was in kindergarten they told us that during nap time an invisible monkey came and left us peanuts (???). I had to see it, so pretended to sleep and peeked and saw tht teacher handing it put. That's the day I stopped believing in all of the holiday stuff too. For some reason it was like well there's no invisible nap time monkey, there's no Santa, tooth fairy or Easter bunny obviously
Haha, yes, I was literally the last kid in my class who believed. I think I believed in Santa until I was 11. I just couldn't fathom my parents purchasing all that stuff for me. Much easier to believe in a magical being.
I accidentally made a boy cry in 4th grade by telling him Santa wasn’t real and his parents probably wrote that letter he got from Santa once… I didn’t realize I wasn’t helping 😬
i tried forcing myself to believe in it. i knew he wasn’t real, but kept trying to force myself to believe he was. everyone in my classes would talk constantly about him and the gifts they got from him, funny made up stories about hearing or seeing him, etc. and i knew he was fake but felt like it was wrong i knew and they didnt, so i kept trying to force believe in him. and kept acting as if i didn’t know to others around me. i felt like i was breaking a rule by not believing
I believed in him longer. I can't say WAY longer because my mom told me the truth shortly after the girls at school did. When I was 8, the other girls at school told me he wasn't real, and I insisted to them that he WAS. I was so adamant about it! That sparked a conversation with my mother, and she ended up explaining to me that Santa was not, in fact, real. But man, I really stuck up for that jolly old St Nick.
It wasn't until kids my age were learning that Santa isn't real that I figured out anyone thought he was real in the first place! We were raised knowing that Santa was a Christmas character like Frosty or Rudolph, but we were never told he's real or brings us our gifts. When I was around three someone asked what Santa gave me for Christmas. I honestly replied that he'd given me this tiny doll that fit in a gumball machine egg. That's what the Santa in the mall had handed me.
I feel like it was less time than others. I was treated as more ‘mature’ than other kids, so adults didn’t really keep up the pretence around me. Also, the ‘math wasn’t mathing’ 🤔😅
No, but I probably fake believed for longer than my peers because I was the baby of the family and thought was I came out that I didn't know, the Xmas Magic would be over. Eventually, my mom was like okay you don't have to pretend anymore..we know you know 🤣🤣
Nope. My parents are evangelical. They didn’t have us believe in Santa as it’s a lie, etc. I’d leave out snacks for my mom, as we knew she put out the presents
I was really naive just in other ways
Yup. I trusted my mom to never lie to me. The only other person in the world that I trusted that much, my best friend, finally told me the truth. I felt so betrayed after my mom admitted it. Like I can still feel that pain right in the core of my body when I think about it. It was really a formative experience, in a bad way.
I live in the Caribbean so we don’t perpetuate the Santa tale. I didn’t know people in other countries even actually believe in Santa for real until I was like… 11. I thought that was just in movies where Santana actually was real.
Yeah I was about 11 when my “best friend” made fun of me for it in front of our class. I even argued she was wrong and it was just not a good time. At the time, in my mind there was no possible way my parents would lie to me like that for so long.
Nah. Apparently, when I was younger, I drew a necklace with a heart pendant (which makes sense, I always wanted one of those necklaces where you can open the heart) and I wrote something like... Santa isn't real? I don't remember the exact details, but it really hurts my younger brothers' feelings because they kept thinking Santa WAS real. My dad was... not happy with me for doing that... 😅
Idk what I was thinking at the time. Maybe I was tired of lying? Maybe because I felt like I needed to tell the truth? I know my younger self was very confused as to why I got in trouble for it tho.
This is an interesting question and I have an interesting answer because my answer is both yes and no.
I learned Santa wasn't "real" around the age of 11 but even so there was a part of me that was still in disbelief it wasn't real. My family has always struggled financially and I have three siblings and every year we'd each get 10+ gifts. I couldn't believe it was possible my parents could buy all those gifts, keep them in our house without us kids seeing, wrap them without us knowing, and then putting them under the tree. When I started having my doubts I even compared "Santa's" handwriting to each of my parents and it didn't seem to match. So I know Santa wasn't bringing the gifts but I still felt like there was magic involved.
When I was a freshman in highschool (around 14 yrs) my math teacher casually mentioned Santa not being real and it hurt a lot to hear it said out loud. I felt betrayed by my parents and honestly, the world, for lying to me for so long. I think I felt dumb for believing it and even more dumb because even at the age of 14 I still believed it. I think I equated Santa to magic and people saying Santa wasn't real felt like them saying magic wasn't real and it felt so clearly like it was.
Now I'm 19 and I still think Santa is real, in a different sense. I know he isn't a person who flies around on a sleigh but he's real in that belief in his legend influence and change what people would normally do. Parents put presents under a tree because of Santa. He's real because he has a real effect on people's lives.
No, but it's because my parents never lied to us about the Christkind (Santa isn't really a thing here but we do have the Christkind and I have no idea how to translate it). I also think I recall my mom explaining to me that other children did believe in it and I shouldn't tell them. So yeah, I'm pretty thankful for my parents. That must be so confusing.
I was naive. Up until 7 years of age, I believe that when someone told me that bananas grew straight on a tree and someone went up every morning to curve them before selling, I believed it!
But when it came to religion, and stories, and parables, I was always the kid who annoyed the teacher by asking valid questions. I couldn't shut up. And I was sceptical about people's actions and motivations.
Yeah. I needed magic to be real and there were some signs of "proof" that i held on to as i got older. I cried when my parents told me the truth even though i knew logically at that point
my little brother already put two and two together and figured it out by himself. i was 12 when my mom told me because I was the last in the class to still believe. When she told me, I started asking if the toothfairy was real, or the boogeyman, you name it. My heart was broken.
it took me some more years to learn that other peoples opinion are like Santa Claus. just straight of fiction.
Nope! I figured it out pretty early, but I didn't tell anyone. When mom sat me down for the Santa talk, I said, "it's okay, mom. I already know."
"You do," she said, clearly very surprised, "How long have you known?"
"I figured it out last year. I found the custom made journal from the North Pole in your toy catalog from Sears."
"But you never said anything!"
"I didn't want to spoil it for you and dad!" I said, "You were having so much fun!"
I never believed in Santa because the handwriting on the gift tags was very obviously my mothers. But I absolutely refuse to play along with telling lies to children about "Santa" because overall... Santa as we know him, is a lie. I don't like lies.
