Please reply if you either remember that you enjoyed believing in Father Christmas. Or if you remember not getting enjoyment from that belief.
The finding presents, and stockings full of presents was I’m sure enjoyable for all. But was Father Christmas himself actually enjoyable?
I remember being completely nonplused about the idea of Father Christmas, as a child, seeing him just as a character like any other fairy story. Do children really enjoy their belief in Father Christmas, or is he just a method to get the kids to do to bed on Christmas eve.
I don’t remember much about it from before the time I twigged it was all a ruse; for some reason though, in one of those leaps of logic only attainable by a toddler, I thought that my parents really believed in Santa, so I continued to play along with it all for at least a few years.
I don’t remember ever believing in Santa. I wasn’t a good sleeper as a child (I’m still a night owl) and so I would often sneak out of my room and see the frenzied late-night work of my mom and dad putting gifts under the tree. They even went all out one year and made reindeer tracks through the living room using washable paint and a potato cut into the shape of a hoof! I’m not sure if they knew I knew, though. I should ask my mom sometime.
Like mangetout, I played along for a couple of years, mostly for my little brother who had complete faith in Santa’s existence. He always tried to stay awake to see Santa but never made it past 10pm. Always made me think of Linus and his Great Pumpkin.
I had a similar conversation with my mom last year, ruadh! I told her I couldn’t remember ever really believing in Santa, and she said that was probably because she never said he was real. So, no, I enjoyed putting cookies out and being able to sneak downstairs and see what I got at 3am (Mom used Santa as an excuse not to wrap any big presents, mainly), but I don’t remember ever Really Believing.
Now that I have a 3-yo myself, I get all worried about it. I’m quite careful not to talk about Santa as if he was real, and I try not to emphasize him. Naturally therefore, DangerGirl is very fond of Santa. But I hope she’ll grow up thinking of him like a fairy tale–fun to play and to half-suspect he might be out there, but not Really Real.
I have a good friend who told me that she went on believing until she was at least 12. This was because her parents hired a guy (the same guy the whole time) to come to her house every year on Christmas Eve as Santa, with jingling bells and a present and everything. I think this is completely twisted, but she seems to have very fond memories of it.
I don’t really remember believing in Santa, but that has more to do with it being ruined for me at a very early age. I was four years old and my father was a drunk. He came home that Christmas Eve and decided it was time to tell me the truth. He woke me up and pointed at my mom sitting by the tree putting together my doll house and yelled, “You wanna know who Santa is?! It’s your mother!”
That wasn’t a very good Christmas. Thank goodness he was kicked out permenently within a month.
Whaddaya mean? Santa is TOO real! He’s at Macy’s!!
Earliest Santa Memory - about 4 or 5 years old, waking in the middle of the night to this noise coming from the backyard. What was it?? The most vile cursing these little ears had ever heard. Quite the education! And my sister trying to convince me it was Santa and I shouldn’t peep. Santa sounded an awful lot like my dad trying to put a swingset together using a flashlight, but whatever…
Next year, my mom had unleashed her herd of children upon K-Mart (back in the days when kids roamed free). I rounded a corner in the “boy toy” section, and lo and behold there is Mom, with a basket overflowing with Christmas goodness. She takes one look at me and asks, “Do you still believe in Santa Claus?” What is this, a trick? I furiously debate this and decide I’d rather not get in trouble for lying. “Ummmm, no” says I. “Good, come help me choose your brother’s Christmas from Santa!” And that was it.
I believed in Santa, and I have nothing but very fond memories of it. I wasn’t at all scandalized by knowing my parents “lied” to me. We were a household big on using one’s imagination, so it seemed to me that it was a natural extension of that. I figured out he wasn’t real when I got old enough to recognize my parents’ handwriting, and I was a little sad, but kept it up for my younger brother. And that was actually fun.
I don’t remember exactly when I stopped believing in Santa. Probably it was around age 5 or 6, when other kids would have clued me in. I do recall asking my mother how Santa would come down the chimney when we didn’t have one; she said he would just come in through the front door. I didn’t think to ask her if he would be arrested for breaking and entering if he busted through the door.
I was born a skeptic, and at a very young age I severely doubted the whole Santa thing. Every year, my brother and I would hatch elaborate plans to wake up in the middle of the night and “catch” Santa. Then I clued into the idea of ransacking my parents’ closet and of course found presents that were labelled “From Santa.” That was the end of that.
The sad thing is, I wanted to believe in Santa so badly, but my logical mind (yes, at 7 I had a logical mind) could not accept it. I had to challenge this spectacular, magical story to find out if such a thing was really possible. Deep down I feared it was not. I was right, but there was no joy in that revelation, just acceptance that the world was as mundane as I had feared.
It’s funny because I remember one night telling my father I didn’t believe in Santa and I guess he thought I was old enough to hear it straight. Everything fell like dominoes. “So this means no tooth fairy either, and no God.” He gave me the yada yada yada about symbols, the same thing he had told me about Adam and Eve when I told him that if Adam and Eve were the first people that meant we were all couzins meaning HE and MOM were COUZINS EW!!!
I really believed though. As a matter of a fact, I defended the belief as long as I could. I figured the reason Santa gave us toystore toys was that the toystores ripped off his inventions. The whole entire proof to me was the missing milk and cookies. To me, there might be a lot of bullshit with these guys at the malls, a lot of unlicenced use of the Santa image, but even if my parents were pulling my leg on some of the details, they would never go so far as to EAT 2 COOKIES AND DRINK A GLASS OF MILK just to perpetrate a scam. That would just be a completely unadult thing to do.
I loved him a lot though. I was sad. It still makes me sad that Santa does not come for everyone like he is supposed to. You donate toys and things, but you know kids get left out, and what if they think it’s because they were bad? That bothers me a lot.
Yes, I believed in Santa, and it was great fun. My sister used to try and drag us out of bed in time to catch him. I don’t remember being too disgruntled when I figured it out somewhere around second grade.
As a parent, I have gotten to see the fun from a whole new angle. Once, a day or two before Christmas, I had one of our neighbors come over dressed as Santa - looking for some missing reighndeer. The looks on our kids faces is indelibly imprinted on my mind. And don’t think your parents at the milk and cookies just to fool you. (I did talk my kids into beer, naturally. And I always leave some remains so it looks like Santa was in a hurry.) Of course, now that NORAD tracks Santa, is actually easier to create the whole image.
I remember moments of believing and moments of knowing the truth, but I can’t remember any certain moment of enlightenment. But when I did know, I didn’t feel betrayed or anything. In fact, it felt pretty good. Now that I was a big kid, I could get in on the whole conspiracy. When my younger siblings would ask about Santa, I’d say “Yeah, he’s real.” and smirk to myself. Ha, the fools. They don’t know the truth, and I do! Muahahaha!
