I don’t remember ever believing in holiday-specific magical entities. When I was 4 I had already figured out that Santa wasn’t real, but I don’t remember the moment I figured it out. I just remember having a discussion in the grocery store where I explained that it was impossible to visit so many people in one night. I don’t think my parents believe that I was serious.
Don’t have anything substantial to add, but I had to say I loved this quote.
Sorry, given that KRC said the cats would eat the easter bunny, by “take on” I didn’t mean antagonize or fight with, but actively try to kill.
An aside, but it seems relevant, darn it: I had a friend in grade school who was exceedingly gullible. He’d believe darn near anything, but there was a trick: he wouldn’t believe it at first, but if you altered the whopper to be a teeeeensy bit more plausible he’d go hook, line, and sinker.
One of the only ones I remember specifically was telling him that Smurfs were real, and some of them lived in the woods behind my house. He didn’t buy it. Well, DUH, they can’t really TALK like in the TV show. Sold.
One of our other friends was relentless at tricking him, too. Just a stream of constant lies. Friend A finally decided he’d had enough one day when Friend B tried to convince him that his uncle helped build the F117. They came to blows on the playground, parents were called, etc. Naturally, Friend B’s uncle did, in fact, work at Skunk Works.
5 or 6 for all of it. I’m not sure whether I ever believed fully in any of that stuff at all, but at that age I saw my dad heading downstairs with a sack of presents in the middle of the night and that erased any lingering fairy tales I might have been hanging onto.
If/when I have kids, I don’t think I’ll bother with any of that. I don’t want to have to work hard to convince them to hold onto a lie that doesn’t even matter. It’s hard enough to convince them of true things that do matter.
My 9yo still earnestly believes in all this stuff, actively promoted and encouraged by Mom. I find that kind of odd, imho.
I had doubts when I was 6, proof when I was 7, and confessed my unbelieving soul to my dad when I was 9. Santa, that is. Don’t know about the others… not too sure if I really believed in them anyway.
I must have been a cynical child because I can’t remember a time when I really believed in Santa Claus or any of these other characters. I always understood they were made up and that you were just supposed to pretend to believe in them for other people.
Which leads to a childhood story. When I was very young, my family went to Santa’s Workshop and part of the visit was getting to sit on Santa’s lap.
Now, as I said, I didn’t believe in Santa Claus so I knew he was just a regular person wearing a costume. But for some reason, I decided it was actually my grandfather who was playing Santa Claus. (I don’t know why I thought this. The most likely reason was because he was an older man who looked like my grandfather.) But even though I “knew” it was actually my grandfather, I also knew I was supposed to play along with it. So I pretended I didn’t recognize my grandfather and I believed it was the real Santa Claus. And later when I saw my grandfather I didn’t mention that I had seen him at Santa’s Workshop (“What happens at the North Pole, stays at the North Pole”).