All you naive individuals probably shouldn’t read any further.
When did you figure out that Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc. were not real? How did you find out?
For me I was always pretty skeptical (completely opposite of my sister) and I don’t think I ever believed in any of them except maybe for Santa. When I was about 7 I went out to help me parents unload the car. I ran out and saw the inside of the trunk but only briefly as they shut it very quickly and asked me if I had seen anything. I lied and said no, not because I was afraid of being punished but because I was smart enough to know they wanted it to be a surprise. It was an A-Team action set.
On Christmas morning I got that exact same action set from Santa and from then on I knew for certain. But I never told anyone. I kept on getting presents from Santa probably until I was about 14. I guess my parents finally stopped when my sister got old enough to stop believing at 12.
eh, i figured out santa claus when i was about 7.5, the easter bunny when i was 8, and the tooth fairy when… eh… [sub]now[/sub]. actually, when i was about 7, i stayed awake after i put my tooth under my pillow, to get a glimpse of a “real fairy”, and pretended to sleep. Mom came in holding 50 NT in her hand, and replaced my tooth. i became skeptical about anything she fed me after that… such a waste of innocence… d&r
Hmmmm!
I figured it out around 7 but I kept quite about the fact that I knew for a further 2 years…and got rumbled…i might have been sly,but I just couldnt keep a secret.
I don’t recall the others, but I do remember learning about the “Tooth Fairy”.
I was seven when my mother’s mother passed away, and being as she lived in another state [sub]or daddy didn’t like mom’s mom[/sub] mom went away for a few days and left us kids home with dad. While she was gone I lost a tooth, and of course put it under my pillow. Night after night. Every morning the tooth was still there. I asked daddy why the TF never came and gave me my money. My [sub]mean[/sub]brothers started laughing at me, telling me mom was the TF and how I wasn’t getting anything this time. Sure enough, I never got ‘paid’ for that tooth.
sigh I think that was when I started questioning just about everything.
I think the only one I really believed in was Santa-- at least I have no memory of honestly thinking there was a giant rabbit leaving Easter baskets, and the Tooth Fairy just seemed kind of boring. I mean sure, I got cash for teeth, but what kind of job is that? Going around the world picking up kids’ teeth-- and you know where their mouths have been-- and leaving your own money for them? Santa, man, he had reindeer and elves and all that kickass gear.
I’ve always loved Christmas, and when I was a kid they still allowed us to sing Christmas songs in school (Hannukah too-- grade school was a long time ago for me, so I don’t know if they still allow seasonal tunes that are specifically about Holidays). I was one of the ones who’d stare out the window late into the night hoping to see Rudolph’s nose. So when my uber-intellectual friend Shauna announced, at age 7 or so, that Santa was a lie (as revealed to her by her uber-intellectual mom), I was crushed. Didn’t tell my own parents I knew what was up for a while, I felt like it would ruin the spirit of it for them, too.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-truth, it’s just that Shauna’s mom (and consequently Shauna; her dad was absent) had no sense of whimsy or childhood fun. Shauna was a jaded adult in a 7-year-old’s body.
I never really remember actually believing in them. I always thought for some reason it was just some make believe thing that happened. I didn’t have much of an imagination as a child.
I don’t remember when the Santa thing became clear to me, but I do recall noticing that Santa used the exact same wrapping paper and gift tags that my mom did. I was supposedly a bright child, but apparently also pretty gullible.
If I were planning to have kids, I’d do the Santa thing right. The Santa gifts would look like what they show in the animated cartoons: solid-color wrapping paper, big wide ribbon and bow, toys that at least LOOK as if they could have been handmade by elves. (Does Santa’s workshop have a licensing agreement with, say, Nintendo? I think not.)
Okay, so I was a wee Jewish gal, I lived in a very multicultural neighborhood. When I started school (age 5) my parents sat me down and explained to me that this is what we believe (channukah, festival of lights, macabees, presents from mom & dad, etc.) and this is what other kids believe (christmas, baby jesus, decorating trees, santa, etc.) and that I should respect everyone’s beliefs.
Well, at the age of 5 I apparently thought Santa was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard of. I got into a conversation with my best friend (who was christian) in which she asserted the existence of Mr. Claus. Despite my parents’ best efforts at preventing this exact occurance, I blurted out: “But your parents bring the presents!”
Note: I do not even remember this incident, whereas it created a bit of a crisis in my friend’s household. We’re all still friends which is how I know the story.
I guess I got an early start on debunking. I can’t recall ever believing in the tooth fairy either.
The worst way I’ve seen to learn The Truth about the Claus:
We were watching the movie Gremlins on tape. There were some kids in the room. Phoebe Cates launches into that Urban Legend story about the father dressing as Santa Claus and climbing down the chimney, only to get stuck and die. (Only in the movie, of course, this really happens to her character’s father). “And that’s how I learned that there’s no Santa Claus,” she sums up.
The kids watching the movie react in horror: “There’s no Santa Claus?!”
And this was a Christmas release, too. I wonder how many other kids found out this way.
I honestly don’t remember when I stopped believing… it had to have been sometime like grade 2 or 3 as I distinctly remember writing a story about how my brother snuck downstairs and caught a glimpse of santa and stuff (which convinced him for the longest time he had seen santa) and I remember trying to explain to him the story was fake that he never saw santa that there is no santa but mom stopped me.
Grandma still does ‘Santa Bags’ full of little goodies for everyone. Even the adults only the adults get stuff like lotto tickets, nut mix and socks. She gets all the stuff from the dollar store but I don’t mind. -smiles- It’s fun.
I don’t know how old I was, but I was sleeping in my sleeping bag on the floor. (I think we were redecorating - we completely re-did that house) I was only about half-asleep when the tooth fairy came, replaced my tooth with a quarter (it was a loooong time ago) and kissed me.
The tooth fairy had whiskers
That was when I realized that it was Dad and Mom doing the tooth fairy/Santa/Easter bunny bit.
Somehow, it was more special to me that it was my parents going through all of that, than some stranger that I had no connection with.
Mom did Santa for many more years after that, because Santa didn’t wrap gifts Then for a while she played games with the tags because my brother would unwrap presents - or just to have fun. One year she switched names, one year she labelled mine as X and Mark’s as Y then one year she left the tags off and had to identify where every package went.
I have no idea when I stopped believing in that stuff. I do remember my parents eventually playing down the role Santa & Easter Bunny played–we started out getting all the stuff from them, then it slowly evolved into just a few things from Santa & EB and the majority from Mom & Dad. Plus, they were very careful to have “Santa” wrapping paper and “Mom and Dad” paper. The “Santa” paper was hidden and this little trick actually reinforced Santa for me for a long time. Eventually we stopped getting stuff from Santa at all but now it’s a big joke in my family to put funny “from” names on the tags. So we get stuff from “The Elves”, “Rudolph”, “Sandy Claws”, etc. Since I am the youngest child, I always sign mine as “The Littlest Angel.”
Side note: For all gift-giving occasions, we would always get a gift from our dog. We had to put the dog to sleep in 1993 but we all still get gifts from her. She is buried in our backyard, right next to the porch, so after we open her gift we always call out to the porch, “Thanks, Pepper!” People not in my immediate family always think this is weird and look at us funny or even ask about it.
One year, I needed a shoebox for something I wanted to make. I asked Mum for one, but she said she didn’t have one. Since she had visitors at the time, I figured that was a stalling tactic, but I couldn’t wait, so I snuck into her room and went through her wardrobe looking for an old shoebox. Imagine my surprise when I found Barbie in there! And a (cheap imitation) GI Joe, and a bunch of other stuff. Not quite understanding what I’d seen, I closed her wardrobe, crept out and said nothing.
Christmas morning, I opened my first parcel, and there was Barbie!! From that moment on, I knew Santa wasn’t real, but I didn’t let on for years. I don’t recall how old I was, I’d guess 8. One year, Mum just said “You know Santa’s not real, don’t you?”, and I said “Yes”, and that was that.
