Did you believe in Santa?

[vorlon13]

Unless Santa lives outside of time ?!?!?!?


(cue Twilight Zone theme)

[Nope]

Though my parents told me that when I stopped believing in santa, I would stop receiving presents on Christmas. I told my friends this, and that if they caused me to stop getting Christmas presents through mockery or somethign else, I would make them suffer. So I didn't get mocked much by kids from my town when I as a ten+ year old said I believed Santa was real.

Isn't it strange that parents basically set their kids up to lie for presents? I bet there are many children who let their parents think they believe in order to keep receiving gifts.

[abaris]

No, I didn't believe in Santa, since he wasn't that popular in my region anyway. I believed in Christkind, which was his equivalent when I was little. Kind of an angelic winged little creature bringing stuff for kids to enjoy. I guess Santa's more popular now with the internet and him being associated with Coca Cola.

[paulpablo]

I basically believed until I thought about it.  I think I believed for about 1 year maybe.

The first problem really was that we had a gas fire, not an old traditional coal fire, yet my parents still said santa climbed down the chimney, but he had to then transform himself into being tiny to fit through the tiny gaps in the gas fire.  And he's doing this to every house in the world in one night.

I didn't really care who was giving me presents, some kids got really angry and upset about him not existing and it just seemed weird to me.

[Pyrrho]

...

I didn't really care who was giving me presents, some kids got really angry and upset about him not existing and it just seemed weird to me.

They are likely upset for multiple reasons.  They may be upset because they learned their worldview was wrong.  And they may be upset because the people who they most trusted in the world turned out to be untrustworthy liars.  And that much of the world is in on the conspiracy to sucker them into having false beliefs.  I would have been angry with my parents if they had lied to me about such a thing.  As it is, it gave me an appreciation for the fact that most people are untrustworthy liars, who go out of their way to reinforce the belief in their lies.

Since children typically do not care where presents come from, there is no excuse for the lies.

[robvalue]

If I had kids, I don't think I'd want to make up stories about Santa. I think my wife would feel differently! Luckily we're not having little bastards kids. I'm not fond of lies, even "harmless" ones. But I don't consider it to be a huge deal, I suppose it could even be used as a weird lesson in critical thinking.

[Jericho]

As a child, I believed in Santa up until I was about 7 years old.

During school that year, a lot of my friends had said that their parents told them that Santa wasn't real. Me, being infatuated with the idea of a cookie-loving man with presents, called them all liars and told them that they were all going to get coal.

Well that year at Christmas Eve, I was in the car with my mother on our way home from the store. I wanted to ask her if Santa was real, but I was afraid that by even asking that question I would get coal. Through tears, I finally asked the question and the answer I got from her was not what I wanted to hear in the slightest. She said to me (with all seriousness):

"No, he isn't real, and he never was. At least now we won't have to give you as many presents as you usually get."

And then she laughed...in the face of her 7 year old son. From that point, I became extremely skeptical of everything that anyone ever told me. It wasn't until recently that I applied that same skepticism to religion, but I am glad that I did.

Fuck fairy tales...

[Minimalist]

Yeah...until I was 4.  Sadly, took a little longer to figure out that 'jesus' was a pile of shit, too.

[robvalue]

Your mother really gave you less present Jericho, because you'd figured it out? That's mean

[Jericho]

Yeah, my childhood wasn't the most joyful. But hey, if it weren't for some of those experiences, I may not have been in this position today.

Thank Cthulhu for that!