When and How Did You Discover There's No Santa?

[Free Bird]

And how did you react? I was 10 I think. Of all people, my YOUNGER brother told me. I didn't take it well.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

shhhh delete this thread before darthebearnc sees it

[dead0man]

I don't remember, was very young.  I had two older sisters that enjoyed messing with lil brother.

[DemPGH]

When I was conscious that 2 + 2 = 4, so very young. My mother claims I never believed. I'm not sure she did a whole lot to encourage it, though.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Can't remember what age I was but was always skeptical so one Christmas eve night I just pretended to fall asleep just to be sure. And lo and behold, he arrived.

EDIT: In retrospect what strikes me as interesting is that I was always sure there was no God (since very little) while I was always more agnostic on Santa.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

School kids.  I have no clue what age.  Young enough though.

School kids taught me the F word too.......

There wasn't much good I learned there . 

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

6 or 7. Always seemed preposterous. My parents stated a 'fact' about him, and urged me to buy in (Santa blah blah blah. Right?), and I said "of course not because..." so they confirmed my suspicions. Then I spoiled it for my cousins of the same age the following ywar's holiday. Whoops. Got in trouble for that.

This topic just came up to a large debate in my family as my 13 year old cousin allegedly still believed, but some of us were convinced he was trying to intentionally deceive his parents another year. Adorable!

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Do you think ODF knows Santa doesn't exist?

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Do you think ODF knows Santa doesn't exist?

How else is he getting ipads, etc and rent-free living. Those gosh darn socialists aren't helping so Santa's the only explanation.

RIP Papa

[courts]

not very long because honestly i always was terrified of the concept of santa. some old guy breaking into your house to give you presents? my parents quickly regretted that one

[courts]

not even joking. that sh**t is creepy

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Reported for LIES. SANTA IS REAL

[Cranberry]

Reported for LIES. SANTA IS REAL

If you repost Classic Conservative's stuff you should do so with proper quotation.

[DemPGH]

not even joking. that sh**t is creepy

Haha. Also lives in an undisclosed location in the polar region and "looks in" on kids throughout the year. I guess that's modern day cynicism for you.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Never believed in him.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Once I noticed there weren't any new presents under the tree.

[angus]

I guess I was probably much older than the other children when I figured out that Santa Claus was a fiction.  I had an elder brother enjoyed having fun at my expense in all sorts of ways, so that probably contributed to my long relationship with Santa Claus.  I don't think it was any sudden epiphany or discovery, but rather a gradual erosion of faith based on comments I heard from the neighborhood children. 

My son had santa claus (and the tooth fairy) figured out early on.  Probably by about age 5.  He exclaimed one day that "Santa Claus has the same wrapping paper that we do!" and began eyeing me suspiciously.  By then he had already begun questioning the logistics of it all.  One evening he interrogated me one evening about the population of the world and the time it takes to make journeys and deliver packages.  Thereafter he just rolls his eyes and plays along, which is okay, because Santa Claus is more for grown-ups, in the same way that funerals are for the living.  I don't think people really figure that out till they have children. 

I don't really have strong feelings about Santa Claus either way, but I really miss the tooth fairy.

[°Leprechaun]

Santa Not Real!

What are you all a bunch of infidels, or something?

Proof that St Nicholas is real:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas

Saint Nicholas was a historic 4th-century Christian (15 March 270 – 6 December 343),

unless you think wikipedia has a liberal bias or something.

If you believe in God, then you have to believe in Santa, don't you?
I think that is written down somewhere.

[angus]

Santa Not Real!

What are you all a bunch of infidels, or something?

Proof that St Nicholas is real:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas

Saint Nicholas was a historic 4th-century Christian (15 March 270 – 6 December 343),

unless you think wikipedia has a liberal bias or something.

If you believe in God, then you have to believe in Santa, don't you?
I think that is written down somewhere.

Saint Nicholas is something different.  His feast day is December 6.  He comes late on the evening of December 5 and puts candy in your shoes.  We only did that one year.  It was the year we lived in Germany.  All neighborhood kids, Frankie, Jürgen, Plinkie, and Steffi, advised us to put a boot outside.  I was in the second grade.  We told our parents about it and they suggested a modification:  use a basket because candy in the shoes sounds nasty, and leave it in the foyer instead of outside.  "But he might not find it!" I cried, but Mama assured me that he would.  Sure enough, on the morning of December 6 I had a big basket full of sickeningly-sweet German candy.  But he doesn't come to the USA, at least he never came to my house in the USA.  Santa Claus comes here, and he comes on very late at night on December 24.  He still comes, every year.