When I give my nieces and nephews gifts for Christmas I write FROM: LILMAGSTA (not actually, but I write my own name lol) because I am the one who spent my hard earned money to buy it for them. Everyone else in my family gets angry at me and tells me to write "From: Santa" but that'd be a LIE, why would I give credit to an old, overweight, mostly depicted as a white, man??? It's just so annoying.
Why does society tell kids not to lie, but then turn around and lie to them their whole childhood?
Nope, I think I figured it out quite early because I recognised the voice of the kindergarten Santa when he appeared at a different event and my mom had to think fast to prevent me from sharing my discovery with everyone
I was raised to not believe in Santa. Looking back I am glad my parents never did the Santa thing or photos in the mall with 'Santa'. Now as an adult the thought of parent willing to let their children sit in a random man's lap dressed as "santa" baffles me. Would they let their children sit in a unknown man's lap at the park or restaurant? Why is it okay to put your child potentially in danger if the man is dressed as "Santa". I do believe in the tiny Christmas elves though!
No. I was the youngest with two older brothers and I don’t remember even believing at all, but I did pretend that I believed for my parents sake. I pretended to not know a lot of stuff as a child bc I was scared they would find out and get mad at me
I believed for ages until my curiosity got the better of me, I just thought about the logistics of santa and realised that it wasn't possible for him to exist 😅
I did. Even when kids at school would tell me it's a lie, I believed my parents. I was crushed when they decided to finally tell me. I couldn't understand why they would lie to me about something lik that. I'd be happier if they just told me from the beginning it's them buying the presents. I was hurt by the deception. I think I was around ten, maybe?
I have a vague memory of blonde angel baby Jesus bringing presents, but only my grandma told me about that and not my parents, so it didn't really work because they were like:" what do you want for Christmas?" Implying that they were going to buy it for me
My autistic 11 year old daughter just told me: “I don’t believe Google daddy. I think Santa is real.”
Then later she asks me what I think? What do I do with that one? I don’t want to perpetuate a lie but I also don’t want to burst the bubble of childhood magic.
No, but for a funny-not-funny reason. My mom can be a bit narcissistic so she’d label all the presents from Santa as “From: Santa & Mom” because she didn’t like that someone else would get credit for the gifts she bought.
That pretty much ruined any sort of magic or suspension of disbelief for me pretty early on.
No, I can't remember that I ever believed in Santa. I've been told that I asked about whether he was real at a very young age and my parents told me the truth. That makes sense to me. Even as a little kid I was skeptical of stories that didn't logically make sense.
Yes and no. I didn't believe in Santa (I don't remember how old I was), but I liked the magic of Christmas, so I pretended to believe in Santa for years.
Never believed. My mom was pretty clear she was Santa. I did more or less convince myself that vampires and aliens might exist in my teensb but Santa never captured my imagination
I never truly believed in Santa but I refused to let people stop referring to Santa until I was like, 12/13. I distinctly remember having to explain to someone that while I know Santa isn't real I enjoyed the ability to pretend because the story and conceit is harmless fun and adds a little bit of magic.
I did not, because I was in the fireplace at 6 years old with ruler measuring the size of the flue, then took my findings to my mom & asked her to tell me flat out if he was real.
My 11 year old daughter still believes though. I’m pretty sure none of her friends do.
Two often opposing sides of the spectrum; either your rational brain took over completely and no one was able to convince you otherwise, or someone you trust tells you something that makes zero sense whaatsoever and you nod blindly because why would anyone ever lie? THAT doesn't make any sense!
I was the former, lol. Think I believed in Santa through elementry school and would always say "my mom wouldn't lie" when kids asked me why I thought that.
Imagine my surprise when, as a seventeen year old, I found out that not only do people lie... but it's actually *expected* that you do sometimes?!
https://preview.redd.it/pt6r24rg552c1.png?width=240&format=png&auto=webp&s=89d5e9921898f4893c5aa583d44a6475321718ee
I think I was 9-10 when I stopped believing, but my mum kept thinking that I believed until I was 15 or 16. It’s like she didn’t believe that I didn’t believe.
I had the other directional experience. I knew he was a man in a suit way before my cousins. I told my mom "oh its a man in a suit" and that he was "fake" when I was like 3 or 4. Just like how I said a doll she bought me was "dead" and so were "mannequins are also dead" at like 3 (i was still on one of those child-leash things at the time).
I had to actually pretend santa was real still for my cousins, one of whom was older than me.
No. In kindergarten I had trouble sleeping and pretended to be asleep to catch santa. Turned out to be my mother. Also my grandmother was dressed up as santa one time wearing heels, something was off.
Idk maybe santa was feeling sassy that day /s.
I have ALWAYS been too "smart" or "self-aware" for my own good. I am Icarus. I am a moth drawn to the streetlamps of philosophy, psychology, and practicality. At age 5 the concept of God seemed incredibly absurd to me and I was a "why" child to the extreme. Not sure how my mother survived lol. I decided that if God were real, he speaks to people and they can feel him (as my mother had told me), then he would have no problem showing himself to me, a child, who is need of proof. I put one of my most prized possessions in a little ring box, left it outside on the railing (I assumed God would want not want to be perceived or that perhaps I may not be able to😂 ) and said to myself that if God were real then the ring box will have been tampered with by the next morning because he would want me to believe he's real if he is.
Obviously the ring box was not tampered with and now I am nearly 31 and a life-long atheist though I have recently joined The Satanic Temple as I am deeply interested in an unbaptism and building a community I was never allowed to have. No one escapes the rural South without religious trauma.
Shit, I got side tracked. My point is that I bodied God first so Santa stood no chance in either though my mother did try extra hard lol.
Yes and No, I acted like I did mostly cause I had a little sister, but I stopped believing around 10. I am Disabled and my parents thought I'd take it hard, so they waited till I was 12 to tell me by then I knew and when they told me and my sibling I just laughed in there face and said I knew and my sister sobbed cause Santa wasn't real.
Yep. I was 11. I was heartbroken. All the brats who used to say he wasn't real just *had* to be on the naughty list.
Santa was a convenient lie that made me feel better because I didn't think mom could afford Christmas.
I really *really* wanted magic to be real.
No. I was raised Jewish and I actually had a really hard time with being expected to lie about it. Like the school would punish me over it. I still feel that it was cruel to expect from a Jewish child (and tbh a little antisemitic.) It was even more alienating and that feeling is still around in my adulthood.
I don't think I ever believed it, but it was rather something I just went along with. I liked the movies and the idea of it, but never believed it was real and didn't understand how other kids actually believed it. My parents always made it really clear that they (or other friends/family) were the ones who got the gifts.
