The Santa letdown

Maybe it's a bit early to start this topic, but what the hell. When and how did you discover the truth about Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy, etc.? Share your interesting stories.

Me, I just pestered my mom once too often with logistical questions on how Santa accomplished his work, and she came out and told me. In hindsight, I should have figured things out sooner (I was 9 or 10, I think), since in previous years my parents had made comments about having difficulty putting my toys together, the ones Santa left fully assembled on Christmas morning.

How ya doing, buddy?

I think I was six or seven, but sometime in November or December my sister and me were playing hide & seek at home. I wound up picking a closet in the hallway near my parents' room, and it had quite a few toys.

Basically, after that I called my sister over and we counted how many presents we got. It was at that time that we both silently figured out that Santa wasn't real.

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The fact that I never had Christmas presents as a child probably reinforced my early realization that Santa Claus was a Western myth.

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I never really believed any of this stuff was real. Keep in mind that I grew up in Mexico where corporate mascots were really lacking to milk holidays for consumer cash so when I got to the States in '88 and I was already 9, I never really bought into any of it. The logistics of the Santa Claus myth alone were fucking mind-blowing!

"You mean to tell me some fat fuck who lives in frozen tundra is gonna fly all over the world delivering presents to EVERY CHILD ON THIS PLANET? ON A SLEIGH? AND DELIVER THEM BY CLIMBING DOWN A CHIMNEY? ISN'T THAT CALLED BREAKING AND ENTERING?"

Then again, I don't believe in god either so the concept of other imaginary friends is lost on me to begin with.

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Originally Posted by INDIGO-4

The fact that I never had Christmas presents as a child probably reinforced my early realization that Santa Claus was a Western myth.

That brings up a good point. I'm assuming Jewish kids don't do the whole Santa thing. Growing up, there was only one Jewish kid in my elementary school, but in places where there's a substantial population, wouldn't there be an issue with them telling the other kids that Santa isn't real? I don't mean it in a bad way or anything, but kids do talk and are bound to figure something's up when Santa only visits some of them (and no, the conclusion is not that the Jewish kids were naughty).

I was speaking idiomatically.

I think I was six. Until then we had a tradition on Christmas Eve where just before bed, my younger sister and I would put out a plate of cookies for Santa with a short thank you note. This particular year, I woke up sometime in the night, walked out of my room down the hall, and saw my parents in the living room wrapping presents while eating the cookies. I wasn't really upset from what I can remember. I just backed down the hallway without them seeing me, and went back to bed feeling like I had unearthed the biggest secret ever.

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Originally Posted by RAZGRIZ-1

Then again, I don't believe in god either so the concept of other imaginary friends is lost on me to begin with.

YUP. This pretty much sums it up for me.

Never really believed it. At least not that I can remember. My mother tells me stories of how I used to write letters to Santa when I was 3 or 4, leave it on the kitchen table, and after hiding under the table, the letter would MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR. That's cute. I don't remember it.

So yes. From the time frame from which I can remember, I have never bought the schtick. I was yelled at once in my third grade classroom after telling some kid loudly that Santa didn't exist. I remember THAT very clearly. I was mad at the teacher for being dishonest.

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From a very early age I dismissed anything related to Santa, the tooth fairy or God with "no, that's impossible".

One year, my mum tried goading me into being a good boy and believing in the fat fuck by initially telling me I didn't have any presents because he'd thought I was being naughty. She kept that up for all of five minutes.

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I've only ever had a vague belief in those kinds of things when I was a kid. I think Santa I gradually came to the assumption that he couldn't possibly be real when I was old enough to comprehend the ludicrous notion of his existence. The fact that any presents I got from Santa or the Elves were addressed to me in the same handwriting as my parents tipped me off too.

I remember being really upset when I found out the Tooth Fairy wasn't real. I must've had some reasonable doubt as to her existence anyway because I forced myself to stay awake one night and sure enough, my mother crept into my room. I was upset partly because my parents had been lying to me and partly because I didn't want them to know I had found out, and I could see that they were only trying to do it to be nice. I told my mother eventually and she tried to blag it by saying the Tooth Fairy had asked her to do it that time because she couldn't do it herself.

Fun fact: when I was about 6 and still had some wavery belief that god might exist, I used to think he looked like Fred Dibnah. Nope, no idea why.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I don't think I ever believed in Santa Claus... I was terrified of him from the age of about 3 until 7 or so. When my parents tried to get me to buy into it by telling me "Santa won't give you gifts if you don't believe in him," I responded by saying that I'd rather have my parents buy me stuff anyway.