Did anyone else’s father tell them that Santa made the parents pay for the presents, and that’s why we probably wouldn’t get all the super-dooper expensive stuff we were asking for? I mean, Santa was still cool after that, but I did think he was getting a bit too much credit for generosity when in fact he wasn’t doing the gig for free
Sunshine - that’s so sweet. When I was little, we had a turtle (named Stanley) that Dad found. It wasn’t happy in captivity, and we decided to let it go at a bridge on the way to Nan’s house. For years, we’d always say “Hi Stanley!” when we crossed that bridge (and I still do on occasion).
Santa was not that big of a shock for me. When I was younger my mother would hide all our presents in her closet. Every year around Christmas time, that closet would be forbidden for us to go in. My sister and I knew why! There were Evil Gnomes in that closet, just waiting to ruin our Holiday! Oh how we were scared of that closet for some years…
Finally, my sister and I managed to get up the nerve to battle the evil gnomes with our wooden spoons and thwart their plan to kill us AND Mr. Santy Claus. But alas, we bravely entered the forbidden area and the only monsters inside were Mommy’s big scary underpants! The rest was just presents. Our adventure was over, and we were sadly dissapointed that we could not “save the day”
Now, when we got those same presents from the closet “from Santa and his Elves”, us chillun put two and two together, and for a few years just lead my parents to believe that we knew Santa was real, no matter whatthe other kids said!
Eventually though, we just stopped getting presents from him though. Dang it.
this is pretty sick, but when i was 8 or 9, my father told me that santa claus was dead. ditto easter bunny and tooth fairy. when i asked “what about jesus?”, i got the snot beaten out of me. really dysfunctional childhood.
no kids of my own, but i would like some someday. don’t know if i’ll even tell them there IS a santa claus to begin with. i’m really torn. on one hand, i think it’s a charming, harmless childhood fable that creates magic and wonder for kids. in the other, i’ll always remember how crushed i was when i found out that my parents had been lying to me all that time.
well, now that i’ve interjected that sobering note… as you were. frolic!! cavort!!
Sunshine, that is a wonderful story about the gifts from Pepper!
On Santa and Mr. E. Bunny, my parents were torn between the “Childhood Magic” and “Let’s Always Tell Our Children The Truth About Everything Because Our Parents Always Lied To Us” schools of thought. They were prepared with the “Santa is real, in the sense that the love we have on Christmas is real” speech. My little brother asked about Santa and got this response as soon as he could talk, but I carefully avoided the topic. Even though I knew all the gifts were from Mom and Dad, I wanted to believe. Heck, I still leave milk and cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve, and I don’t even have kids. I claim I’m doing it to enhance the cat’s enjoyment of Christmas. Of course this is silly, because how much more could the cat realistically enjoy the holiday, seeing as that is the only night of the year he can talk? And just before I fall asleep on Christmas Eve, I find myself listening drowsily for the faint sound of sleigh bells.
Mom and Dad, although good parents in other regards, completely dropped the ball on the Tooth Fairy. They could never remember to leave the money under the pillow, so we would wait with our teeth for a couple of days, and then just take them to Mom and Dad and demand payment.
I never really fully believed in the Easter Bunny, as I didn’t find it plausible for a giant bunny hopping around giving me presents.
Now, I’m an only child so I didn’t realize the truth about Santa Clause until late. Very late. How about…10 or 11? How I found out was “Santa” left me a little note one Christmas morning. I thought it was really from him, until months later when my parents and I were at a resteraunt. I was doodling on my placemat, like I always did, and my dad wrote something on it in funny letters and it looked exactly like the handwriting Santa Clause had used. I was devestated. I actually cried (I never really talked about Clause with my friends which was why I was never told that he wasn’t real). To this day I wonder how long my parents were going to carry that out. I mean, I was 10 or 11 for crying out loud.
such a waste of innocence… 
Every morning the tooth was still there. I asked daddy why the TF never came and gave me my money. My [sub]mean[/sub]brothers started laughing at me, telling me mom was the TF and how I wasn’t getting anything this time. Sure enough, I never got ‘paid’ for that tooth. 