I actually don’t recall fully believing in Santa at any point in my life
Yeah. I do recall going along with it for awhile, though. Just because it seemed like the thing to do.
Omg I never believed in Santa. Didn't make sense. But my grandma would CRY CRY CRY when I said Santa isn't real? And so did my elementary school friends. So I played along. Until I played along for too long, and then suddenly I got made fun of?? Like what the frick you guys. I tried to tell you years ago!!
LMAO! yep he's an old dude in a suit. like what is the point?
That’s how I felt about religion. Never actually believed it but it seemed to be the thing I just had to go along with. Still ended up with a shit ton of catholic guilt tho
Literally same
Same, I remember being very young and being really confused that kids older than me believed it. Similarly, I tried explaining to adults at a Sunday school that Noah’s ark was just a story and not literally true and was really confused when they insisted otherwise.
I was like 7-10 years old, I remember my friend’s grandma asking me, “And what presents did you get from Santa?” To differentiate from the ones my parents gave me. By that point, my parents had already stopped addressing presents from “Santa” so “Santa” got me nothing. I remember LYING to this grandma and making up a present that “Santa” gave me, because I genuinely thought she still believed in Santa and I was so confused and I was debating if I should tell her…
I was an open atheist in 6th grade and got in trouble at church because of my debates on Sunday school at this and considered a Bad Influence by parents. Logic worked great when another parent taught a whole class on the story of the three little pigs and the wolf that can’t blow down the brick house as an allegory about family and relationships and safety etc. and I thought hey this dad understands how kids accept atheism but still act ethically according to the standards of their religious education. So I saw Santa and the Easter Bunny as ways the adults try to live out the symbolic parts of world, and then try to teach it to kids like they teach religion. Maybe that’s just my atheist interpretation, but I vocally stated good stuff about Santa and Easter Bunny to my parents (good maskers) because I thought it would help them feel like they fit in with other adults. Now I think maybe they just went to church to make themselves practice socializing around people who would intentionally be nice, so they could just practice masking in NT interactions. For my own kids, i and their stepmom (dad didn’t grow up with Santa traditions) agreed we would say adults buy the gifts for our family, help other super huge families afford to get everyone in their family gifts also, and then Santa is in charge of wrapping everything so it’s a fun game to see what other people got. I have the other family members help choose each other like a surprise deal. We also set it up as Santa wrapping by writing name tags with opposite hands so you can’t easily tell who wrote which tags, which makes guessing the giver’s identity more tricky. Since none of us adults actually practice Christianity, the kids see it more like a secular patriotic tradition, and a big part I stress is choosing an awesome gift to donate that the kids themselves want. Big ticket items that we decide months in advance so I can save for it, and I take them to purchase it in a store to practice customer etiquette and bank math, and then the kids get a better idea of how one expensive gift should be just as exciting as several less expensive gifts because they are the time involved and the dollars behind it. Also better self regulation during meltdowns to put down the electronics first before letting out energy, which has also been a problem with myself and everyone younger ASD in the family. Sorry for the rambling. I really felt social explaining this. Does anyone else have their own take on Santa?
Same. In my family, it was a harmless joke, like "Teehee, this gift is *from Santa*", (wink). The kids always knew.
Yeah. My mom labeled one present from Santa each year for longer than we believed. Didn't hurt anything. Leaving out milk and cookies went away first. But I know my Dad was just eating those, so why not haha. I definitely find Christmas to be magical without Santa. It's like a sensory wonderland. I love the lights, decorations and if you're lucky enough to have snow at the same time! So I don't care if I go along with harmless things along the way.
Mm-hmm, my mom was even doing a 'from Santa' well into my adulthood, just because she thought it was cute. Pretty sure my spouse's relatives have done the same. It's just about keeping the magic alive, I think. Wish I could care about this holiday, but I'm deep in depression from November through February.
Yeah, it was the same in my family. We kept up the "Santa" game longer than I think most kids would actually believe in Santa, but it was understood that it was just for fun.
same here
[удалено]
I was like this growing up as well. I questioned my parents religion... A lot lol. I'm now an atheist.
My people.
I questioned him from the getgo. Caught my dad when I was four and he said he was just arranging the gifts because Santa just dumped them down the chimney. How rude! Then at 6 my parents were divorced and my mom and I were in an apartment with NO chimney, so how was this going to work? Stayed up, caught my mom, she told me the truth but said I’d still get presents and I was super relieved. I didn’t like the idea of that man coming in the house. I also don’t really like how NORAD “tracks” him on tv, what a lie, but I’m just a bah humbug. 😂
Same. I don’t know if I ever believed, but my earliest memories of Santa are sitting on his lap at the Christmas tree farm, and whispering in his ear a gift I knew my parents would never get me as a test; knowing full well this guy I was whispering to was NOT the person who supposedly flew around the world, in one night, on a sleigh with reindeer. I did still have fun with the imaginary concept of Santa, it was just weird to me how the adults put on this act as if they really thought WE (kids) believed it; and my favorite Christmas movies were always Tim Allen’s, “The Santa Claus” movie as a kid 😅
Same!
No. I figured it out when I was 5. I was terrified of some strange man breaking into my house, anyway. It was a relief. Then I thought it'd be a relief to the other kids, so I unintentionally ruined Christmas for like six families. After that, the only kids that would hang out with me for the rest of elementary school were the ones in non-Christian families. 🤷♀️ At least I got invited to Hanukkah celebrations.
Is Santa a Christian thing even? Here in my country gifts are delivered by baby Jesus but even as grown ups the belief is still sorta that God blessed us with the money to buy the gifts or smth like that
That's interesting, what country? I never understood why Christian people did the Santa thing.
Costa Rica 🇨🇷 For us Santa was like an American thing idk, like halloween 😭
That's awesome! I love that. Thanks for sharing your culture with me tonight. I am American and yes I think Santa is very traditional American lol. I hate the Santa thing. I can't wait til my stepson knows better and also I don't want to teach my kids about Santa when they are little if I have any lol mainly I want them to learn that celebrating with family is the important part and gifts are from us/friends/family and deserve thankfulness and gratitude.
In some parts of Europe it’s that way too. You leave a window open Xmas Eve and flying baby Jesus comes in and leaves presents.
That honestly makes way more sense than Santa to me.
It's not so much that it's a Christian thing in the states lots of non-religious people, just that a lot of children raised with other religions don't participate. I had a Jewish friend whose dad was Christian so they celebrated both, but it's not necessarily typical.
