Strange, momentous day...

Perks

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I had to, at a celebratory dinner, concede and explain to my eight-year-old daughter that there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy.

It went... well.

Much incredulous excitement and revelations lighting up throughout the meal:

"You hide all the Easter Eggs?" hissed at me so that her four-year-old sister can't hear.

She barely ate, because something new occurred to her every second bite.

"You write the labels on all the presents?!"

"You sneak the money and charm in when I lose a tooth?!"

"You bought us Webkinz?!"

And you should have seen her face when I told her that I eat Santa's cookies and the reindeer's carrots. And that they do not go well together, so it's quite a chore and that she can take over that duty in two and a half months time.
 
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Sage

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I had to, at a celebratory dinner, concede and explain to my eight-year-old daughter that there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy.
What? :e2cry:
 

Susie

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Oh, no! Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy don't exist? :D Glad she took it well.
 

Pat~

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You told her at the dinner table? Brave soul! :D (I bet you also discuss politics and religion without any problem.)
 

Perks

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You told her at the dinner table? Brave soul! :D (I bet you also discuss politics and religion without any problem.)
Lol! I have a deplorable habit of launching into graphically gross stories at the table and have to rein myself in - frequently.

The answer was already there in the "we'll talk about this later" so I just went for it. It was nice and noisy, somehow festive and private all at the same time, so really, a fairly fun discussion.

I just put her to bed (late night for here, she's usually long asleep by now) and she asked if I was disappointed that she knew. I'm not. I always knew this would happen and it was a happy exercise figuring out how to tell her how much fun it's been and how much fun it'll be having her as a helper for these next few years while her sister still believes.

It was a good time.
 

brokenfingers

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I don't think there's anything so wondrous as the light of discovery in a child's eyes.

Thanks for a charming and touching story, Perkolet. :)
 

Soccer Mom

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I was furious when I found out there was no Santa and raged at my mother that it was "Horrible to lie to little children."

Then she told me I could help play Santa and suddenly it was okay to like to little children again, as long as I was the one doing it.



I suspect that my 8yo knows, but is keeping up the pretense. I'm not sure whom he's humoring--me or his little brother.
 

Carole

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You know, I don't think we ever had that talk with the boys. Yep - just confirmed it with son #1. He tells me that he and Seth figured it out before they started school and kept up appearances for my sake. The darlings. :)

I thought I did really well making it believable for them, too. We told them that daddy and I bought the presents and Santa filled their stockings. Apparently I didn't fo good enough of a job at it :D.
 

brokenfingers

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I don't actually remember believing also, but I'm sure I did at one point.

I do remember my brother and I laying in our beds in the middle of the night listening to our parents wrap the gifts every year. Talk about agony. :D
 

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My parents didn't ever have a conversation with me about it. We were shopping without my sister, & they said, "This year Santa's going to get Megan..." whatever it was.
 

Maryn

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We never did Easter baskets, but our kids bought into Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Oddly, our son believed in the Tooth Fairy long after he knew Santa was me and his daddy. (Santa uses our gift wrap? Right.) This was because one night the Tooth Fairy had been sharing a bottle of wine and just plain forgot. The next night he wrote her a note asking if she were real, and she answered that she'd had such a terribly busy night that she just plain couldn't get to all the boys and girls who'd lost a tooth, but she knew he had everything he needed, including patience, and thanked him for waiting while she took care of poor children first. He wrote her back that he understood now.

Maryn, who still has the notes
 

sunna

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I believed quite thoroughly, until I took part in a serious discussion about the reality of Santa with some of my classmates, at the age of 6. There were many dissenting opinions, but the clincher was my next-door neighbor, a world-weary girl a year older, who confidently announced that Santa had been real hundreds of years ago, until he slid down the wrong chimney and burned to death.

Her parents were a bit odd, I recall. :)
 

Siddow

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How horrible to hear it from your mother instead of figuring it out on your own!

My husband never believed in Santa, mostly because he never came, but he always came to my house and now my husband is a believer again.

I think it's just as wonderous to see the light in an adult's eyes when they discover that they can create magic. :D
 

poetinahat

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I still enjoy keeping up the charade. It was understood for years that everyone knew, but we, unspoken, continued the rituals. Why not? We've never had to speak about it. With my own kids, who knows? We'll see.

The thing is that we have a culture clash between my family and my wife's family. At Christmas, my family always gave presents to each other and opened them on Christmas Eve (Swedish tradition, from mom's mom's family). Then, on Christmas Day, we'd open the stockings (with smaller gifts). Hey, presto -- two days of presents, and no conflict about Santa!

If we spend Christmas together, we still do it that way. It's a fun ritual.

I never really saw these things as earth-shattering moments; perhaps I missed out on something. Then again, my dad was a dentist, so I never had any fear of the dentist either. That pretty much evens me out.
 

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We were never told the Santa Claus story when I was a kid. My mother (who's not wrapped all that tight) said that the Niño Jesus came at midnight, but he never showed and the same presents that were under the tree at 11:59 were there at 12:01. We had other traditions, the posadas, midnight mass and such, but no Santa, and I never told my kids the story either. So instead of getting, why have you lied to me?, we got, why doesn't Santa come to our house, are we naughty? Ya just can't win with the little boogers.
 

poetinahat

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How horrible to hear it from your mother instead of figuring it out on your own!
I'd think it's better to get it from the source than to find out from someone else, then agonising forever over whether to confront your own parents about the truth.

I'd much prefer hearing it from my parents than having some other kid telling me my parents are liars.

Remaining a 'believer' takes a certain degree of will power in the face of all sorts of evidence, and the obvious logistical impossibilities. We've already told our daughter (she asked too) that department store Santas are really Santa's helpers: he couldn't be at two malls at once, let alone visit every house in the world. And we don't actually have a chimney.

I don't think it's a big deal. It's more about the spirit of the holiday, not whether a fat man can fit down billions of chimneys in a single night.
 
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Siddow

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Ah, then she already knew! You're off the hook. :D

Poet, after our family got too big to buy for everyone, we began a tradition of the White Elephant party on Christmas Eve, and Santa comes on Christmas day (for the kids, and me, if I've been good. :D). We have a blast; a buffet, everyone goes home with something, and nobody spends more than $20 on gifts for the extended family.
 

Jo

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You're lucky, Perks.

I couldn't wait to share the secret with the kids. Each year I'd hint and hint... but, no. They didn't guess. In fact, they made up more reasons WHY everything existed. So, I dug myself deeper and deeper into the mountain of separate gift wraps and tags, left-handed note writing, half eaten carrots, luminous red noses in the yard, etc. I had to tell the eldest when he was twelve and in High School, then the other two over the next few years. Last Christmas, everyone was in on it (kids are now 16, 14 and 12). We all be growed ups now. *cough*

*Note* My MG writing includes the Tooth Fairy. The kids truly believed I had inside knowledge on her, Santa and the Easter Bunny. Hehe. I still have all their discarded teeth. I just need to cash them in... With inflation, I'll be rich! Mwahahaha.