Humor me. I have an hypothesis that kid’s who figured out young that Santa wasn’t real are more likely to become atheist. You get told about Santa and God at a time when you’ll believe anything. I remember being in Kindergarten and being happy that Santa was going to visit only because I knew we’d be getting candy and shit. Then the town Sheriff stepped out of his marked car in a Santa suit in full view of the big windows that ran the length of the room. Even that didn’t seem to dissuade many of my fellow classmates. I’d figured out sometime before that Santa didn’t pass the smell test. Just wondering if being a cynical little bastard and figuring out Santa was a lie at a young age was a common trait among atheist.
NUP.
Would like to see stats for that.
I figured out Father Christmas*** wasn’t real when I was 8. Continued to pretend I believed lest the presents stopped.
As soon as we could understand, my parents told we four kids that the presents weren’t free. That mummy and daddy had to pay for them. That put a dampener on the wish list, and removed disappointment over presents which were not forthcoming.
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***Santa Claus with his red and white suit and big white beard was invented the the coca cola company… European notions of St Nicholas/ Father Christmas/ Santa Klaus were quite dark. The legend/myth of Swarte Piet is interesting.
I think I was about 3 or 4. Certainly pre-school. I have a very good memory that begins around age 3. I used to freak my mom out with details I could recall about my live as a toddler.
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My cynicism didn’t start with Santa. It started with the Easter Bunny and that was largely due to the fact that I owned two rabbits. I was a naïve five year old. Such close proximity and familiarity with Oryctolagus cuniculus led me to the suspicion they might not have anything to do with chocolate or eggs.
Actually the penny dropped when my grandma told me rabbits were mammals and females produced milk. After a long pause I asked, “Chocolate milk? For eggs?” She shook her dear grey locks and said “For fuck sake!” She peered at me over her glasses. “Think about it.” I did think about it and I experimented and before I knew it, I didn’t believe in Santa, the tooth fairy, bunyips or yowies. And that’s why I am a proud atheist today, because I realised not a single hollow chocolate Easter egg was ever made from the milk of a rabbit because they are so damn hard to milk. I tried it. It was murder. I was lucky to survive.
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I never grew up with Christmas 
Poor poor me.
Lol 
I never missed it. BUT now that I do enjoy the season, I think back to how much $$$ my asshole parents saved AND I never received benefit from! 
Thank goodness you didn’t think those bunnies were making you Hershey kisses.
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Yeah…about that…my brother told me that’s where I would find the chocolate…I knew he was wrong…far too bitter and really difficult to swallow.
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In the home I grew up in; it was considered foolish to attribute real world events to supernatural causes. I was never a theist, and I never believed in Santa.
The most ridiculous thing I can remember believing was that if you take your money to the bank they will make it grow. Of course I had been told this, but I took it too literally. So when I went to the bank; I asked to see the machine that stretched the money (that physically made the money grow), because I was curious how it worked. 
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Drop bears Cranky? Of course I do. I still have the scars of my one encounter. Ever since, I never go bushwalking without a steel helmet and metal club.
The drop bears get a cushy ride on the popular PR reputation of the related sub species of the cuddly koala bear. The truth is far more ghastly.
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Oh indeed.
My battalion had a stuffed one in the Sergeant’s Mess.
In 1970. I was based in Singapore. There was a huge servicemen’s club right opposite Raffles Hotel. There was this bloke who was a legend. .He would go to The Britannia Club and get chatting to a GI on R&R. At some point, when the GI was suitably pissed, the legend would sell him a small bag of kangaroo feathers, for $US10.
When the GI would object with “—but kangaroos don’t have feathers”, legend would talk to him as if to an idiot child; “Well or course not, on the outside, the feathers line her pouch.” Sale would then be finalised.
I never worked out if the yanks were all that stupid or if they just bough the 'feather’s to have good story for years.
It saddens me that you missed out on Christmas pillow pug.