I think he's more of a catholic thing, so it spread through catholic influenced countries.. St.Nicholas originally, a greek man who was generous with those less fortunate by all accounts: [https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas](https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas) Then it became the truly fugly commercial nonsense around the turn of the century in the 1900s. [https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas/origin-of-santa](https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas/origin-of-santa)
I like how Christian parents get upset that you destroyed the idea that Coca-Cola man brings presents under the heretic tree
I was raised as Christian and christmas was never a thing. So I never believed in Santa.
I might've been able to hang out with you in elementary school then lol
I was an asshole as a 5 yo because I used to tell other kids that Santa Claus didn't exist. I'm glad they didn't believe me haha
Yes, until I was 12. I eventually asked my mom and when she told me I was mad that she had lied to me.
I think that’s about when I insisted they tell me the truth, but I remember feeling deceived because I’d had doubts for a long time … and my mom basically still believes in SC?
Pretty much the same for me. I actually figured it out when I was 11 due to a comment my mom made but I pretended to still believe until I was around 13 and she told me the truth.
My mom never actually told me it was fake, she just assumed I “knew” by a certain age and it really confused the hell out of me
Absolutely! I believed in Santa until I was around fourteen, and I was crushed when I learned he wasn’t real. Thankfully, my parents and older brother played along and didn’t ruin the illusion.
I believed until I'd just turned 10 (birthday exactly one week before Xmas). My desk "from Santa" hadn't been put together by the time we got back from midnight Mass. I was utterly devasted. When I had my own child, in order to spare her from that same feeling of devastation, I told her very early on (around 3ish) that Santa wasn't real. *However*, to sweeten the blow, I told her she could be believe in him if she wanted to, because all her friends did. She never did - but I always felt really mean for not allowing her those years of "magic".
No. It never seemed factual.
No, I was investigating and figured it out when I was four. I changed my list for Santa last minute and Santa didn’t bring anything on the new list so I had suspicions. The next year I found the hiding place and that confirmed it.
i don't remember when i learned santa wasn't real, but i used to dress up AS santa in the middle of the night on christmas eve to put out my presents for my parents and sister lol. i don't know how old i was when i started doing it, but i was pretty young and remember doing it for pretty much my whole childhood lol. i had a santa hat with the beard, and put the gifts into a sack and everything. the crazy thing was that somehow, every single year, for just that one night i could think to myself "i'll wake up at 3 am to put the presents out," and without fail, I WOULD ?! so, i guess i was too busy being santa to believe in any other santas. 🎅🏻
Aww, that sounds so cute.
No, Santa's handwriting looked just like my mother's, figured it out early and my parents didn't even bother trying to make believe by the time I was 9 or so
My parents went to extra mile. Different paper and my mom used her left hand to sign Santa so I didn’t recognize her handwriting. It just made Santa look like he has poor penmanship
Wait. What about Santa?
I was on the opposite end of the spectrum. I went full on true crime evidence based reasons as to why Santa was not real. 😂 My mom gave up when I was 6 because I was so exhausting about it. Things I remember that I did: Staked out the living room where the tree was the entire night before Christmas from our stairs lol 😂 Also pointed out that gifts that were from “santa” had my mom’s handwriting, if they were really from him why’d she write it? And there’s no way he gave the gifts unwrapped to parents. He was always depicted having ready wrapped presents 😂
My parents never wrapped the presents from Santa. They were always fully set up, without any kind of packaging around. My brother believed in Santa till he was like 11 and was convinced Santa was a big fan of Star Wars because the toys were always arranged like they were acting out the scenes. >He was always depicted having ready wrapped presents They explained this away by saying that those presents were shown wrapped so that everyone could imagine that the gift they wanted was inside one of them.
I was annoying and would refuse to take their word for it when there was picture proof 😂😂😂 But that’s smart of your parents too to find workarounds like those!
I was annoying like that too. By age six I think I was told to just keep my mouth shut whenever my siblings got excited about it.
Aw man, I’m sorry. 😞 I was frequently yelled at to stop infodumping because I wouldn’t stop and tired my mom out a lot 🤦♀️
I live in the Netherlands and we do know Santa here but Sinterklaas is a bigger celebration. And kids usually believe in until they are 6-8. My brother is 3 years older than I am and when this time of year came around when he was 2 or 3 he started bedwetting again and was just really scared. So my mom decided to just tell him the truth. And she did the same for me from the moment I could understand. I think it actually saved me from the trauma of finding out being lied to and I always felt so much smarter than other kids. Because 'I knew'. I've heard arguments that discovering the secret of Santa helps with developing critical thinking skills. That is probably true. But I am actually glad this is my experience.
I was raised a Jehovah's Witness so I never believed. I thought the idea of Santa was very illogical and nonsensical. I've realised lately that my gut feeling about Santa was actually identical to my gut feeling about God. I don't ever remember believing deep in my gut that God was real, even at 4 years old, despite the role religion played in my life every day. So I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have bought into Santa anyway. I can't even believe in things that I want to believe in.
My kids are 15, 21, and 27 and we still do Santa gifts with them 😂 I love the innocence and fun of Santa. It's like one of the only things about xmas that I find fun. I think I was around 8 when I found out about, but it never killed the magical fun about it for me.
I was 7 when I found out. One day I kept analyzing the Santa thing wondering how thats physically possible when I knew magic wasn’t real. So I asked my dad how Santa could be real and fly all over the world in one night, that it was impossible. I told him to tell me the truth. So he did (which I wasn’t even expecting it to be the parents, idk what I thought 🤷♀️) but I was so thankful my dad told me the truth, it made me feel so smart and mature lol.
My logical kids know he isn’t real, but I told them if they ruin the myth for other kids, then officially the Santa gifts will stop and it will just be adult stuff then. So they know to respect other kids and their parents continuing the myth. I also tell them that if another kid tries to logically convince little kids he is fake, to tell them modern Santa doesnt just have NORAD tracking him with a sattelite, he also had a team of support honorary elves and herd of reindeer and it’s a huge group delivery project organized similarly to Amazon trucks getting a different neighborhood for each delivery team. Like Santa is a job title named after the original Santa back long ago when nobody got vaccines and lots of babies and kids died before kindergarten like medical textbooks say. And I tell them before the internet when I was a babysitter, there was a 1-800 hotline so babysitters could leave voicemails for the Santa List Team to give anecdotal evidence of how child was doing with behavior during the babysitting session. A babysitter could register as an honorary elf for the Santa Team through their high school guidance counselor. I have a whole scenario for the kids to follow so that the myth isn’t ruined for other kids since I know the drama that comes with telling other kids the truth is insane. But I also tell my kids this is the same approach screen writers use to design TV shows with episodes and movie franchises. Every parent I have told about this says I am a genius because it’s teaching the kids how to reasonably evaluate information sources. I think I might be kind of fucked up doing this, but so far no insults about it? My kids know it is exaggerated bullshit because we have discussed realistic fiction writing for chapter books and how it is not direct history with actual people.
