At what age did you stop believing in Santa Claus?

[undeterred]

Poll question: At what age did you stop believing in Santa Claus?

[KG]

1. same as with the 'god', i don't think i ever bought into the santa thing.

[baldguy]

2. What do you mean "stop"?

[NYC Liberal]

3. I'd say 7-8.

[MrSlayer]

4. 5.

My brother was in first grade and one of the kids told him, my mother confirmed it. He cried, I didn't care.

[undeterred]

5. I thought it was just way too many houses

for one guy to do in a single night. Seemed implausible to me. Skeptical kid I was.

[AztecGringo]

6. I had a bigger problem

What was worse was my insistence to my parents in the San Fernando Valley that I heard Santa Claus on the roof. And NOBODY could convince me otherwise. I had issues.

[Dangerously Amused]

7. Rumors.

Oh, I heard the rumors. But I wanted to do a little investigation on my own. So when nobody was looking I counted how many sugar cubes there were in the cupboard, total. Then I counted how many I put out for the reindeer. On Christmas morning the milk and cookies were gone... but ALL THE SUGAR CUBES WERE BACK!

Thus I began my first ever cross-examination, of my parents. I got them to confess, but somehow found little joy in the result.

[fortyfeetunder]

8. Too many houses got me skeptical

I was six when I had my suspicions -- how can he go to all these houses in one night? When I was 8 we had a house guest keeping watch. What sealed the deal was when my mother was blabbing on the phone about father making noise when coming in the house with the bags of toys. But I kept quiet.

Mother sat me down one year to tell me about what (not) to expect for Christmas (she had taken a lot of time off from work to tend with a terminally ill parent and the subsequent funeral arrangements). Actually I was not at all disappointed, because losing a grandparent was more distressing around the holiday than the stark reality about Santa Claus.

[bliss_eternal]

9. Wait just one damn minute...

NO Santa?!?

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

Next you'll destroy the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the monsters under the bed... the inhumanity!

[Heidi]

14. Monsters under the bed aren't real.

But Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy _are real_. Believe me on this one. :hug:

[Kathleen04]

10. My parents never tried to

convince me that it was true; which was probably good because as a child if someone told me something that wasn't true and I believed it for awhile, I took it a little too seriously.. :+

I was still able to enjoy the cuteness of it though as a kid and got all my gifts from Daddy-clause. My dad actually has an uncanny resemblance to Santa Clause, he dressed in a costume and painted his beard white a couple years. :)

[nickinSTL]

11. I was 5 or 6

when I realized that the tags on the gifts from "Santa" had the same handwriting (my mom's) as the tags on the gifts from my parents.

[TBreeze]

13. same here

Santa and my Mom had the same handwriting.

[buzzard]

12. When I was 10

[BlueWolf]

15. My friend tried told me there was no Santa and I fought him

my mom had to come outside to break us up. I was so convinced that Santa was real, that my friend trying to convince me he was fake outraged me so. :yoiks: I think I concerned my parents, because a few days later, my mom sat me down and had a long talk with me about how there really is no Santa. I believed it coming from my mom, and I felt so grown up, like I was in on a big adult secret.

[mwdem]

16. I was around 9 or 10, and some little fuck told me..

It was, like the rest of us, the begining of the end.

[bliss_eternal]

17. Don't recall the age I was--

but I do remember the moments. First of all, some total asswipe pushing candy sales for a school fundraiser let that secret out.

What the hell would possess some doofus to say this to elementary school aged children?

"Well, we all know there's no Santa--right kids??"

Fucker! :mad: :grr: :cry::cry: :grr: :mad:

Seriously, we weren't junior highschool kids--ELEMENTARY School!! I still remember the little boy in the seat next to me, turning to me with tears in his eyes saying,"He's lying! Isn't he?"

My response, "Yeah--he's a stinky liar!"

The other moment was finding my letter to Santa, that my parents hadn't bothered to hide very well. They left it out in plain view on a dresser. :dunce: Nice move, folks!