It's kinda like Ratoncito Pérez, the big rat who comes to Mexico (and Spain) when you lose a tooth.  He doesn't come to the USA.  The tooth fairy comes here.  Usually, when my son lost a tooth, he got a big Eisenhower Dollar under his pillow from the Tooth Fairy.  One time, though, we were in Cozumel when he lost a tooth, so Ratoncito Pérez came and brought him a 20-peso note for his tooth.  He asked me how much 20 pesos was and I said it's about $1.35 (at the time).  Then he wanted to start losing all his teeth in Mexico because apparently el ratón pays better than the tooth fairy.

[Tender Branson]

Everyone knows that there is no Santa.

It's called C-H-R-I-S-T-K-I-N-D:

[Small L]

My parents always told me he wasn't real.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Pull up a chair and get comfy; this is quite a story, and all of it is true.  I'd be more than happy to give you a candy cane and a cup of cocoa if you'd like.

There were a number of factors that led to my ultimate abandonment of the Santa myth; I just saw too many holes in the story.  Perhaps the biggest thing that stood out in my mind was this: how could his elves make the toys when so many of them were branded?  If anything, only basic, generic toys would get the elf treatment (like wooden ones, etc.).  I learned about how various localities handled the mail at Christmas when kids would send their wish lists to Santa.  Sure, I'm willing to believe that he uses magic, but I just decided it wasn't worth it any longer.  From the time I was little, I was reminded almost every year that I should never tell a kid that Santa (or the Easter Bunny) wasn't real.  I actually broke that rule once in middle school, and I'm still embarrassed by it.

Perhaps the biggest thing that made me give up on Santa was the fact that I always found him to be scary, or at least creepy.  Most kids already have a fear of people breaking into their house at night anyway, but Santa takes it to a whole new level by spying on you before he comes on Christmas Eve ("He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake...").  I was always afraid that the simplest mistake (throwing a tantrum, not eating my veggies, etc.) would cause me to lose my presents for that year, and the words of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" were used as a bludgeon to scare me into behaving (that's probably why I don't especially like the song).  We complain when the government tracks and spies on us, but somehow we're content to let a complete stranger do it just so he can bring us gifts?  Why does he have to come at night?  And why is he so interested in kids?  There's the clincher: ever since I was little I was always creeped out by anyone who took that much interest in children (and not just Santa, but the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Ronald McDonald, etc.).  My "pedophile" alarms would almost instantly go off.  I'd like to see how many department store and mall Santas over the years have been convicted sex offenders.  I was also afraid of Santa because he is usually depicted as having a deep voice, and my instinct has always been to distrust people with deep, booming voices (which is ironic because I've been told that my speaking voice is like that.)  Deep voice=scary.  Throw in a few "Ho ho ho" laughs, and you've got a character who's positively terrifying.  (I was also afraid of the Jolly Green Giant when I was little, and that laugh probably was part of the reason.)  I probably watched too many cartoons with deep-voiced villains when I was a tyke.

My first non-Santa Christmas came when I was ten years old (in 2003), and I wasn't sorry about it, either.  If I ever have kids, I will tell them right from the get-go that Santa Claus is a make-believe character (although he is based on a real person, St. Nicholas).  Then when they got a little older, I would give them resources to learn about St. Nicholas and his contributions to the Christian faith (like his defense of Christ's divinity at the Nicean council). 

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

When you put it that way, Santa sounds even more terrifying than Finding Nemo!!!

[angus]

Most kids already have a fear of people breaking into their house at night anyway,

Intriguing.  I guess I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years when I was a child, but I know that you're probably right.   I know for a fact that the schools are pushing this sort of paranoia right now.  I knew this generation was pretty fucked up, growing up in the shadow of such unsettling times, but I guess I wasn't sensitive enough to recognize that.

I guess it's just evolution.  We're in a sort of paranoid time just now.  Growing pains of empire, I suppose.  My son's school actually has "lock down drills."  Have you ever heard of such a thing?!  In addition to all the normal stuff (fire drills, snow emergencies, tornado drills, etc.) they have to practice what to do if some mad man with rapid-fire weapon or a bomb comes into the school. 

 

[SATW]

I'm Jewish, so never believed in Santa.