Wait a minute…
Santa isn’t real?
Of course Santa’s real. Now go volunteer at a soup kitchen or something and learn who Santa really is (hint: check your mirror). 
Just to get some info at the source, I conducted a survey - of one.
My almost 9 year old said “Santa is whoever wrote on the present tag.”
But she’s promised to pretend, so as not to upset her grandmother. “Because she *still *believes in him!”
Yep. It always confuses me when people rejoice in twelve year olds who “still believe” - to me figuring out Santa (even if you had help from your first grade classmates) is one of the defining growing up moments in our society. How you discover it, how you accept it, and how you choose to deal with it are very telling.
An Arky - you aren’t alone. My daughter was the leader in a religious war among the first graders last year between the “believers” and the “non-believers.” Friendships were shattered, brother against brother, with one side firmly on the side of “TRUTH” and the other on the side of “FAITH.” And a lot of innocence lost. But it was a good fight and a year later they are all friends again - having met in the middle with “Its a nice thing to believe in.”
You’re lucky the parents weren’t involved. We got a nasty call accusing our younger daughter of breaking the bubble. She denied it, and we believed her. She never even liked Santa - when she was very little, even, she said it wasn’t Santa, it was her grandfather - and she was right. Her grandfather and I put out the presents after the kids went to sleep.
By the way, I keep telling my 3yo son that Santa is just some dude that sells CocaCola. And when my stupid BIL tells my boy to behave because otherwise Santa won’t bring him presents, I tell him to respond that he doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, that if someone wants to give him presents, that it needs to be without conditions or otherwise it is just blackmail.
I do protect the bubble of the 3 wise men (who come in January 6th) and make him put some hay in a box for the camels.
Kids are smarter than you think.
My Santa bubble was burst in the third grade, when I realized that his writing looked a lot like my mom’s, and when a kid in my class kept going around saying that he’s not real. I just thought “…Huh, thought so.”
I played it out for another couple of years though. 
Honestly though, one thing that I don’t get is that if a person can’t live up the santa myth by getting the child the santa present that he wants (not that I blame you by means for not being able to buy your kid what he wants- that stuff gets expensive!), why in the hell do people instill the lie that he is real in the child in the first place? It just seems akin to putting on a band-aid over a perfectly healthy patch of skin just so you gotta go through the trouble of ripping it off later, it just doesn’t make sense to me.
Yes, WhyNot’s comment about shibboleths is more or less why I object as a general principle to parental bubble-bursting.
I felt so smart last night when I excitedly told my husband of that epiphany (he’s one of them there scholarly types, see, and his specialty is initiation rites), and he gently told me I have that same epiphany every year. Durned if I can remember it.
Think of it as a seasonal initiation rite… cyclic as the seasons, showing growth and rebirth…
Heh. Careful, your witchiness is showing! 
(Now I’m gonna be real embarrassed if you’re not the poster I was thinking of who’s an ex-Wiccan ex-Christian…)
I’m not, but I’m not insulted by the description one bit. It’s far better than “confused.”
Two things…
This is why you’re my favoritest poster EVAH! I mean, I’m not a sentimental type, nor do I have any kids, but for some unsane ( ) reason this had me almost as teary-eyed as a Kodak commercial. Beautiful.
Secondly,
… this whole thing had me alternately chuckling, impressed and blessed to read it. Geez, you’d think menopause must be near or something. Anyway, to try to stay on topic; I was one of those kids who figured out what the deal was relatively early on (sooner then third grade), but kept up the ruse because my mother seemed to work so. damned. hard. on my remaining believing. Ugh. It was definitely more about her than me and I couldn’t stand to disappoint her, so I played along until at least ten before I had to give it up for fear that lightning would split my skull.
So, that said, give some leeway this year, what with the divorce, etc., before having to face more harsh realities. A little reprieve might do y’all both good, in my humble opinion. 
My husband could probably have done with some Santa bubble-bursting. He said he did not figure it out until he was in 9th grade. Most kids eventually figure out that their parents are buying the Santa gifts, but he knew that his parents could never have afforded all the presents that his large family received for Christmas. It turns out that his grandmother supplied the gifts when they were younger, and now that some of the kids were older and had their own jobs, they took turns playing “Santa”. My husband had his first job, and thus was told that it was his turn to supply gifts to his entire family.
I still buy a Santa gift for my daughter, even though she is no longer a “true believer” at 11. She gave Santa a present a few years ago (an ornament she made at school) and later discovered it wherever my husband had hidden it (she wasn’t snooping, either–her dad asked her to get something and had forgotten he had put the ornament there.) She was a little disappointed, but got over it.
I would say get a Santa gift, but not the Xbox. It might help him figure it out, and I think it’s much better to figure it out on your own than to be told.
You are not lying when you tell your children there is a Santa Claus.
our Christmas celebrations include Santa Claus. We never really describe him because we have never seen him, (the whole must be asleep thing)
When my kids started asking me straight out “is Santa real?” I always responded “what do you think?” If they said they believed, we let it sit for another year.
As they got older the answer always changed to “No I don’t believe in Santa Claus”.
My response is as follows:
Well, I do believe there is a Santa Claus, and you are now old enough that I can tell you secret.
You see, I am Santa Claus…, you mom and I buy the gifts I put them under the tree, and we get to see the joy such a thing brings
now you get to make a choice if you want to be Santa Claus also.
Santa Claus the kindness in each of us to be shared in the way we feel is best.
As I am Santa Claus to you, you can be Santa to your children and to your younger relations.
the only thing for you that will change this year will be you may now help with the selection of Santa’s Toys, and the setting up of Christmas for your younger brother.
You see, being Santa Claus is a great joy and responsibility you may share in it as much as you wish.
The subject of “you lied to me about the Fat guy" never comes up. When you let a child know that they now carry the hope of a younger generation, they never feel bad because in truth you never lied to them.
Merry Christmas Happy New Year.
MrPeabody/Santa
This is neither here nor there, but you can get an XBox for $280 now. Still an extremely expensive toy that I can’t afford, but not quite the $400 it used to be.
I’d be shocked at a ten-year-old still believing in Santa. I don’t know when I figured it out, but it was a lot earlier than that. It actually made Christmas more fun, since I knew that the presents were secreted away in the house somewhere, and I did and do genuinely appreciate what my parents got me.