[pokerfan]

20. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for

> Fucker! :mad: :grr: :cry::cry: :grr: :mad:

To be followed by "why did my parents lie to me?" in a few years. I put it to you parents, which is more important to you: that your children believe in Santa or that they trust you?

Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. For one thing, kids understand the concept of make believe. Sesame Street, Barney, Teletubbies, SpongeBob etc. I've never understood families that go to great lengths to make their children believe in Santa.

I remember once helping my niece and one of her friends play on the Lite-Brite and the kids are carrying on a conversation that absolutely made no sense to my adult ears. Finally, I asked them what they were talking about. They quite irritably told me that they were playing make believe. Duh.

My parents never laid the Santa thing on too heavy. For one thing, it was pretty obvious to me that Santa not only had the same handwriting as my mom, sometimes he even used the same wrapping paper!

I also had a feeling that when my mom played "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" on the piano that it wasn't about some fat dude living at the north pole "making a list" of the naughty and nice; I knew it was time for my annual performance review, conducted by my parents. :)

My niece once asked me for the truth about Santa. She had heard stories at school. Considering it my duty as her godfather, I told her the truth. Not that Santa doesn't exist, because in a way, he does. I just told her it was a make believe game that we play once a year but that the spirit of Santa, charity & compassion, was real. It was like a light went on. Her world didn't come to an end and she really seemed to appreciate the info. As I said earlier, I would rather have her respect and trust.

My two cents, anyway.

[nguoihue]

18. Had my doubts

but our 4th grade teacher laid it on the line. I was 9.

[Borgnine]

19. I still wish I could believe it.

It's such a fun thing to believe in, you know? I don't understand the recent movement to just tell kids the truth about it and never indulge them in the fantasy.

In fact, I think instead of spending all its money on war, the Pentagon should actually look into a way to create a real-life Santa. Put a headquarters in the North Pole, develop a super sonic sled, and have a team of about 500 Santas to travel the world on Christmas Eve.

[Mizmoon]

21. Santa and Mom had the same handwriting

Things that make you go, "Hmmmmm ..."

[Mutley]

22. My family was going to visit Grandpa for Christmas

and as my parents were packing up the car, I peeked into one of the shopping bags where the wrapped presents were. The very top present said "From Santa". It was 6 days before Christmas.

But I wasn't traumatized. I had my suspicions before that.

[Left_Winger]

23. Other...

There are those of us who never believed in Santa Claus.

[DanCa]

24. I believe that Santa is the phyiscal representation of the spirit of

giving, okay it beats saying that he's a corrupt tool of dubya capitalism.

[undeterred]

25. I have a friend who drives a school bus

and there were older kids telling some of the younger kids that there was no Santa Claus. It was agreed that the bus driver would know best so one of the littler ones asked him and he said "of COURSE there's a Santa Claus" and got the whole bus to cheer!

[RedCloud]

26. Four!

I snuck down the stairs and saw them putting gifts under the tree. I yelled out "Aha! Caught in the act!"

Next year I was warned not spoil the fun of other children...

[Devra]

27. I suppose I have an advantage being Jewish

but the weird thing is my parents never said out right that santa wasn't real. They feared phone calls from the parents of our classmates if we went around saying that Santa wasn't real.

They explained that the reason me and my brother didn't get presents from Santa wasn't because we were Jewish but because Grandma's house in Florida (where we always went for winter vacation) didn't have a chimney so he couldn't give us presents.

Even so the main proof came from movies.
nearly every other year a movie comes out and the existence of Santa is proven to a parent who doesn't believe in him.
shouldn't the kid have gotten gifts that the parent didn't buy if there is a santa?
wouldn't the parent be suspicious if every year their child gets gifts from an unknown source?
Every so often wouldn't the kid get gifts that the parent doesn't approve of. After all it isn't as if the parent in this situation is telling Santa what they will allow their child to have?