At work, everyone was surprised when I told them my parents never let me believe in Santa Claus, even when I was under 5 years old. My parents firmly believed that they would never have us believe anything they believe to be false.
Mind you, we did visit Santa at the mall and we had Santa decorations. We even called the gift passer-outer “Santa” and so forth, but we never believed in him.
I am a white protestant male brought up in middle class America, if that helps.
My co-workers were flabbergasted, by the way. Every single one of them brought up their kids to believe in Santa and actually believed in Santa themselves. I was amazed so many believed in him.
What about you? What are your demographics and did you believe in Santa?
Also, did you or will you raise your kids to believe in Santa?
Little Mahalothette, by the way, will not believe in Santa.
I have often thought back about this. I did and didn’t. I guess deep down inside I knew there was no Santa, but I convinced myself there was because mum made it so much more fun to believe.
I had so much fun that it was easier not to bring it up and just pretend that he existed. The biggest problem I had was there was a ten year gap between myself and the next child. So by the time I was three my brother was 13. So there was no sibling to encourage it.
I might skew the results a bit, but being from the Netehrlands I never believed in Santa. I did believe in Sinterklaas, or Saint Nicholas, which was actually what Santa Claus American style is based on.
I believed in Santa until I was about 4-5, I guess. In as much as I recognized my Dad’s handwriting and my mom didn’t think we should believe in it because she couldn’t afford 2 sets of presents. (My mom was nothing if not frugal.)
I believed when I was little, but I had my doubts way before my parents actually told me he wasn’t really real. I figured it out when I was probably about 5-ish, I think.
I assume that I did. My first memory in which I know I didn’t believe was from when I was 4-5, and I found the packaging for one of the toys I’d received the previous Christmas. I don’t remember it being any great revelation, so I might have known before then.
I don’t remember whether I believed in Santa. I don’t remember very much from before I was 12.
I didn’t want to teach our kids that Santa is real, but my wife wanted to so we did. I did, however, explain to them that the Tooth Fairy is just your parents putting money under your pillow while you sleep. We also explained that Santa can’t bring you a rainbow and he can’t make you into a princess. He can only bring you stuff that they sell at places like Target, unless you want something made of wood (which is all the elves know how to do). She figured it out from there, though she is keeping up the ruse because she thinks that she won’t get presents if she doesn’t profess belief in Santa.
Yes and no. I always knew on some level that Santa was some adult I knew in a funny suit but I believed (and really dug) the spirit it carried along. Giving and receiving from a sense of joy.
Hey, I am still milldly pissed about my experience. I came to the States when I was 4. My parents told me about Santa, and being a very gullible child, I believed.
I went to school a year later, and the stupid meanie doodyhead kids immediately made fun of me, ridiculed me in fact, for believing, and told me he didn’t exist. :mad:
I could have used another year or two! I didn’t have all of the prelim time to believe in him!
I totally believed when I was a kid. One Christmas Eve I laid awake in bed, totally afraid of moving a muscle. I saw a shadow outside of my room and I KNEW it was Santa, checking to see if I was really asleep.
I found out the the truth when I was 7, having found a letter I wrote to the big guy in my parents’ dresser. Since that was in July, it was no big deal to me. I think I’d already suspected before that.
Well, Sinterklaas has the advantage of having been an actual person; and also the advantage of being the center of a nationwide conspiracy to cause children to believe in him. I nearly choked when I saw the “St. Nicholas report” on the TV news which was a straight faced reporting of the location of the steamboat on which he was under weigh and the weather conditions at sea.
But yes, I believed in Santa and the tooth fairy and also dragons and the easter bunny, elves and leprechauns, pegasus and ali baba’s lamp and I am old enough to have believed in Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox, Pecos Bill and Slew Foot Sue and also Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Also John Henry.
No, but I believed Baby Jesus brought the gifts. And on Jan. 6, the Three Wise Men themselves brought gifts… In their camels, which is why I had to go out with mom and dad to gather the grass for them the night before.
I did eventually got the notion that it was my parents and relatives a year or so before they told me. But I kept it up, nevertheless. As a child, it was fun for me to go out with parents and make up stories. Why should I “grow up” and stop doing something that made me happy?
Me too, it made Christmas more magical before I stopped believing.
I understand why a lot of people don’t want their kids to believe (the not lying to them thing), but we’re all going to disillusion our children eventually, and I think it’s an acceptable way to learn the lesson that not everything adults tell you is true. I intend to teach my kids to believe, assuming I have any.
