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Did you ever believe in Santa/Saint Nick/Father Christmas?- CHILDREN, LOOK AWAY NOW!

Our Lady of The Two Towers

08:15 / 17.12.02

Based on the incredibly funny story of the vicar who told a load of pre-schoolers that Santa didn't exist (glass houses etc... shows why the clergy should never try to get involved in comparitive theology etc...) and got their parents all angry in a "children don't get the time to be children these days, we wanted to preserve the magic as long as possible" vibe, I was just wondering, did anyone ever REALLY believe that Santa was real? I'm fairly sure that I never did, but I think my sister did. Anyone out there like to express an opinion? And if you did, were there tears before bedtime when you realised you'd been lied to, LIKE THE SHEEP YOU ARE?

Bonus points for convincing hissy fits if I've just ruined your illusions.

08:26 / 17.12.02

I did. I remember being really excited, and being terrified of waking up when he was there because I'd been told he would vanish - with all our presents - if I ever saw him.

I don't remember being upset when I found out, because it was a slow realisation rather than a terrible jolt. I apparently asked my Mum if he was real, and when she wouldn't give me a straight answer I said, "But if you don't tell me then I'll grow up and have children and I won't buy them anything for Christmas." At which logic she laughed and told me he wasn't real.

At which point I decided not to have children cause it would all just be too expensive.

08:36 / 17.12.02

Yeah I was another true believer, well for awhile at least. It always puzzled me though how he could make it all around the world in time, I can also remember thinking of plans on how I could trap Santa and then sell him ( I was an evil when I was younger too).

I remembering thinking that my parents were cheap because Fiona who lived down the road got presents from Santa and her parents but I only got from Santa!

Yeah it wasn't a real shock when I found out, Roddy B told everyone that he caught his Mum leaving out his presents. My parents told me the truth and it all made sense.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:54 / 17.12.02

As with Ariadne, it was more of a slow realisation. Though I do have a vague memory of sitting up in bed as a child, and saying something along the lines of "so you're helping him, then, are you, Dad?" But I can't remember whether I actually believed that or whether I was being a smartarsed little bastard.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:56 / 17.12.02

Oh, and with the whole vicar story, (and I'm sure this happens somewhere every year) I thought it was kind of funny that his rationalisation for Santa's non-existence was the scientific implausibility of his being able to deliver that many presents in such a short time. As opposed to, say, omniscience or omnipotence, or indeed omnipresence, all of which are apparently quite easily done.

08:57 / 17.12.02

it is one of the most devious and complex lies we tell to our children, isnt it?
i mean, just the other day, my workmates were organising a letter from santa froma a website that lets you compose it, and they send it out. for a fee, of course.

i remember letting the lies roll on, so that i would continue to get the goods. i was with my aunt and uncle last christmas, and my nine year old cousin was doing the same thing, she wouldnt say, but you could tell she was over it. YAY capitalism!

10:10 / 17.12.02

I believed in Santa, until I woke up in the early hours of Christmas morning one year and caught my mum creeping towards my bed with a full stocking in her hand. At least it solved the mystery of why the stocking changed colour/design during the night.

While I'm on the subject, has anyone seen that hideous new Coke advert, with a cartoon Santa and kiddies hugging and drinking cola together? I know Coca Cola is responsible for how Santa looks these days, but it really is puke inducing.

10:57 / 17.12.02

I have a 10 year old nephew who is just starting to express a degree of scepticism about the whole Father Christmas thing. I think it't time to sit the little chap on my knee and tell him that the story of a white bearded man in red garb in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer is just the product of the hallucinations of Lapp shamen ripped to the tits on drinking the piss of reindeer which have been grazing on Amanita Muscaria. I think I owe it to the mite.

11:01 / 17.12.02

Coke didn't actually invent Santa's current image. Check -

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

Obviously Santa would never sell out in that way...

11:03 / 17.12.02

Not coke, but 'shrooms.

12:00 / 17.12.02

I don't remember when I started believing, but I do remember kids making fun of me at age 8 for still believing. Same case where 1 kid had caught his mom putting the presents out. I still believed though, loser that I am.

12:25 / 17.12.02

I used to believe in Santa Claus.

Then I didn't.

Now I do again.

The Apple-Picker

13:15 / 17.12.02

I believed. I even continued to believe after I knew. I asked for a book concerning the physics of Christmas one year (one year long long after I knew) so that I could argue obnoxiously for the existence of Santa.

Unfortunately, I think I was responsible for destroying my brother's belief--in the basement, surrounded by tens of trash bags filled with presents, two weeks before Christmas, when I was 8 and he was 4.