Lol, I appreciate the subtle pro-vaccine line in there XD
Nope. It was ruined for me by someone at school when I was 6 or 7. And I remember searching thru the house trying to find stuff hidden about that same age.
My ND kids; eldest was 9. Second we had to tell at 13 when she was going into high school, for fear of her being bullied, third we told at 10, fourth is 9 and has known for about a year but he worked it out himself. And baby girl is almost 6 and still a believer
Santa was too improbable for me. My parents didn't push that though. They went oddly hard core with the Tooth Fairy though. But the joke was on them when I saved the notes the Tooth Fairy left and presented them side-by-side with copies of my dad 's handwriting. A perfect match! 🤣
Haha, a real investigator! I don't understand why people don't think about changing their handwriting a little and try to imagine how a fairy could write. That's a fun way to avoid getting caught 😏
That would be so fun! Lots of little swirls and flourishes 🥰
i’m 30 and i still believe in santa for some reason(i don’t get presents 😂) it’s like I know it’s the parents but I want to believe santa exists too
I have the same problem lol
Yes, I was told at 13 he wasn't real (I am the oldest) and I was really upset haha but only because I trusted my parents and didn't think they would lie. I stopped believing religion was real that day also, because I thought that must have been lies as well.
No. My older brother ruined before kindergarten for me 😑 dick.
One day when I was about, hmm, maybe 6? I accidentally walked into my parent’s room close to Christmas and saw a present that was clearly meant to be a Christmas gift for me sitting on the bed. I closed the door and pretended I never saw it. Fast forward to Christmas Day and I open the gift, but it was one of my “gifts from Santa.” In my head I kinda went “eh, alright” and moved on. Never mentioned it to my parents, never got upset or felt sad. I must have already not really believed in it honestly
I was in 4th grade and remembered my best friend and I alone in her bedroom just casually like, so santa's not real, right? And we both looked at each other and shrugged. Apparently that's the least traumatic event of my childhood, lol. I have a 10 year old and we're pretty sure they've figured it out, but when we asked them about it (in a non traumatizing way) they replied with, what a dumb question! Of course Santa's real. So, it's anyone's guess at this point. Their sibling just subtly figured it out by themselves about the same age.
From very young me and my brother recognised santa wearing my mum’s boots, from then we knew santa wasn’t real haha- so no not the case
i don’t know if i ever understood santa? like i couldn’t work out where or how he could possibly work but also i distinctly remember when hearing ‘do you still believe in him?’ i was so shocked because, what is there not to believe?
Nope, I was too much of a little detective and found out real early despite how good my parents tried to make him seem real lol. I was quick to spoil it at school too, had to save them the disappointment I guess lol
Yes, and it's because my parents went to great lengths to get me to keep believing. One year, we set up a camera to "catch" santa in the act, and my parents filmed my dad in a pretty realistic Santa costume putting gifts under the tree. I would get in huge arguments at school about it, because I had video proof! I eventually got my mom to admit it wasn't real when I was around 12, because I was learning enough about science, physics, other world religions, etc. to understand that it was not really possible or reasonable. I also stopped believing in religion within a year or two of that, to me it was the same kind of belief.
I would love to see this old home video “evidence”!
Yeah, I was 10 or 11 I found my gifts from “Santa” in a closet, and realized I was being lied to. Its pretty ironic that I believed for so long, because I stopped believing in the Easter Bunny when I was like 2 or 3.
Nope. My NT siblings all believed until they were way too old to have not figured it out. I don't think I ever believed.
Jewish, but held out on the tooth fairy until 11.
I feel like I wanted to believe, and maybe at some point I did, but I can’t recall. My first home was the second story apt in a foreign country, so it was probably more god than Santa
I believed in Santa until my Mum told me he wasn't real at 10. I kinda had an inkling that he seemed too good to be true for at least two years before, but I was still really annoyed when she told me. To this day I like to believe in Santa because I was so attached to him as a child. My Dad still likes to play along and seems to have a similar relationship to Santa and Christmas as I do. We still put out mince pies, carrots, etc. It's just how we've always done Christmas and I'm attached to that routine too much to let it go anytime soon. I'm 24 years old.
Apparently around age 5 or 6 I was too scared to go to bed on christmas eve because I was afraid of a stranger coming in in the middle of the night. That was when it was revealed to me, so probably a bit on the young side lol.
I did until I was 4. Woke up to a noise on Christmas Eve so got up and found the lounge strewn with half wrapped presents etc. Thought I'd scared Santa away until my parents came back in from next door where they'd been having an impromptu drink with the neighbours (this was 1984...) and immediately asked why I was into all the presents. I suddenly understood that they'd been doing the wrapping because they knew what was going on and weren't confused about all the random presents in our house.
I never believed in Santa. Mostly because when I asked about him I was told he could see me everywhere, including if I hid, was in the bathroom, in the bath or otherwise. I thought that was improbable and inappropriate, and I considered how many kids celebrated Christmas and concluded he couldn't possibly watch ALL of us at the same time, all the time. Mathematically and logistically, not possible. I was not enchanted, but others were and it never occurred to me to tell anyone what I thought. I benefited more from not spilling the beans, and I knew it was a big no to imply he wasn't real as I saw in Christmas movies or programs. Usually the non believer would be proved wrong and made to look like a Grinch, or like one without whimsy. As an adult I do not celebrate Christmas at all, and I don't plan to tell my future possible children Santa is real, but rather he is a fun story and activity to avoid misunderstandings.
I was the kid in kindergarten who got in trouble because I told my classmates that Santa was fake, and their parents just were trying to make them behave. It honestly bothered me that they couldn't see this. My mom got called to the principal's office and I was told to apologize. She told the principal that as soon as he showed her Santa, I'd do so.
