When did You Stop Believing in Santa?

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I stopped believing in him when I was 4. And I would always snicker when my younger sister would get in trouble and my parents would threaten to call Santa and tell him not to bring any presents this year so she would be good.

4th grade.

I have little cousins staying at my house tonight and the sitting room has just been prepared for santa. I can't wait to see their faces in the morning

I remember when the rumours first started in school. It started like a silly philosophy, innocent until a few kids at the top of the food chain became unbelievers too. Asantyism was enforced ruthlessly with weeks of hard ridicule for dissenters. Us believers came together in secret to discuss our evidence and look forward to Christmas. We supported eachother through tough times, talked about hoof prints in the snow, bells at night and soot on the carpet.

In the end, I looked it up in an encyclopedia. I don't know what age I was, maybe 8 or 10. I remeber the feeling though. I was on the border between childhood and everything else, and this was what growing up would be like. Priviledge and entitlement, one after the other, taken taken taken. Swapped for more homework and a weariness that that slowly crept into all corners of life.

3rd grade. Thanks friend.

I guess I was about 6. Life has just never seemed as jolly since then

waddya mean? santa's no real?

When I stopped getting presents from him!

I never lived in a home with a chimney. And I knew my grandparents wrapped the "Santa" presents because those presents were only wrapped that way at their house. So I kind of never fully believed in Santa. The concept never really made sense.

8. I was far too smart for my own good, and Radiohead were on a repeat of Conan that night and I heard nothing until I caught my mom and older sisters taking presents out of the closet at 1:30 (they didn't know I was up) and they were surprised that the only reason I was upset was because they continued a thinly veiled lie for so long. After this, I frequently accompanied my mom and big sisters to K-Mart/Wal Mart/Ann & Hope* to buy everyone's gifts. Through this I was able to swindle a Millennium Falcon playset out of my mom when I was nine - which my mom had always done before, insisting that she was buying presents to ship up to Santa using layaway, which I did not understand at the time (and since it was discontinued at Wal Mart a few years ago, most people don't). My younger sister stopped believing at 9 (only two years after I did) when she realized that "Santa" writes the letter "S" just like I do and cried and cried and cried. The youngest of my sisters (yup i'm the middle child of five, and the other four are all girls) still believes at 10, which is astonishing. She's actually the only person who believes in Santa in her whole class.

* a local department store chain which was the first "big box" department store chain in the United States. Even though they're fair superior to Wal Mart, and it was an influence on the founders of K Mart and Wal Mart, both of which traveled to Rhode Island to visit the stores and were turned down in their offers to operate Ann & Hope franchised stores in their respective home states.

August 25, 1996. Age 5. My dad reminded me recently that it was the day that I randomly approached him and asked for the truth about Santa Claus. It eventually led to a discussion about Jesus, and I felt the Holy Spirit for the first time that night as my parents tucked me into bed.

Fellow Christians will know what I'm talking about - the feeling of being Saved.

My mom told us from about 3 that Santa wasn't real. Her reasoning? We were poor and she didn't want to have to bother with buying extra presents.

You guys don't do Toys for Tots?

nope, didn't even know they had programs like that till I was 13 and my dad signed up for it for his ex's(they were together at the time) kids.

I grew up in the 1970s, and I think I doubted there was a Santa in the 4th grade. My best friend still believed in Santa in the 5th grade because I remember an interesting incident at our school. We were in the same grade and class, and our 5th grade teacher told the whole class before Christmas vacation, "You all know there is no Santa Claus." Half of the class started crying. My friend turned to me and said, "Is that true?" I can't remember what I said for sure. But I do know that no one in the class believed in Santa anymore.

WAIT WHAT? WHEN WERE MY PARENTS PLANNING ON TELLING ME?!?

You mean he's fake? What! That can't be possible! (just kidding of course)