Ask Lemmy

Wait…what?!

I think I was around 10 when I first realized it.

What clued me in was my dad, whose favorite meal was a tuna sandwich and a diet coke, insisting that Santa didn’t want milk & cookies, Santa wanted a tuna sandwich and diet coke.

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

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

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.

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.

What I wanna know is who are all these people claiming that Santa Claus is not fucking real!?

Of course he's real.

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.

What do you mean Santa isn't real? 🥺

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.

We don't lie, and talk about "who is going to be Santa this year". Treat it like a game. I don't think the youngest quite understands and we don't purposely ruin it, but that the adults are Santa is openly talked about.

Recently one of my kid's friends got an elf on the shelf, and my kid asked what it was. I think that if other parents lie to their kids that's for them to sort out, we can't be expected to lie to our kids to keep up another lie. So I straight out told them what it was and that some parents use it to try to trick their kids into being good. They replied "can I have one?"

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.

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.

When I was 6 or 7, I realized the neighbors (who were absolutely AWFUL) received more presents than my family did and the only difference was that their family made more money.

I started thinking about all the kids in my class, and the ones that got the most presents weren't the nicest kids, they were the ones with the richest parents. Then it clicked.

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 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.

5 or 6. I don't remember if I figured it out myself or if someone just told me the truth, but I do remember that I quickly started asking my parents if all the other magical beings were real too (Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc).

Around 4. The chimney in the house was too small to fit anything bigger than a fist; somehow my child mind refused to parse the notion of a very fat man sliding down it. Also, the roof was so inclined birds avoided it, so no chance of parking a sled and whatever number of reindeers up there.

I don't push the tale as a fact but I did told it to many children as something we should cherish as a symbol of good will and kindness toward each other. The legend of Odin (the original santa) is always a success and I tell it in the most epic way I find, whith Sleipnir riding the storm clouds in the Great Hunt.

Legends should inspire, not create delusions, is what I go for.

The first time I heard of him was the time I got to know he is the Coca-Cola mascot.

I don"to quite remember, but apparently I said to my mom that Santa has the same shoes as dad.

Around 6, when I noticed that my parents would always buy the same wrapping paper that Santa used...

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.

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.

When I was 7. It was late one night and I was walking around (when I should have been asleep). I noticed my mother finishing wrapping a present and she asked me to place it under the Christmas tree. I think it just slipped her mind in the moment and she didn’t realize what she had done. I didn’t say anything, but I knew from then the presents from Santa were from my parents. I wasn’t sad, but instead felt like I was just let in on a big secret.

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.

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

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."

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.

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

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.

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 was probably 7 or 8.

I lost a tooth and put it under my pillow without telling my parents. Toothfairy never came.

Didn't believe in any of the mythical things after that.

Edit: Oh and we play along. He's 14 and definitely knows but the wife enjoys it more than he does. So he's milking it and I applaud him for it.