How old were your kids when the topic of Santa came up?

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buckytom

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i was wondering how old were your kids when they started questioning the reality of santa claus?

the reason i ask is my boy started talking about it, mentioning that one of the little bastids in his 2nd grade class was telling the other kids that santa isn't real, and that parents buy the presents and eat the cookies and carrots that were left out for the jolly old guy and his reindeer.

i was hoping that we could get one more christmas out of believing in santa, so i told my son to tell that kid to start sleeping in the bathroom so he would get used to being incarcerated, his inevitable future (his parents are low lifes...).

so how old were your kids when the questions started, and how did they find out?
 
I had older siblings, so I was probably told fairly young. Don't really remember, so that tells you how young I must have been.
My youngest daughter was afraid of Santa, so one year on her xmas letter to him was a request that he should just leave the gifts outside on the front porch and he needent come in the house. I guess the thought of a big dood in a red suit and long white beard lurking around the house while everybody slept freaked her out a bit too much.:LOL:
So, I guess, when she was finally told about him not being real she was probably quite relieved.
 
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lol, while i loved the santa depicted in the red suit, i was afraid of the ones that had him in long white furry robes or in what looks like old style european hunting clothes. somehow, i pictured those as the santas that took bad kds away to work in his sweatshops, driven to work by those creepy little elves. :huh:
 
Tom, I'm not really sure when this happened. My two daughters are 4 years apart. When the older was in second or third grade, she asked the question at the dinner table one night in December. I saw my younger daughter's open wide and a look of anguish appear on her face. I had been dreading this moment and didn't want to ruin it for the younger one.

So when she asked if Santa was real, I responded with, "What do you think?". She hesitated before responding that there must be a Santa Claus because we couldn't afford to buy her all those presents! I responded that that settled the issue. Everyone at the dinner table was relieved.

I was more than willing to trade being considered poor for another year of belief. When it finally happened, it was kind of without fanfare and just became a fact of life.
 
I'm not sure when our daughter came to the realization, but I distinctly remember an extended family Christmas get together with her cousins when she was about 8 or 9. All of us adults were in one room and the kids were in the other, when I overheard one of older boys tell the other kids that Santa wasn't real. I half expected our daughter to come bursting into the room in tears, but instead I heard her quietly whisper, "I already know that, but let's not tell anyone. If our moms and dads find out we know, we might not get any more presents."

The little capitalists are smarter than we give them credit for. :ROFLMAO:
 
It was about grade 4 for us. I could have smacked the snotty brat who told my eldest. She was heartbroken. The only thing that helped her through was my statement that every year, things appeared in her stocking or under the tree that I did not purchase or put there. It helped that we saw the weirdest light on Christmas eve over my MIL's house, streaking north. :shock: We hustled home pretty fast that night!!!
 
My oldest boy was around 8 (3rd grade) when he said he didn't think Santa was real. We never really played up the Santa Claus aspect of Christmas (writing letters etc.) but we did do the sitting on Santa's lap thing. I asked my son how he knew Santa wasn't real. When he couldn't come up with a good answer he decided to do an "experiment." He wrote a note to Santa, left out cookies and milk for him and carrots and lettuce for the reindeer. In the note, he said he wasn't sure about Santa's existence. That Christmas, my brother and sisters were arriving after midnight Christmas eve. My brother wrote an answer to all my son's questions, my sisters ate the cookies and drank the milk. We all ate the carrots and lettuce. Of course my son was convinced!! He didn't know my brother's handwriting but would have recognized mine or his dad's. We got about 2 more years out of it. By then his little brother was 6 and he faithfully kept up the deception until his brother decided he was too old for Santa around age 9.
 
I would guess I was around 7 (too logical), my parents got me into the conspiracy and it took my sisters (more gullible) a couple years longer to find out. All three of us were included when my brother came along. He was 7 years younger than the youngest of us girls. We were able to keep him going until he was 10.

And of course there was a Santa, he brought my Daddy home from Okinawa just in time for Christmas. I was 5.
 
My son was 3 the first time he questioned Santa. An uncle, who we thought he didn't know very well dressed up as Santa and delivered a bag of toys for the cousins. Jr recognized his voice even if the beard and all confused him. I don't remember when next it was an issue, but there was not alot of crying and disappointment. There is a time when Kids all take everything too literally. We just stepped over that one and Santa Still fills the stockings sometime overnight on Christmas Eve.

I think it's time to pull out a copy of Miracle on 34th Street.
 
Anna was about 10, but as to the Answer: I know Santa well he is my Twin Brother , I take over for him when he isn't feeling well. You met me, you know it must be true, have I ever steered you wrong :blink:

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When Nancy was in 2nd grade the other kids told her that Santa is your parents, and she said that she knew Santa was real because her mom couldn't afford nice presents. The others all said, "Oooooooh!"

Nancy asked a couple times if Santa was real. My response was always, "What do you think?" The first time she said she thought he was real. The summer between 4th and 5th grade she asked me, and when I asked, "What do you think?" she said she thought it was really me and my mom and dad. I told her the whole truth then. That Christmas was our worst ever. She was SO Bah-Humbug! The following Christmas she got back into the true spirit of Christmas though. :)
 
i had this history teacher one year, a humorless, exacting sort, who told us one day that his three year-old son already knew there was no santa claus. he explained that telling his son the truth about life, as soon as he was able to understand it, was only the right and sensible thing for him to do as a parent. bah, humbug!!
 
i had this history teacher one year, a humorless, exacting sort, who told us one day that his three year-old son already knew there was no santa claus. he explained that telling his son the truth about life, as soon as he was able to understand it, was only the right and sensible thing for him to do as a parent. bah, humbug!!

That is okay for his kid, not good for other's kids. How unfair, even as logical and exacting I was as a child, I was still able to fantasize and believe. Life has flavor!
 
That was funny, AB.

I can't help you in the kid department, Tom, but I clearly remember being the only kid in first grade who knew there wasn't a Santa. And I know no one in second grade still believed in him, not in my school... maybe because of me, lol.
 
I know that I never believed in Santa, not through any doings on my parents' part, just didn't. They did all they could to get me to believe, but finally just took me aside and told me on no uncertain terms that I was not to ruin it for my siblings (I was the oldest), cousins, friends. That Santa was a spirit of good in all of us. As far as I remember, I never let anyone in on my secret and enjoyed the whole charade.
 
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