Its much like one of my childhood friends whose birthday was the 25th of December. Either he only got a birthday present or a Christmas present, but never both and never anything extra expensive or desirable to compensate, which I thought terribly unfair. His religious mother fobbed off his complaints with the explanation that his other present was the distinction of sharing Jesus’s birthday. He is now a confirmed atheist.
Pardon?
Each year we would receive one main present ,(a bike, my own radio) plus a pillow slip chock-a- block with smaller presents
I got underpants for xmas and socks on my birthday. My gramdma gave me hair oil on each. I was always a crew cut lad.
Farrck. Don’t think I would have thought much of that. Fortunately, my parents were each very generous of spirit and very sentimental. I didn’t appreciate their sacrifices for many years.
I got a flat top every summer. From age 11, in summer I also wore a red shirt, black jeans and a grey straw pork pie hat WITH blue flowery bandana. Far too cool to care what others thought. IE had not discovered girls.
During the year ,when I needed to comb my hair, I was rather patent leatherish about the dome thanks to lashings of Brylcreem.
We were definitely spoiled at xmas. Though I knew very early on I was being pranked about Santa, but ironically said nothing because I didn’t want to hurt my parent’s feelings by seeming ungrateful.
My mother took my brother and me to see “Santa” at the new COOP shopping centre in town, I must have been about 3 judging from the photo I still have. A few years later my parents woke me to meet Santa on xmas eve, as I was a light sleeper, but I have a near eidetic memory for faces, and of course noticed that he was, firstly one of our neighbours, and secondly not the santa at the COOP. He also had a clearly false beard etc, and then another year after some hunting around found presents in my parents bedroom one year. I also woke one xmas in the early hours when my dad and his best friend Jeff, made a little too much noise bringing in presents, they’d both had a few. I was no more than 6 by then and had pretty much pieced it all together.
I never felt the deception caused me any loss or pain though. My mother said when she was about 5, an older neighbour kid shouted it over the garden fence, and she burst into tears, apparently my uncle jumped over the fence and lamped him. Ho ho ho…
I shouldn’t laugh, but that story always tickled me, still does. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as a mean spirited bully getting instant karma I guess.
LOL… My sister was born on Christmas Eve. My brother was born on Father’s Day. Lucky me, I am a real gold brick born on “Flag Day.” My sister had the exact same experience. Packages marked, “Merry Christmas and a Very Happy Birthday too.” Sucks to be her.
Look at this proselytizing asshole. He’s a hypocrite. He says Santa aint real but Jesus is. Seeing as there’s no evidence to support Santa being real. There’s also no evidence of any kind supporting the existence of his skyfather or a fictional prophet either. Making this idiot a hypocrite. Further more, Christmas was a Roman pagan tradition that honored the pagan sun deity, Sol Invictus. Not his bullshit Abrahamic beliefs.
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What a complete fucking cunt, preaching their fairy tale isn’t enough for some people, they have to insist everyone else come’s along for the ride. Targeting small children like that is pathetic, it’s a shame someone didn’t drag his ass outside, and give him the slap he deserved.
With small children present it’s difficult, but I’d have been tempted to quietly laugh in his face, and tell him his deity was a myth, and that he could stick his religion up his arse. I’m pretty sure most of my grandchildren would have laughed at him, and I’d certainly have encouraged that. Then quietly told him to fuck off.
I don’t know if i “Believed” that Santa was real but i “Wanted” to believe Santa was real, so much so I tried to convince myself my sister was lying. This happened when I was eight years old i think i remember running outside with peporino because it’s all I could find and hid it in a spot I thought the rain deer would sniff out and find but not my parents. I thought it was a brilliant plan haha. Well, my sister turned out to be correct. I was devastated. Oddly enough I still pretended he was real for the sake of my parents. I don’t remember when I broke that cycle and stopped trying to make her happy exactly but it didn’t take long I’m sure but to know for sure I’d have to ask. I find it ironic that once I figured it out I understood that the concept of us believing was important to my mother so I pretended. I guess you could say around 8-9ish one could argue I was catching on around 7 though.