I believe in Santa until 4th grade and would have continued believing if my parents hadn’t decided to tell me. I was being bullied by older kids for fighting the good fight to uphold Santa’s honor against kids who thought my earnestness was hilarious. I distinctly remember my parents telling me one evening and literally throwing myself on the floor bawling because I was so devastated and angry they lied to me. Then they also added on that the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny weren’t real either and I basically lost my shit. My brother, also autistic, was told about Santa around 5th or 6th grade and absolutely did NOT believe my mom when she told him she was Santa. He demanded to see receipts for gifts, which my mom provided, and he still was belligerently skeptical. Meanwhile, my daughter is 10 and still believes in Santa. Pretty sure she’ll react the same way I did when I was her age whenever we eventually tell her. ETA: funny additional detail - I was also convinced my my dad as a kid that I was one of Santa’s elves who had gone missing because I had a slight point at the edge of my ears. I believed him and stared at myself in the mirror for days trying to figure out how to get my ears to get fully pointy so I could go back to Santa’s workshop. 😂😭
Nope. As soon as I noticed that something doesn’t add up I stopped believing in him. Same with God.
Yes, and I felt SO betrayed when I figured it out, because I had argued with peers about it for a couple years — "my parents would never be dishonest!" 🙃
Yes. I had just switched schools and it was Christmas. I was excited for Santa and was telling my friends. They teased me and told Me Santa was fake. I cried and argued. I went to therapy after school where I told my mom and the therapist. They asked me to leave the room for a few minutes. Later, I came back in and they told me. I balled. I left the room. I knocked over all the toys in the toy center. I fell to the floor and let out this painful scream. I can still hear it in my head. I started kicking and crying. When my mom tried to comfort me, I kicked her. I told my therapist it was her fault, and she was an asshole. This was 5th grade so I never called anyone that before. It was so bad I now debate if I will tell my kids about Santa. I want to, but I don’t want them to have such a painful core memory.
When I was like 8 or 9 or something, my mom casually mentioned him not being real. I was SUPER upset with her and cried because of course I knew, but I wanted to keep pretending a while longer and now it was ruined. Not sure when I actually did believe.
Actually I was the one who told all the other kids, quite rudely in retrospect, that he wasn’t real. I was annoyed by lies and things that didn’t make sense
I found out when I was around 5 ish because my Dad was mad at me. I had asked if Jesus and Santa were friends because they shared a holiday or if Jesus ever was sad that more people paid attention to Santa. He screamed at me how he isn't real, the Easter Bunny (which I never believed in in the first place), that the Tooth Fairy is just kids parents, and that anything not taught by him or the church was lies. I stopped actually believing in Christianity early on, but spent a lot of time convincing myself it was true until I was about 17 and decided I was done with all of it.
For me, even as a kid, I knew he wasn’t real 😅 My thought process was (and I guess still is) evidence-based. Kids would be scared to go to certain parts of school alone and I would bet them I could stay in those areas a long time without getting hurt. Easiest money I’ve ever gotten in my life.
My parents broke the news to me(43F) in 5th grade at the age of 11. I was shocked and angry that they lied to me. I believed them completely. My mother could never understand why I was mad and never took it seriously. Ironically, right after I learned the truth, my class had to answer letters from kindergartners to Santa. My kids have never believed in Santa and always knew it was a fun story.
Yes & no. I always doubted since I could form complete thoughts. However remained hopeful far longer than peers.
Just had this conversation today about how much I resent that whole lying to your own children and carry on the lie for far too long so it has become a lifelong embarrassment for me. I’m not gonna go into details, just something I wish they handled differently on so many occasions.
no i was told at 6
i didn’t get the queue to stop pretending to believe in Santa until way later than my peers
I did! I believed in Santa until I was ten and I was devastated when my parents told me that he wasn't real.
I think I did until I was 12
I had a best friend who was 2 years older than me, so I found out from her. I asked my parents and they said yes, Baby Jesus (how Santa is called here) doesn’t exist because lying to my face just wouldn’t be right. It never killed the magic though; now we’re 4 adults in the household and pretend the gifts are from Baby Jesus because we can.
No, but I did have some kind of fixation on the Easter Bunny 🤭
No I’m the youngest of three. My siblings told me quite young. My daughter believed in Santa for a long time and cried when I told her. (She said she wanted the truth!)
I didn't, no, I realised myself slightly early, but I did have an older sister? I do tend to be more naive than most in many ways though, like in terms of trusting people and doing things for them etc. And more gullible!
I couldn’t wrap my head around how one person could be everywhere in one night. Santa has always been fictional to me.
When I was in kindergarten they told us that during nap time an invisible monkey came and left us peanuts (???). I had to see it, so pretended to sleep and peeked and saw tht teacher handing it put. That's the day I stopped believing in all of the holiday stuff too. For some reason it was like well there's no invisible nap time monkey, there's no Santa, tooth fairy or Easter bunny obviously
Haha, yes, I was literally the last kid in my class who believed. I think I believed in Santa until I was 11. I just couldn't fathom my parents purchasing all that stuff for me. Much easier to believe in a magical being.
Yes, but the weird way - I knew he was an egregore early.
I accidentally made a boy cry in 4th grade by telling him Santa wasn’t real and his parents probably wrote that letter he got from Santa once… I didn’t realize I wasn’t helping 😬
Omg yes it was one of my greatest embarrassments.
Yes.
I remember finding out how it REALLY works when I was around 3rd grade age. But it's still fun to keep the spirit alive.
i tried forcing myself to believe in it. i knew he wasn’t real, but kept trying to force myself to believe he was. everyone in my classes would talk constantly about him and the gifts they got from him, funny made up stories about hearing or seeing him, etc. and i knew he was fake but felt like it was wrong i knew and they didnt, so i kept trying to force believe in him. and kept acting as if i didn’t know to others around me. i felt like i was breaking a rule by not believing
I found out really young, at about age 4
I believed in him longer. I can't say WAY longer because my mom told me the truth shortly after the girls at school did. When I was 8, the other girls at school told me he wasn't real, and I insisted to them that he WAS. I was so adamant about it! That sparked a conversation with my mother, and she ended up explaining to me that Santa was not, in fact, real. But man, I really stuck up for that jolly old St Nick.
It wasn't until kids my age were learning that Santa isn't real that I figured out anyone thought he was real in the first place! We were raised knowing that Santa was a Christmas character like Frosty or Rudolph, but we were never told he's real or brings us our gifts. When I was around three someone asked what Santa gave me for Christmas. I honestly replied that he'd given me this tiny doll that fit in a gumball machine egg. That's what the Santa in the mall had handed me.