Maybe they didn't go the "extra mile" to make me really believe in it, but I think my screaming and walking out of my way in the mall to avoid him seeing me had a lot to do with that. I also didn't really do the whole Invisible Friend thing either... I just poured my imagination onto paper instead of letting it build up in my head.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I grew up celebrating christmas hispanic style; staying up until midnight to open gifts. From my understanding, that's when Santa was supposed to show up, as the story goes. As the only young child for a good nine years within my greater family unit (uncles, aunts, etc) I was the butt of many practical jokes and never really believed anything anyone tried to tell me. This, coupled with my natural logical-ness made it pretty clear to me the entire thing was just silly and my Mom was just trying to do the whole christmas thing. I really didn't "get" it, just like God and Jesus when I was in Catholic school. I never really thought they where talking to ME, no no, I'm just some kid, I don't know anything about that.

I remember when I told my mom that I knew, as a single-digit aged child usually does in such a smug manner. We just got off the 5 freeway in Burbank, headed to our apartment at which point she said that if I didn't believe I wouldn't get gifts. Outraged!

I still got gifts, of course, but I was all mad and thinking I was all clever, even when she made me go to my room 10 minutes before midnight so Santa could leave his shit and leave. "Grr," I'm sure to have said.

All of her gifts to me since then have been from Santa too.

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I think I realized Santa wasn't real when I was told that I couldn't get Optimus Prime or the Dinobots because they were too expensive, inspite of that fact that all the other kids could. Seeing as I was better behaved then most kids in my neighborhood and Santa rewards good children, it just didn't add up.

How ya doing, buddy?

Our family does practice that but not for long really. Only grandma would care enough to pen her gifts as "Santa". The more expensive gifts became obvious when you're forced to write thank you notes to.

And then when I was 9, after moving and living poor, we were getting gifts from a lot of people we don't even know. There was a class at a high school that donated clothes to us as well as new bikes and our bus driver gave us 2 new skateboards. I knew then, Santa isn't real but he exists in those people.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Forbes Fictional 15 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Check out #1 for 2005. Man, that would be a hard way to find out.

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On the contrary, I think finding out Brazil-esque would be traumatizing enough.

FELIPE NO

I remember actually asking my parents one Christmas if I could sleep on the couch in the living room, where I'd have a perfect view of the Christmas tree. They said no, of course, but I think that was that same Christmas where I found out Santa isn't real. My nose was really stuffy that night, and as a result, I couldnt sleep because I couldnt breath very well. I saw the light in the dining room on, snuck into the hallway, and saw my mom wrapping oddly shaped presents.

The next day, I noticed that those strangely shaped presents (they were Furbys, in crazy octagon shaped boxes) were marked from Santa... then I noticed the smaller things, like how Santa's handwriting matched my mom's, and how the wrapping paper Santa used happened to be the same we've used to wrap presents for cousins.

I wasnt disappointed, so much as worried that my parents would just give up on the illusion and not buy as many presents. My mom still marks some presents from Santa.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I honestly never believed it. I guess I was just too logical of a child to think that a man could fly around in a sleigh and visit all the good little boys and girls in one night. Plus, my mother and father always put their names on my presents anyway.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

But every child needs these belief shattered, it's part of growing up!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I was around 8 y/o, when I started suspecting it, on that xmas we knew where santa would be "dropping off" the loot (he was too busy to stay), so when the doorbell rang I walked to the other side of the house and there was mom with snowy shoes "hmmmm".

Years later I still liked to fool my little bro on this santa business, by faking boot marks on the balcony etc. Good times.

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I don't remember how I found out about Santa Claus, but I discovered the Tooth Fairy was a lie when I lost a couple of teeth and put them under my pillow without telling my mom about it and after three days they hadn't gone anywhere. I think I was about 7.

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Your mother must not be terribly observant if she didn't notice you were missing several teeth.

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I was about eight and on my way to church. I asked my parents "Does Santa really exist?" and then said no. I proceeded to cry like a little bitch on purpose to get a rise out of them.


Yeah, I was a little twerp.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

You know, I can't really remember when I stopped believing in Santa. I used to hang socks, leave notes and food for him. But I think it stopped when I found out that it was my parents who were getting us gifts. It wasn't a big deal, at least we were able to negotiate with our parents what our Christmas presents would be.

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I guess I was 6 or 7 when I found out Santa wasn't real. I didn't want to believe it, but I soon let go of the whole image of there being a Santa. I guess I didn't care much for Santa, but whenever we would have these family parties and the adults would make a big fuss about Santa I'd tend to roll my eyes just because I got sick of him.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

My mom sat me down before school when I was but a youngling and said: "There is no Santa Claus. It's made up. Don't tell the other kids because blahddy blah blah morals blah blah blah their parents choice blah blah blah."

I crushed some kid's spirits at recess when I revealed his parents were fucking liars.

Jam it back in, in the dark.