When your kids were little did you indulge in this fantasy with them or were you like the mother from Miracle on 34th Street and told them flat out that Santa was like a fairy tale?

We were indulged in it, we believed it as kids, I don't really know how whole heartedly we did though...when we were 9 and 4, our next door neighbor dressed up as Santa Claus and surprised us that Christmas Eve and there's still a photograph that captured the utter SHOCK and AWE on my face, I couldn't believe it, Santa Claus came to our house. But immediately after he had left, I had figured out who it was, even though everybody said 'oh no, he had to go to work', and I kind of believed that but I still knew who it was. But for all that we did think Santa was real, we never wrote letters and we never put out milk and cookies, which when I was little I thought was kind of odd.

How about everyone else?

We were indulged, and we still indulge my younger nieces and nephews. I was very young when I found out he wasn't real. I don't remember how I found out.

I was a little different in that I continued to believe in Santa even after noticing all the different ones in stores, because I considered them all his "helpers". Perhaps one of them told me that, or maybe even Mom.

And, yes, I went along with the Santa bit with mine. I can't imagine NOT.

Bluesmama wrote:

I was a little different in that I continued to believe in Santa even after noticing all the different ones in stores, because I considered them all his "helpers". Perhaps one of them told me that, or maybe even Mom.

And, yes, I went along with the Santa bit with mine. I can't imagine NOT.

Reminds me of How the Flintstones Saved Christmas, Barney drops coins in every Santa's kettle and tells Fred 'he's here, he's there, he's everywhere, just to be safe I want to choose them all because one IS the real Santa Claus'.

My kids were still very young when I killed Santa, the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny while I was at it. That Christmas as the kids finished opening their presents my oldest looked up and said "Is that all?". I sat all of them down and let them know mom and dad had to pay for those presents. The next Christmas we heard "thank you" from all of them!

I found out when my second grade teacher told us!

My son found out at about age nine. We had my friend's kids here for the weekend and one of them lost a tooth. So my son figured it out when the tooth fairy found the tooth here when the boy wasn't at his own house. So, my son and I had that conversation and I was glad he knew for sure without it coming from an older friend or something.

My daughter believed in him until she was about nine years old; I suspect that she had her suspicions about his existence for quite some time before that, but I think nine is the last time I remember her saying Santa Claus's name.

Suzi wrote:

My kids were still very young when I killed Santa, the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny while I was at it. That Christmas as the kids finished opening their presents my oldest looked up and said "Is that all?". I sat all of them down and let them know mom and dad had to pay for those presents. The next Christmas we heard "thank you" from all of them!

You know, the funny thing is as far back as I remember, we knew that our presents, or most of them, came from our parents. So in retrospective I guess it's no wonder we were always kind of skeptical because we never wrote letters, never put out cookies, he came to our house twice that we saw him, and our parents got us our presents, but for a while we still believed. Though I put it all together a long time before 9, I was actually surprised when my girl friend who was also 9 that year, asked what I was going to ask Santa for for Christmas. I was like 'huh?'

I knew there was no Santa when I was about 5. My parents didn't kill them off, but I suspected they knew I knew. I played along with the charade with the adults for a little while, but I always knew the truth. My mother was the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny.