Did you believe in Santa as a child, even for a short while?

Yes - I believed until I was in the final year at Primary school and I only stopped believing because the big mouth I sat next to told me truth just before Christmas that year! DSIS and I made an agreement that we would pretend not to know the truth for as long as we could so we would continue to get stockings. I got my last stocking age 13.

I don’t think I ever believed. I’m too literal. I knew it was impossible for reindeer to fly, and how did all the presents fit into one bag, and how can he still be alive, and why aren’t there pics of his house and toy factory, how can he get to every house in less than 24 hours, what about people that sleep in their living rooms or are awake during the night, why hasn’t anyone seen him? I had too many questions and my parents would come up with these elaborate answers but I never believed them.

but it didn’t take away the magic of Christmas, it was my favorite time of the year up into my 20s.

yes and I was convinced I saw him on his sleigh in the sky, I can still remember seeing him

I believed until I was about 11. My friend told me a few years before he was not real the argument that followed let to a physical fight (my only physical fight ever) as we both felt so strongly that we were right

I think most children of average intelligence would start to question the veracity of it all at around the age of 5 or 6

I actually find it slightly odd when people are proud that their 11-year-old still believes in Father Christmas. Obviously small children believing in things like that is very cute, but if an 11-year-old lacked critical thinking skills to that extent I might actually be inclined to wonder if there was something wrong.

Lol! He always drank his whisky at my house so your mum was misinformed! 🤣

We weren’t allowed to leave whiskey
My mum said Santa doesn't drink drive

I did. I can remember asking my father if Santa was real, I was probably about 8/9. I can't remember how I realised he wasn't; maybe from school.

I always knew you wouldn’t believe it when you got older because people always asked do you still believe?

That coupled with the fact I hung my stocking up on the inside of my door and when I woke up in the night it was gone! So I ran into mum and dad to tell them Santa had stolen my stocking to find them filling it themselves.

I was also very observant because I remember pointing out to my dad that we had the same wrapping paper as Santa.

Someone in school ruined it for my own daughter in reception class but she still plays along for the presents.

Yes
He always came to our house when we were at midnight mass 😁
Needless to say my db and I stopped wanting to go to mass because we wanted to meet Santa

The reality was
We would leave for mass and my dad would pretend he forgot something. Run back to the house and put all the presents out.
I can’t remember when we found this out but concidering my parents didn’t grow up with this tradition they’d clearly decided they wanted us to experience the magic
All we really experienced was the frustration of having to be in mass when Santa was doing his rounds
🤣🤣

Yes, but only until I was 5. Then I had doubts, and I tested my theory by sneaking downstairs and seeing my parents filling the stockings.

I told my mother I knew the truth, and her response was 'if you don't believe, you don't get any presents.' As I knew where the presents actually came from, I kept my mouth shut about it after that. I always enjoyed Christmas but I did find the whole Santa element unsettling, because it felt like a giant conspiracy. I wish I'd had the 'now you know the truth you get to help create the fun' conversation instead.

If you asked my mother, she'd say I literally believed until age 11, when she told me the truth so I wouldn't get teased at secondary school. When she 'told' me, I rolled my eyes and said obviously, I've known for years. She had conveniently forgotten the earlier conversation, which was clearly much more significant to me than to her!

I think it's a nice story for young children but it's worrying if taken too far, and the MN obsession with 'magic' and older children believing is weird to me.

Yep. I have a vivid memory of being at my Grandad’s house one Christmas Eve night and my Uncle was still living there. I was in his room looking out of the window and there a spark in the sky, he told me it was Santa and I can still picture the spark now and how my imagination turned it into the sleigh.

I actually believed probably much later than most. I was about 10 or 11 before I fully stopped believing.

No because;

1. When I went to see him he always said "hello little boy" and I got a boy-type gift. I was a girl with crap short sticky out wavy hair.

1. All our presents had gift tags on from mummy and daddy. There was no stocking or Santa gift.

My mother wasn't big into Christmas (we had turkey dinner on Christmas Eve).

Oh that's kind of sad. I'm the oldest of 5 and all of us were very careful not to spill the beans to the younger ones - we enjoyed being part of the magic of Santa!

I definitely did believe for several years. I can still remember the excitement, it was a really positive experience for me and something I remember fondly. I worked it out when I noticed that Father Christmas seemed to have the same wrapping paper as my parents 🤔

I was not sad that my parents had 'lied' to me🙄

I do think some parents get too invested in it, though. When my children question it I just say oh, do you think so? I know they don't believe it any more, it's naturally evolved into a game we're all in on, just as it did in my family growing up. Last year the mother of my son's friend had a go at me for 'allowing' him to talk to her son about why he didn't think Father Christmas was real and I think at the age of 8 that was rather silly. (But yes I did remind my son not to ruin it for others).

I never believed. I was obsessed with reading myths from as far back as I can remember so distinguishing between fiction and reality was not something I found challenging; I just automatically slotted Santa into the "fairytale" bracket.

I did cause consternation and a few tears in my primary school class at the age of 5 when I announced that Santa wasn't real - I thought everyone would have thought like me and was a bit baffled to find they didn't.

Yes, of course 🤷‍♀️

I had older siblings, so never had a chance really, they wouldn't have let me believe!
It didn't stop the magic though. My son did (or so I thought ) when he was little, now he is a teenager, the told me that he found out that Father Christmas was actually everyone's Mum 😂

There's a whole lot of grinches posting on this thread. Of course Santa is real !! 😍😍

Believed up till aged 7 when our headmaster told us

No I cannot ever remember believing in Santa , even at preschool age.

However, I loved the ritual of leaving out a carrot a mince pie and and a tot of whisky for Santa and Rudolph which I insisted on doing even at 12 and maybe older (I know for sure I was at least 12 when I was still doing this because we moved house when I was 12 and I can remember leaving the offering by the fireplace in that house.)

To this day, I love watching the 'NORAD tracks Santa' video clips on Facebook on Christmas Eve.

My teacher told the class just before Christmas when I was about 7. I remember feeling shocked - a number of the children were crying.

Yes this. I never thought he was real - still had wonderful Christmases.

I found out around age 5 he wasn’t real as my older sibling told me. My DS is 5 and he doesn’t really believe (he’s a very black and white kinda kid and it doesn’t make logical sense to him haha) but still gets wrapped up in the excitement of it all 🥰

I believed in Santa and loved it. But my younger son hated Christmas as a young child, eventually he told us it was because he knew Santa wasn’t real and everyone lying and pretending made him angry. He was 4. If I had carried on lying to him he would have continued to hate Christmas. Instead I told him it was just a game we play at Christmas. He completely accepted that. He understood some children believed, he never told his friends Santa wasn’t real. (Although he did tell his older brother!) He has loved Christmas since then, still does as a teenager. We’ve had lots of magical Christmas’. If I had lied that wouldn’t have happened. All children are different so need different approaches. Some kids are very literal and prefer honesty!