13:16 / 17.12.02

I believed avidly until I discovered where my mother hid the presents. My disappointment was assuaged by the joy of subterfuge thereafter as I would read all the books weeks before Christmas and carefully eat only those chocolates in selection boxes whose absence would be obscured by the packaging.

I felt no guilt since my lying, deceitful parents had engaged in a massive conspiracy against me and my sisters with years of Yuletide propaganda. They kept on, cunningly, piling them up behind my mother's dressing table, year after year.

My suspicions were first aroused at about 8 or 9 when I awoke on Christmas morning to a letter from Santa, in poorly disguised handwriting, saying he had brought me the begged-for bike but it was in the garden shed awaiting new wheels. On investigation, it turned out to be my cousin George's old bike. Just how dumb did my parents think I was?

13:37 / 17.12.02

I did believe. Found out the truth about Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy when I was 9. Very upset.

14:05 / 17.12.02

I discovered "The Truth" in a very similar way to sfd, one Christmas Eve when I was 5 and waaaaay tooo excited to sleep, so I crawled downstairs to talk to Mommy, only to see her quickly hide a toy baby carriage behind her back. I remember going to bed and deciding in 5 year old logic that if the carriage was there in the morning, there wasn't a Santa, but if I had DIFFERENT toys or if the carriage was going to one of my cousins, then there WAS a Santa. Needless to say, it was under the tree, "from Santa," for me in the morning. But I refused to ACCEPT the truth 'til I was about 8.

14:28 / 17.12.02

I believed, but was also another one who figured out bit by bit. I noticed that the paper my mother had in the house matched santas, and the handwriting on the tags was hers. she said she was helping santa out, but when I brought up the fact that we didnt have a chimney, I just couldnt buy this whole magic thing. I think I was 6.

Im pretty sure my daughter doesnt believe, but really would like to. so shes playing along, but not terribly convincingly - shes just too "grown". give me one more year, kid!

14:35 / 17.12.02

In the second grade, my presumably Christian music teacher had a freakin' nervous breakdown and screamed to the class that there was no Santa or Easter Bunny. I remember many of the young 'uns crying and what have you. But I...I laughed uncontrollably. I think this is the exact moment when my personality formed, laughing at the silly crying children...

And then I realized he wasn't kidding...

Tryphena Absent

15:07 / 17.12.02

I think I always suspected that Santa didn't exist, I remember trying to stay awake to prove that it was my parents, my mother used to lie and say he was real and asked where I was getting such stupid ideas from. This was a woman who I thought could turn invisible because she used to hide around the house until I believed that she was never coming back. Evil parents!

15:32 / 17.12.02

I was told off by my infant school teacher for telling the other kids round my table that Santa didn't exist. I must've been about 6 then. The same bloody teacher gave me a right telling off for including a rocket in my drawing about Christmas. "What's a rocket got to do with Christmas?!" she shouted. I was too shocked to explain that it was just a f**king present under the christmas tree which formed the main part of the composition - clear enough to anyone with a pair of f**king eyes and half a brain. But I suppose to someone of her generation xmas presents meant dollies and wooden trains and toy soldiers. My first experience of anti sci-fi prejudice, that.

I must have believed in Santa at some point because I remember following my mum's instructions to leave a glass of sherry ("that's it, make it a large one, he likes sherry") and a mince pie out on the windowsill, and picturing santa parking his sleigh in the driveway out the front. I imagined he'd come in through the front door and be really chuffed to find the pie and sherry in the living room. Imagine my delight when I discovered the evidence next morning that he'd been in and had them: empty glass, crumbs in foil tray.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:17 / 17.12.02

sfd: The coke advert isn't the half of it. Have you seen that cornflakes advert? EUUUUUURRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!

18:59 / 17.12.02

I believed, but of course I was a horribly gullible child. You could have told me anything and I would have believed it. I realized he wasn't real when I was 7 and found all my christmas presents hidden in my parent's closet. Of course, even though I found out Santa wasn't real, I still believed in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. I mean, parents wouldn't be so cruel as to make up all of them, right? I mean, how else can you explain teeth being transfigured into dollar bills and Easter Eggs being hidden around the house?

19:11 / 17.12.02

the only kids i know who don't believe in santa round my way are christian fundies who have been explicitly told so by their parents. i found out in about primary six, teacher announced it, asked us if we knew, i looked around just in case then nodded my head along with everyone else then went home and told my ma. remember everything about the rest of that evening

19:13 / 17.12.02

oh yeah but at least it wasn't as bad as a bloke i knew from my school. in first year of grammar school he still didn't know the truth and was mauled for ages afterwards as you can imagine.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:57 / 18.12.02

Oh for the love of the moped of Jesus Christ, look who's just turned up in the library for the kiddies story time, it's Santa!