When did you learn
4When did you learn Santa wasn't real?
It is kind of discussed in the elf thread, but thought I'd start a completely separate thread (maybe there was one started but I'm sick and don't feel like searching).
I found out Santa wasn't real during a Christmas episode of Home Improvement. I remember crying and just utter disbelief. (Yes this was some 25ish years ago). I think that was at the point where I learned that I didn't like secrets and surprises. So it ruined me in some aspects personally.
Yet I still teach my kids about Santa, only because of their mother. Also because I think there might be a lesson in giving someone a gift as Santa (because you want to) without expectation of a thanks or thank you card (look now I've referenced two threads). The middle child knew at 8 and a half, the others at 10 and 7 still don't know.
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@thismyusername not to threadjack, but to my mind, the ONLY way the santa story works(1 man, delivering toys to EVERY house in the world, in 1 night), is if He's a Timelord, or at least in possession of a TARDIS.
heck, the whole workshop could be inside.
Someone's naughty there and going to get Coal from Santa...
Sure, you're thinking the fat man in a sleigh that rides around and occasionally has helpers/ companions like Odd Squad/Garfield & Odie/Krampus....
Wow that escalated quickly....
But couldn't it be more? Like just going and helping the neighbor clear off their driveway one morning and not taking credit for it, or Buying presents for toys for kids/tots... There are tons of ways that little things "add up" to "Santa Clause."
Growing up I didn't have a lot of money... I know one of the years that I was older, but still in k-12, We really didn't have much... We didn't have much in the way for a special "Christmas dinner" It was probably going to be the usual stuff that we had on hand. Someone, We don't know who, cause we weren't fast enough to catch who it was... Rang the bell and left... We were used to this happening occasionally, but when we opened up the door, there between the screen door and the door was a gift card for a grocery store. It had $50 on it. Well... That was plenty enough to make our Christmas dinner.
I don't like sharing these personal stories about how things used to be. They aren't that rough now. But I do try to make sure that I donate to the food shelves, and try to repay that kindness to others. Someone, I really don't know who, just thought to do something nice. Which made our Christmas that year. So maybe we're all Santa's helpers....
@sohmageek Nailed. Santa is the spirit of Christmas embodied by people going out of their way to be kind during the season. Some of those people would have been kind without the holiday spirit to bolster them, but others are inspired by the joy of celebration and this inspiration is exactly what makes Santa a real thing in the world.
A great example of the joy of giving to others without expectation of anything in return. Totally Santa.
@Thumperchick no don't nail me. Someone else had that. Or is that Easter....
@sohmageek this isn't the holiday where we nail a former goat to a sleigh as a sacrifice to Krampus?
I'm still not throughly convinced that santa is not real. But publicly I give in to peer pressure to deny his existence.
I believe in Santa.
@Barney
@Barney I believe in you too
@Santa Aww, I love you Santa!
@Thumperchick If only...
Come to think of it, I should have started out with
"When did you learn the Truth about Santa?"
Saying he isn't real, doesn't allow for the various meanings of Santa, like @sohmageek shared.
I believe in vunter slaush
http://southpark.cc.com/clips/387411/vunter-slaush
I think I was six, old enough to piece things together. I have four siblings, so it wasn't much of a secret.
I didn't really try to convince my son, he is entirely too smart. His grandmother tried to get him into it, but he wasn't buying the whole Santa business.
I have no idea when I stopped believing in Santa. As I mentioned elsewhere, life is a series of reimaginings and it all just blends together into one big journey in my head. For whatever reason, this waypoint isn't at all memorable.
Something that is somehow nostalgic for me is that around the age of four or five, I remember that I somehow got it in my head that our Christmas lights shining through my bedroom window were reindeer noses (a la Rudolph). This even though I also saw them as they were or just hanging in the daylight.
So that's another thing, I think part of my early religious programming (that still persists) included cognitive functionality to view any thing as simultaneously another thing. As in, yes, I see those lights and that they're strung together and plugged in to an outlet. That doesn't mean that they aren't also (or don't magically coincide with) reindeer noses or fairies or angels dancing or aliens visiting.
Do others with a religious upbringing have this programming (yeah, I'm stuck on that paradigm right now)?
Here are bits of Blake (experienced much later in life) that affirmed this aspect of my world view:
@joelmw Ahh, Christmas lights. My birthday is on Christmas and when I was a little kid, I thought all of the Christmas lights were put up to celebrate MY birthday (and yes, I went to Sunday school every week). But in my little childlike mind, I also thought that everyone had lights to celebrate their birthdays, even though it never occurred to me that I had never seen any lights except at Christmas.
When I was around five years old, I put all the facts together about the lights. And cried. I cried not because the lights weren't for me, but because other people didn't have lights for their birthdays.
I was a weird little kid.
@Barney And now you're a weird adult. But that's a good thing.
@jaremelz I can't help it that I have the I.Q of a rabbit, but I do make up for it with having the faith of a child.
@Barney I'm with @jaremelz on this. We need more weird kids like you. Speaking of weird kids, you and @christinewas should get together on the the Christmas birthdays (hers isn't the exact day, but close enough).
And every indication I've seen suggests that you've got a high IQ, so stop that silly talk.
@joelmw And you my friend, @joelmw, are a great guy and I think your kid is the bestest. You done good.
@Barney She is the bestest. Her mom gets most of the credit, but I'll allow that I contributed a few good chromosomes and a couple of essential habits and didn't mess up too much. I mean, I messed up a little, but she survived.
And thank you for your kindness. I won't argue the other bit, though part of me thinks I should.
In third grade, we performed this song, wonder if I can find a link...
I did I did
And it made me question it. Now, this was 1963
When I was five my uncle told me, but I didn't believe him.
But when I was seven, a toy that I had already found days earlier in a closet my mom told me not to look in ended up under the tree from Santa.
I once asked my parents why they never get me anything for Christmas
still didn't figure it out
My son, against my best wishes, occasionally reads Meh, so you can come over and deal with the fallout you've created.
Fuck. Me.
@Pavlov I wonder if kids these day's just google "Is Santa real"
@Pavlov "Non-believers don't get it. A lot of grown ups forget and stop believing, isn't that sad?" Bam.
I wasn't ever told he was real.