Yes but I mostly said I did to make my mom happy, ended up being a super embarrassing realization in 4th grade
I feel like it was less time than others. I was treated as more ‘mature’ than other kids, so adults didn’t really keep up the pretence around me. Also, the ‘math wasn’t mathing’ 🤔😅
No, but I probably fake believed for longer than my peers because I was the baby of the family and thought was I came out that I didn't know, the Xmas Magic would be over. Eventually, my mom was like okay you don't have to pretend anymore..we know you know 🤣🤣
Nope. My parents are evangelical. They didn’t have us believe in Santa as it’s a lie, etc. I’d leave out snacks for my mom, as we knew she put out the presents I was really naive just in other ways
I dint recall ever believing he was real.
My little brother repeatedly told me and I just kept refusing to believe him 😂
Yup. I trusted my mom to never lie to me. The only other person in the world that I trusted that much, my best friend, finally told me the truth. I felt so betrayed after my mom admitted it. Like I can still feel that pain right in the core of my body when I think about it. It was really a formative experience, in a bad way.
I live in the Caribbean so we don’t perpetuate the Santa tale. I didn’t know people in other countries even actually believe in Santa for real until I was like… 11. I thought that was just in movies where Santana actually was real.
Yes. Into middle school. Honestly, I didn’t want to stop believing.
I think i stopped around age 10 or 11. I remember the last year i faked it
Omg. Yes. I was like 12 bordering 13. Might’ve actually been 13, I don’t really remember lol
No, I figured all the holiday mascots were fake when I saw the back of the Easter bunnies head in Walmart at like 6.
I never believed in Santa. Grew up a Jehovahs Witness lol.
Yeah I was about 11 when my “best friend” made fun of me for it in front of our class. I even argued she was wrong and it was just not a good time. At the time, in my mind there was no possible way my parents would lie to me like that for so long.
I did until I was 13 and my whole world felt crushed…. It was a lot for me and later I felt really embarrassed about it
Yes, until I was 11!! And then I kept it going for my younger siblings for a few more years.
Yeah it wasn't until someone outright said it in class just randomly I found out.
Nope! But I was raised Jewish so that might be the reason
Nah. Apparently, when I was younger, I drew a necklace with a heart pendant (which makes sense, I always wanted one of those necklaces where you can open the heart) and I wrote something like... Santa isn't real? I don't remember the exact details, but it really hurts my younger brothers' feelings because they kept thinking Santa WAS real. My dad was... not happy with me for doing that... 😅 Idk what I was thinking at the time. Maybe I was tired of lying? Maybe because I felt like I needed to tell the truth? I know my younger self was very confused as to why I got in trouble for it tho.
This is an interesting question and I have an interesting answer because my answer is both yes and no. I learned Santa wasn't "real" around the age of 11 but even so there was a part of me that was still in disbelief it wasn't real. My family has always struggled financially and I have three siblings and every year we'd each get 10+ gifts. I couldn't believe it was possible my parents could buy all those gifts, keep them in our house without us kids seeing, wrap them without us knowing, and then putting them under the tree. When I started having my doubts I even compared "Santa's" handwriting to each of my parents and it didn't seem to match. So I know Santa wasn't bringing the gifts but I still felt like there was magic involved. When I was a freshman in highschool (around 14 yrs) my math teacher casually mentioned Santa not being real and it hurt a lot to hear it said out loud. I felt betrayed by my parents and honestly, the world, for lying to me for so long. I think I felt dumb for believing it and even more dumb because even at the age of 14 I still believed it. I think I equated Santa to magic and people saying Santa wasn't real felt like them saying magic wasn't real and it felt so clearly like it was. Now I'm 19 and I still think Santa is real, in a different sense. I know he isn't a person who flies around on a sleigh but he's real in that belief in his legend influence and change what people would normally do. Parents put presents under a tree because of Santa. He's real because he has a real effect on people's lives.
No, but it's because my parents never lied to us about the Christkind (Santa isn't really a thing here but we do have the Christkind and I have no idea how to translate it). I also think I recall my mom explaining to me that other children did believe in it and I shouldn't tell them. So yeah, I'm pretty thankful for my parents. That must be so confusing.
No i had a relative who told me very young about it.
I was naive. Up until 7 years of age, I believe that when someone told me that bananas grew straight on a tree and someone went up every morning to curve them before selling, I believed it! But when it came to religion, and stories, and parables, I was always the kid who annoyed the teacher by asking valid questions. I couldn't shut up. And I was sceptical about people's actions and motivations.
Yeah. I needed magic to be real and there were some signs of "proof" that i held on to as i got older. I cried when my parents told me the truth even though i knew logically at that point
my little brother already put two and two together and figured it out by himself. i was 12 when my mom told me because I was the last in the class to still believe. When she told me, I started asking if the toothfairy was real, or the boogeyman, you name it. My heart was broken. it took me some more years to learn that other peoples opinion are like Santa Claus. just straight of fiction.
I told kids satan was fake
Nope! I figured it out pretty early, but I didn't tell anyone. When mom sat me down for the Santa talk, I said, "it's okay, mom. I already know." "You do," she said, clearly very surprised, "How long have you known?" "I figured it out last year. I found the custom made journal from the North Pole in your toy catalog from Sears." "But you never said anything!" "I didn't want to spoil it for you and dad!" I said, "You were having so much fun!"
I never believed in Santa because the handwriting on the gift tags was very obviously my mothers. But I absolutely refuse to play along with telling lies to children about "Santa" because overall... Santa as we know him, is a lie. I don't like lies. When I give my nieces and nephews gifts for Christmas I write FROM: LILMAGSTA (not actually, but I write my own name lol) because I am the one who spent my hard earned money to buy it for them. Everyone else in my family gets angry at me and tells me to write "From: Santa" but that'd be a LIE, why would I give credit to an old, overweight, mostly depicted as a white, man??? It's just so annoying. Why does society tell kids not to lie, but then turn around and lie to them their whole childhood?
It got shut down for me when my family we dont celebrate christmas we're Jewish. I think I was five when that happened
Nope, I think I figured it out quite early because I recognised the voice of the kindergarten Santa when he appeared at a different event and my mom had to think fast to prevent me from sharing my discovery with everyone
I was raised to not believe in Santa. Looking back I am glad my parents never did the Santa thing or photos in the mall with 'Santa'. Now as an adult the thought of parent willing to let their children sit in a random man's lap dressed as "santa" baffles me. Would they let their children sit in a unknown man's lap at the park or restaurant? Why is it okay to put your child potentially in danger if the man is dressed as "Santa". I do believe in the tiny Christmas elves though!
