Ask Lemmy

As a child I wasn't good at accepting much of anything at face value. If I did ever believe I was quite young.

I think I was 3 the year my mom had to work as an Easter Bunny at a photo op to make ends meet, and I'm not sure much belief survived seeing the Easter Bunny rip its head off and reveal my mother inside.

I'm not sure I ever really believed a big fat man would slide down our chimney to deliver presents on his sleigh. The fantasy of it was fun though. For me it was a pretty smooth transition to not doing Santa stuff.

I was a skeptic since at least the age of six. I remember having to write a letter to Santa in first grade and basically wrote down I didn't believe in him. I wouldn't want to teach my kids the "Santa is real" nonsense, otherwise they might believe God is too.

I think I was in my 20s when I realized that some people/kids actually believe in Santa. I was aware of Christmas/Santa, but that it was just a story nobody thought was real. At least I wasn't the girl I met about that time who was telling her friends in first grade that Santa wasn't real.

I belong to of those rare Christian sects that don't believe in Christmas.

Obviously Santa Claus is real. Spiritual beings exist in the same sense that love and other concepts exist and it's completely absurd to say otherwise.

I never grew up with him. So it was never a question for me.

I dont think I ever really believed. We lived in a trailer when I was a kid so there wasnt a chimney and Idk why but thats always what stood out to me as a kid. Also at that point there were so many christmas movies where the plot was people not believing and I think that also caused me to think there was a pretty valid reason behind that especially when they pointed out "how does he make it to all the kids houses around the world in one night."

Around 9, when I was basically up half of the night, and the presents were there, without any noise from the door (we don't have a chimney)

I don't remember a time when I truly believed that he was real. I remember thinking that it was my parents, but I didn't want to believe that. I wanted to believe that there was a magic dude who would hook me up with presents. But it was illogical and we kept up with the whole thing, because I wanted my parents to enjoy it too.

I don't remember how old I was when I figured it out, but I do remember being upset about being lied to about it. I've got 2 kids now, and whenever they would ask about Santa or the Tooth Fairy or anything like that, I would kind of turn the question around and ask how they thought it worked. Sometimes, I miss believing in that sort of magic, and I didn't want to take that from them or lie to them, so that's the balance I found. It seems to be working well. Our oldest had it pretty well figured out by around age 9...our youngest is almost 9 now, and she hasn't straight up told me she knows it's not real, but the kinds of questions she asks and how she reasons through her answers I think she's figured it out mostly as well.

I was on the Plaza, on Black Friday and there were at least 8 Santas. I know cuz' I was one of them. Have you never heard of SantaCon.Info? Of course Santa is real, as real as you make them.

I don't remember a specific age the transition happened, or if I ever actually believed it, but I remember my family getting a PS3 one year for Christmas "from Santa". Sometime in the Summer, I was in the car while my mom was on the phone talking about the PS3 she got for us needing a repair or something. Again it wasn't that I believed in Santa at that point, it just became a core memory of "Oh you lied about that"

I don't remember actually honestly believing it at any point. It was more like a fun thing in my family, and I was even Santa Claus myself for my little brother when I wasn't that old.

I was a skeptical kid. A fat man making his way down every single chimney in the country in one night? No way. Never really bought into it.

Santa is real; he comes to your bedroom to give you wishes and take your soul...

I think I spelled that right...

I don't remember believing in Santa, so at the very least it wasn't an important moment of my childhood. Writing letters isn't a common thing where I live, instead we got a thick catalogue and circled everything we liked. I guess that made it pretty obvious from the very beginning.

Whether or not I'd lie to my hypothetical children... I don't know. I guess I don't care either way and would leave it up to my partner.

5-6 - same with my kids. Keeping it up for too long risks making them religious as well.

I don't quite remember if this memory is actually true (my memory has been deteriorating), but I think it was that:

I found out one of my uncles are pretending to be santa (I mean like bruh, they think we kids don't recognize their faces after some disguises). So I just stopped believing in such nonsense. Also decided that deities are almost certainly not real around the same time, and so chrismas technically made me an atheist. I think I was about 8 or 9 at the time.

Edit: I don't have children, and don't plan on it (due to depression), but if I ever had any children, I would never lie like that. That just cause trust issues.

Like I just start speculating that my parents are always plotting against me somehow.

If you are reading this, please dont continue with this nonsense lie, you dont want your kids to turn out to be paranoid and skeptical of everything.

Admittedly I don't remember when I internalized it, but I remember one day during a car ride I'd told my mom, out of nowhere, completely unprompted, "Mom I don't care if Santa is or ain't real, please don't tell me." I don't remember her response, but I was like 8, 9 or so I think.

At that point in time though, NORAD's Santa tracker is what convinced me he must he real lol

To understand the gap between how Santa Claus (or Christmas) is understood and how it actually functions in modern capitalist society it is insufficient to see the problem simply as one of subjective ‘misunderstandings’ held by individuals, classes, or whole peoples. One must investigate the political economy which grounds, that is, which reflects that erroneous image of itself. The gap between the actual “capitalist” Santa and the ideological “communist” Santa is objective, it is required by the existing material relations of social production and reproduction. Capitalist ideology must disguise the cut-throat values of bourgeois individualism with the universalist values of Santa’s socialistic humanism.

-Carlos Garrido

I stopped believing around 9 or 10 but started believing again when I became Santa for my family.

I was nine.

Also went a step further and realized ghosts, god, and in general things we're told exist but can't see are mostly fake too.

My six year old has begun to plaintively declare his belief in both magic and Santa, unprompted. I think he fears children who do not play along are not as well rewarded.

I'm the kind of parent who doesn't tell their kids what to believe, but I also don't bullshit him. "You believe in magic. So, you've seen magic?" I don't know why he'd think he needs to pretend. Maybe it's just that he isn't ready to face facts. I don't argue, I just try to make him think.

Being Jewish, we were told about this mishegas the moment we were able to hold cognitive thought

Around 10, I think... My mother thought she'd tell me about Santa and sex all in one car journey. Thanks for ending my childhood in one fell swoop!

Our kids always knew it was pretend so we all pretend together and everyone has fun. They never say anything to the believers or even the adults because that would ruin the fun. We do cookies and everything.

The same age I was when I realized my parents are liars

4, I deduced it myself.

My parents had a talk with me because they didn’t want me to ruin it for my sister.

She also deduced that Santa wasn’t real but faked it for a long time, thinking that she would stop getting extra gifts if she let Herndon-belief known.

I was about ten I think. Might have been 11. Figured it out.

No kids but yeah I definitely would tell them about Santa and let them enjoy their childhood. Life sucks. Let them enjoy the first few years.

Edit : I would not tell the truth that Santa is fake. I would tell them the Santa brings presents.