Follow-up: For those with children, do you continue the ruse with your own children, or simply tell them it’s you who gives the gifts? Why or why not?
I don’t remember believing in Santa, so at the very least it wasn’t an important moment of my childhood. Writing letters isn’t a common thing where I live, instead we got a thick catalogue and circled everything we liked. I guess that made it pretty obvious from the very beginning.
Whether or not I’d lie to my hypothetical children… I don’t know. I guess I don’t care either way and would leave it up to my partner.
Being Jewish, we were told about this mishegas the moment we were able to hold cognitive thought
Wait…what?!
It was me who broke into your house. hehe
Spoilers, sweetie ;)
How will he ever recover?
Admittedly I don’t remember when I internalized it, but I remember one day during a car ride I’d told my mom, out of nowhere, completely unprompted, “Mom I don’t care if Santa is or ain’t real, please don’t tell me.” I don’t remember her response, but I was like 8, 9 or so I think.
At that point in time though, NORAD’s Santa tracker is what convinced me he must he real lol
To understand the gap between how Santa Claus (or Christmas) is understood and how it actually functions in modern capitalist society it is insufficient to see the problem simply as one of subjective ‘misunderstandings’ held by individuals, classes, or whole peoples. One must investigate the political economy which grounds, that is, which reflects that erroneous image of itself. The gap between the actual “capitalist” Santa and the ideological “communist” Santa is objective, it is required by the existing material relations of social production and reproduction. Capitalist ideology must disguise the cut-throat values of bourgeois individualism with the universalist values of Santa’s socialistic humanism.
-Carlos Garrido
I don’t remember a time when I truly believed that he was real. I remember thinking that it was my parents, but I didn’t want to believe that. I wanted to believe that there was a magic dude who would hook me up with presents. But it was illogical and we kept up with the whole thing, because I wanted my parents to enjoy it too.
I dont think I ever really believed. We lived in a trailer when I was a kid so there wasnt a chimney and Idk why but thats always what stood out to me as a kid. Also at that point there were so many christmas movies where the plot was people not believing and I think that also caused me to think there was a pretty valid reason behind that especially when they pointed out “how does he make it to all the kids houses around the world in one night.”
As a child I wasn’t good at accepting much of anything at face value. If I did ever believe I was quite young.
I think I was 3 the year my mom had to work as an Easter Bunny at a photo op to make ends meet, and I’m not sure much belief survived seeing the Easter Bunny rip its head off and reveal my mother inside.
I never grew up with him. So it was never a question for me.
I’m not sure I ever really believed a big fat man would slide down our chimney to deliver presents on his sleigh. The fantasy of it was fun though. For me it was a pretty smooth transition to not doing Santa stuff.
I think I was in my 20s when I realized that some people/kids actually believe in Santa. I was aware of Christmas/Santa, but that it was just a story nobody thought was real. At least I wasn’t the girl I met about that time who was telling her friends in first grade that Santa wasn’t real.
I belong to of those rare Christian sects that don’t believe in Christmas.
Around 4. The chimney in the house was to small to fit anything bigger than a fist; somehow my child mind refused to parse the notion of a very fat man sliding down it. Also, the roof was so inclined birds avoided it, so no chance of parking a sled and whatever number of reindeers up there.
I don’t push the tale as a fact but I did told it to many children as something we should cherish as a symbol of good will and kindness toward each other. The legend of Odin (the original santa) is always a success and I tell it in the most epic way I find, whith Sleipnir ridding the storm clouds in the Great Hunt.
Legends should inspire, not create delusions, is what I go for.
The legend of Odin (the original santa) is always a success and I tell it in the most epic way I find, whith Sleipnir ridding the storm clouds in the Great Hunt.
I would watch this holiday stage play every year.
I questioned it around 8 and fully stopped believing around 10. When you behave and ask for the same gift three years in a row you start to wonder. Before that I believed that he was magic and was incredibly fast.
Years ago I didn’t want to teach my children about Santa because of the Christian connections, but then I realized why we have holidays over winter. If it makes them happy I’ll do it, but I’ll also be teaching them about all the other connections to pagan religions when they’re old enough to understand.
Why do you need Santa at all? Why not just teach them, every year around this time we give gifts to each other
Same reason why we have the tooth fairy.
Same reason why we create all sorts of other things for kids. To allow kids to be kids and have fun. To help them see the good in the world before we rip the rug out from under them, and show them the world just plain fucking sucks.
I think lying to kids is how you hurt them.
Kids can have fun without that lie: “Let’s make cookies together and eat them. Let’s hang up stockings and put surprises in them for each other. Let’s decorate a tree and make a fun video”.
You do you. I don’t see it as a lie, but again you raise your kids as you want.
Same to you! What’s a little trauma, right? They’ll grow out of it.
If that’s enough to cause them trauma, I kind of feel sorry for any kid with that thin of skin.
Being lied to by your protector and guardian is enough to traumatize anyone at that age. You shouldn’t be shaming the people who get hurt by it, you should be shaming the people that do it.
What I wanna know is who are all these people claiming that Santa Claus is not fucking real!?
Of course he’s real.
pretty early. 5 or 6. religious celebration salad + small thinking just won’t let that pass through. it became a family in-joke after.
philosophy class got me a glimpse of adulting and got me believing again.
I get what you mean. Christmas was never about the religious aspect for me, but about family getting together, the holiday cheer, and exchanging gifts. Also, booze and huge meals.
I’m an atheist, but I still celebrate Christmas.