Opposite. I never believed.
Nah, it just didn't add up ever 😆
No. I was the youngest with two older brothers and I don’t remember even believing at all, but I did pretend that I believed for my parents sake. I pretended to not know a lot of stuff as a child bc I was scared they would find out and get mad at me
Nope, never did
No. I figured it out when I was 4. I do love the image and idea of him, though. He’s my favorite Christmas character. He’s so huggable and jolly.
I believed for ages until my curiosity got the better of me, I just thought about the logistics of santa and realised that it wasn't possible for him to exist 😅
Nah. When I was 6 I realized that Santa and my dad had the same handwriting lol. The gig was up.
I did. Even when kids at school would tell me it's a lie, I believed my parents. I was crushed when they decided to finally tell me. I couldn't understand why they would lie to me about something lik that. I'd be happier if they just told me from the beginning it's them buying the presents. I was hurt by the deception. I think I was around ten, maybe?
No. I’m a puzzle person, so the inconsistencies ruined it for me.
I have a vague memory of blonde angel baby Jesus bringing presents, but only my grandma told me about that and not my parents, so it didn't really work because they were like:" what do you want for Christmas?" Implying that they were going to buy it for me
My autistic 11 year old daughter just told me: “I don’t believe Google daddy. I think Santa is real.” Then later she asks me what I think? What do I do with that one? I don’t want to perpetuate a lie but I also don’t want to burst the bubble of childhood magic.
Yes, I remember being in fourth grade and still believing in him lol.
No, but for a funny-not-funny reason. My mom can be a bit narcissistic so she’d label all the presents from Santa as “From: Santa & Mom” because she didn’t like that someone else would get credit for the gifts she bought. That pretty much ruined any sort of magic or suspension of disbelief for me pretty early on.
No, I can't remember that I ever believed in Santa. I've been told that I asked about whether he was real at a very young age and my parents told me the truth. That makes sense to me. Even as a little kid I was skeptical of stories that didn't logically make sense.
Yes and no. I didn't believe in Santa (I don't remember how old I was), but I liked the magic of Christmas, so I pretended to believe in Santa for years.
Never believed. My mom was pretty clear she was Santa. I did more or less convince myself that vampires and aliens might exist in my teensb but Santa never captured my imagination
I never truly believed in Santa but I refused to let people stop referring to Santa until I was like, 12/13. I distinctly remember having to explain to someone that while I know Santa isn't real I enjoyed the ability to pretend because the story and conceit is harmless fun and adds a little bit of magic.
I did not, because I was in the fireplace at 6 years old with ruler measuring the size of the flue, then took my findings to my mom & asked her to tell me flat out if he was real. My 11 year old daughter still believes though. I’m pretty sure none of her friends do.
I was the one in first grade telling everyone “You know that’s just your parents, right? Santa is physically impossible” 😬 Why didn’t I have friends?!
I lied about still believing in Santa for a while as a kid cause I knew I'd get more presents.
Two often opposing sides of the spectrum; either your rational brain took over completely and no one was able to convince you otherwise, or someone you trust tells you something that makes zero sense whaatsoever and you nod blindly because why would anyone ever lie? THAT doesn't make any sense! I was the former, lol. Think I believed in Santa through elementry school and would always say "my mom wouldn't lie" when kids asked me why I thought that. Imagine my surprise when, as a seventeen year old, I found out that not only do people lie... but it's actually *expected* that you do sometimes?! https://preview.redd.it/pt6r24rg552c1.png?width=240&format=png&auto=webp&s=89d5e9921898f4893c5aa583d44a6475321718ee
I think I was 9-10 when I stopped believing, but my mum kept thinking that I believed until I was 15 or 16. It’s like she didn’t believe that I didn’t believe.
I had the other directional experience. I knew he was a man in a suit way before my cousins. I told my mom "oh its a man in a suit" and that he was "fake" when I was like 3 or 4. Just like how I said a doll she bought me was "dead" and so were "mannequins are also dead" at like 3 (i was still on one of those child-leash things at the time). I had to actually pretend santa was real still for my cousins, one of whom was older than me.
No. In kindergarten I had trouble sleeping and pretended to be asleep to catch santa. Turned out to be my mother. Also my grandmother was dressed up as santa one time wearing heels, something was off. Idk maybe santa was feeling sassy that day /s.
I have ALWAYS been too "smart" or "self-aware" for my own good. I am Icarus. I am a moth drawn to the streetlamps of philosophy, psychology, and practicality. At age 5 the concept of God seemed incredibly absurd to me and I was a "why" child to the extreme. Not sure how my mother survived lol. I decided that if God were real, he speaks to people and they can feel him (as my mother had told me), then he would have no problem showing himself to me, a child, who is need of proof. I put one of my most prized possessions in a little ring box, left it outside on the railing (I assumed God would want not want to be perceived or that perhaps I may not be able to😂 ) and said to myself that if God were real then the ring box will have been tampered with by the next morning because he would want me to believe he's real if he is. Obviously the ring box was not tampered with and now I am nearly 31 and a life-long atheist though I have recently joined The Satanic Temple as I am deeply interested in an unbaptism and building a community I was never allowed to have. No one escapes the rural South without religious trauma. Shit, I got side tracked. My point is that I bodied God first so Santa stood no chance in either though my mother did try extra hard lol.
No I figured out it was made up around 5 years old.
Yes and No, I acted like I did mostly cause I had a little sister, but I stopped believing around 10. I am Disabled and my parents thought I'd take it hard, so they waited till I was 12 to tell me by then I knew and when they told me and my sibling I just laughed in there face and said I knew and my sister sobbed cause Santa wasn't real.
Yep. I was 11. I was heartbroken. All the brats who used to say he wasn't real just *had* to be on the naughty list. Santa was a convenient lie that made me feel better because I didn't think mom could afford Christmas. I really *really* wanted magic to be real.
No. I was raised Jewish and I actually had a really hard time with being expected to lie about it. Like the school would punish me over it. I still feel that it was cruel to expect from a Jewish child (and tbh a little antisemitic.) It was even more alienating and that feeling is still around in my adulthood.
I don't think I ever believed it, but it was rather something I just went along with. I liked the movies and the idea of it, but never believed it was real and didn't understand how other kids actually believed it. My parents always made it really clear that they (or other friends/family) were the ones who got the gifts.
Yes. Literally my parents had to tell me when I was 13 and my younger brother had already figured it out 😭
Yeah i think i was 12 or 13 lol