The Santa thread, Part 2 : Childhood revelations

[Blackrat]

I have no particular memory of ever believing in santa. I do however remember believing in easter bunny well after I turned ten. The giant bunny who brought chocolate eggs was way more logical for me than an old geezer with red coat bringing presents .

 

[Horacio]

It was November. I was seven years old. I was playing and I hid in my parents wardrobe... and I saw there the big present that Santa was supposed to leave for my little brother at Christmas...

 

[Olaf the Stout]

You see that one vote for 10-12? That was me. I believed up until middle school, which is when my parents decided I was too old and told me. I cried for that entire car ride. I was a gullible little sucker, I guess. The world just lost all its magic at that moment for me.

I see your 10-12 Merkuri and raise you a 13! Believe it or not, I was 13 and in my first year of High School in Australia before my parents told me that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. I remember my Mum crying when she told me, although I was pretty ambivalent about it (and so I should have been, I was 13 years old for crying out loud! ). I was a pretty bright kid so I don't know how I could marry up the whole flying around the world delivering presents to all the children in 1 night to the physical impossibility of that actually happening.

Looking back at it now, I think I "believed" in it, even though I probably knew deep down that it wasn't real. My friends at school used to give me so much crap about still believing in Santa but I didn't care. All I knew was that Santa gave me some kick-ass presents over the years and I didn't want to see them stop coming if I didn't believe in him anymore. I was just incredibly naive and gullible I guess!

I think my sister found out when she was about 10 (the year after I found out - I'm older). She was snooping through my parents room, looking for any Christmas presents that they had hidden away for us when she discovered a present with a tag saying it was to her from Santa. I busted her in the act and dobbed her in to my Mum who told her that Santa and the Easter Bunny didn't exist.

The best thing was 2 weeks later when she lost a tooth. She asked my Mum if she should put it out for the Tooth Fairy to collect (and get some money in return). My Mum said, "What for? There's no Tooth Fairy either!". My sister really shot herself in the foot on that one!

Olaf the (embarrassed) Stout

 

[Hijinks]

I resisted learning but eventually could resist no longer.

We were living in Africa (Liberia) and Santa talked to us on the CB radio that was run by the Marines of the US Embassy. For some reason, I didn't think a thing of it (I was 5 or so).

But then on Christmas Eve we were woken up by my dad's cursing as he tried to put together the Barbie Dream House *sigh*

 

[Seonaid]

I don't remember. Sometime before junior high. How old are kids then? I voted 10-12.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I remember clearly, mostly because of the trouble I got in.

6 years old I remember dimly that I'd been arguing about whether Santa was real with other kids in school. I was the one who didn't believe. So this time I set out to "prove" it. Probably helped that we lived in the deep south and things just didn't match up. Where was a sleigh going to land? How could he come through chimneys we didn't have a fireplace? And the beat-up travel trailer (caravan for Aussies) that we packed into during vacation was usually left unlocked during the spring and summer but suddenly got locked come autumn?

So I took some monofilament fishing line and treble hooks and made myself a Santa trap. You see our house had only one door, the front door, so I knew how the presents would arrive. Thus after dark Christmas eve I pretended to sleep long enough to fool my parents and slipped out the window in the dark and set a nice little snare bangled with about a dozen treble hooks anchored to the porch post just in front of the door. The spot where you naturally stepped to enter had worn into a little shallow bowl over time since the house was fairly old and filled up with sand so I buried the snare just barely under the surface. Then I returned to my room and waited.

Now my father used to have the habit of walking around barefoot so long as he wasn't going into town or at work (a habit I've picked up). So a little past midnight there was a huge commotion and I leapt up and opened my bedroom door to see my father sprawled in the doorway with the snare around his foot and calf. The loop didn't have enough to snare properly but the hooks latched on real good. That year Christmas was interrupted for a midnight emergency room visit to get stitches and spoiled the Santa thing for my younger brothers and sisters even if my older siblings just shook their heads. Then he got back and I was whipped as never before or since, don't recall ever needing to be whipped after that one. The suggestion alone was enough to make me change tack.

 

[Slapzilla]

I was 10.

I was angry too. It wasn't the biggest factor in my juvenile delinquency but it was an underlying factor in my GIANT sudden mistrust of adults and their so-called authority. I hated being a kid because of the general unfairness and indignity of sitting at the little table at Thanksgiving and other family events. Always having to go outside when the adults were whooping it up inside. Mr/Mrs Whatever to teachers and all the separations and 'other-ness' that is part and parcel with being a kid. I had always found the whole story a bit too fanciful, but why would anyone lie to me. I mean EVERYBODY telling the same lie was more preposterous to me than the old man in a red suit. Finding out I was lied to for no other reason than being kept a kid was infuriating. My parents were divorcing and I'd just hit middle school in a new city. 1980-81 was a bad Autumn/Winter for me and I took it out on everyone. This may sound dumb but I may have benefited from therapy.

I once overheard a mother on a bus say to her kid, "don't lie or Santa might miss our house this year...." I was 22 then and I just about got all Yosemite Sam on her. I could not believe what I'd heard. Wasn't my right to say anything but I wish I did.

I'm over the bitterness now (37 years old-I'd better be!) and if a kid asks me, I won't lie. I hate the idea of contributing to someone's disillusionment like that.

Even a kid's.

 

[Gilladian]

I don't remember believing in Santa, ever, but I remember being really puzzled when I figured out OTHER kids DID believe! I guess that was in 1st or 2nd grade.

I also remember trying to fool my parents into believing that I believed, because I wanted the "extra" present.

 

[Ranger REG]

I'm over the bitterness now (37 years old-I'd better be!)

Are you sure?

I've always wonder if anyone had a negative experience about finding the truth that at this time of the year, they would willingly ruin everyone else's holiday, like "Bad Santa to the 10th power."

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Are you sure?

I've always wonder if anyone had a negative experience about finding the truth that at this time of the year, they would willingly ruin everyone else's holiday, like "Bad Santa to the 10th power."

Obviously it would depend on the personality, but I gotta say that just hearing about really negative finding out stories more makes me want to drop hints in a subtle and positive way to help cushion the eventual finding out. Like "I love giving presents, it's a way of playing like I'm Santa myself and seeing how happy people are when they get them...."

It's kinda interesting, I was reading a Santa thread on another board just yesterday (one with a very different pool of participants) and every time someone had a bad finding out story, the blame was always laid squarely on the person who revealed it. It's like "I was so invested in a fiction that I cried for a day when my big brother revealed the truth." "Wow, what a [censored] move by your big brother! Hope he was punished by your parents!" WTF? Isn't it the parents' responsibility for allowing the kid to become so invested in something they know isn't true in the first place? They know he will find out someday, so if the kid is crushed by the truth, it's the fault of the fiction*, not the truth.

*I'll avoid the loaded term "lie" to try to skip that particular round.