Ask Lemmy

I never grew up with him. So it was never a question for me.

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.

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.

We don't celebrate Christmas. It took me very long to realize that there are children who actually believe in Santa.

What? You're saying he isn't real? Who punched Arius at the Council of Nicea in 325ad?

Jokes aside.... Sigh... I was 12, it was when I googled it

5. We had no chimney and future tech person me saw right through it.

Honestly I never really did. I asked some kid in 5th grade what Santa got him for Christmas and he scoffed at me for still believing. I went, "uhhhh yes... this is information I definitely already knew. Yesssssss..." and never really brought it up with anyone again. ¯\(ツ)/¯

I was born low class family from Peru. Nobody has chimneys there, I knew the fucker was avoiding us.

I was probably 7 or 8.

I lost a tooth and put it under my pillow without telling my parents. Toothfairy never came.

Didn't believe in any of the mythical things after that.

Edit: Oh and we play along. He's 14 and definitely knows but the wife enjoys it more than he does. So he's milking it and I applaud him for it.

Santa is real; he comes to your bedroom to give you wishes and take your soul...

I think I spelled that right...

I realized the note from the Easter bunny was in my father’s handwriting. I felt “in on the joke” and remember that applying to other holidays like Xmas too. I must have been 6 or 8.

Six. My lone Jewish friend told me. It was a big old fucking bummer.

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 got visit from saint nicolas. And i knew the truth at about 8. We did not have a coca cola commercial to celebrate 25/12. So for that one i do not have a age .

Atm Some kids here know it in 1st year off school ( not kindergarden ) so about 6/7. They talk so when the next year is there : about 90 % knows it. And the year after that it is not more expected to have believers in the klas.

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.

A bit before I started questioning religion. 9-10 years old?

I was a skeptic since at least the age of six. I remember having to write a letter to Santa in first grade and basically wrote down I didn't believe in him. I wouldn't want to teach my kids the "Santa is real" nonsense, otherwise they might believe God is too.

I remember my mate at school when I was 6 or so telling me your mum and dad let him. Can’t remember anything beyond that.

Late teens.

Let children still have the fun into believing into a Santa when the majority of us know that it's us providing the gifts. It's about as much of an asshole thing to do, when you tell a kid during Halloween that they really aren't as they're dressed as.

I don't know what you're talking about. The only people that believe Santa Claus isn't real or the people who have no joy in their lives.

Even if you say you don't believe he's real there's a part of you that thinks that he might be real and you know it.

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