Finding out Santa isn’t real…

[Drowthy]

I have 3 DC. One just turned 10 and I’m not entirely sure if he still ‘believes’. Just wondering how you found out he wasn’t real, or how your DC found out…

I don't remember ever believing. As far back as I can remember I read stories and myths and I think I automatically just put Santa into that category.

One of my earliest school memories is telling my primary school class Santa didn't exist, because I thought they should know the truth. That went down very badly.

When I was 6 I told my religious parents God didn't exist and that went down even worse (and that battle went on much longer).

A much older cousin told me outright! She was about 18 and I was 6.

My mum had been hit by a car and the cousin came to mind me while dad went to the hospital. I have no idea why she said that- but I never believed after that day 😔

Father Christmas has always been a ‘fantastic story to tell and make-believe at Christmas time’ in this household. Bonus is that everyone loves make-believe right up to adulthood so we all still have stockings on Christmas morning, secretly appearing outside rooms overnight.

I found out because my cousin was staying with us over christmas and we had a falling out and she told me literally on christmas eve out of spite, obviously my mum used it as an opportunity to tell me she was right, I was gutted and it completely ruined my excitement! I was probably about 9 or 10.

My son made a comment that someone at school had told him Santa wasn’t real when he was about 7 and I wanted the magic to go on a little longer. A couple of years later when he lost a tooth and I mentioned the tooth fairy he bluntly told me the tooth fairy wasn’t real it was made up by parents and I could just give him the money now if I liked!, I took it as my opportunity and said ‘speaking of people who aren’t real, their might be someone else who’s not really real too’ and he replied with ‘yeah Santa!’ He said he’d known for a while but just went along with it for my benefit. He’s 15 now and even though we both know he knows I still tell him every year that Santa won’t come if he hasn’t been a good boy!

I was extremely young, I don’t recall memories of actually believing. My 6yr old seems to be following in my footsteps and questions me a lot about his validity … my DH had to be sat down and told before he started secondary school and it’s a horrible, upsetting memory for him.

For these reasons I don’t give two hoots about Santa and we build our Christmas ’magic’ around far more important things.

My brother 8 told me when I was 5 on Xmas eve because I was loosing my shit with him telling him if he didn’t get off his sega that Santa wouldn’t come and he wouldn’t get his PlayStation he asked for.

I’m not going to lie, it was a harsh way of finding it out. I would have much preferred to have been told by friends or figured it out on my own 😔 same brother smacked me on the head with a house brick that next summer by accident….get the feeling he wasn’t my biggest fan at that age 😂

My DD is 8. She asked lots of questions when she was about 4, and DH didn't like the idea of lying about it, so we told her a 'soft' version of the truth, basically along the lines of it's a story but it's fun, people like to believe etc.

By next year she seemed to have forgotten this discussion and gone back to believing in Father Christmas! She loves all things magical and imaginary - had imaginary friends for years, would love unicorns to exist, so I'm not sure she fully believes but enjoys buying in to the fairy tale.

It's the same thing with the tooth fairy and the elf. I didn't really want either of them as a 'thing' in our house but she was really keen. Last year she firmly asked me if it was me moving the elf. I said yes it was, and she went straight back to acting as if she fully believed in it.

I was 11 when I admitted it to myself.

I'd heard whispers and chat from other kids (and one teacher who said to the class "if you still believe...") and had picked up on a few things from adults etc. Started to realise films used actors I recognised as Santa. Basically put it all together.

I would say all of the above maybe came into play over the course of 2 years or so it wasn't a dramatic thing for me, more of a gradual growing up thing.

Still to this day I've never had the chat with my parents about it and I still get my presents "From Santa" 😂🎅

This is how we did it and our kids are now adults and both still love Christmas as much as ever .

4/5 is so young! You only get one maybe two Christmases where they actually believe.

I was 11 and DH says he was about the same age when he stopped believing, we have no special needs and are (as far as I can tell) neurotypical. I was however quite sheltered, naive, head in the clouds a bit, with a strong imagination and a love of the “magic” of Christmas, maybe some of that factored in, but I have suffered no ill effects from believing a bit longer than average, I had a wonderful time and so many magical Christmases. I’d love for DD to believe to age 9 or 10 as I have lovely memories for myself but obviously I have no control over that. In any event I remember loving the Christmas I was 13 when I got more “grown up” gifts so it doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy Christmas just because you don’t believe.

I have 15 yr old twins and they still believe 😂🤷‍♀️

Both autistic. DS has quite high needs, DD has some capacity for critical thinking but doesn’t seem to have figured it out yet (but I think she’s starting to doubt).

The hardest thing is stopping random people letting it out of the bag because understandably at age 15, they expect children to know!

I was much the same. I think a lot of children are actually just pretending to believe. When my daughter was about eight she told me that she knew for sure that Father Christmas wasn’t real - and that I should just admit it - so, in the end, I did. Then she got cross with me saying I shouldn’t have told her and that I had ruined it. I said, “But you knew it wasn’t true,” and she said, “Yes, but it was still fun pretending!”

Wtf Omg your mum got hit by a car and your cousin thought that was a good time to tell you santa wasn't real. Talk about a bad day