When I was 5, my mother told me on Christmas Eve that my dolls were really alive and they have been watching me and "reporting on me" to Santa Claus all year if I really was a good little girl. She even added that they go to the tree to great Santa and offer him our cookies and milk. Then she gently kisses me goodnight and sneaked out into the hallway.

Terrified in my bed, watching the glass eyed dolls staring at me... I waited a little while... gather up everything, including Mr. T action figures and Barbies and I snuck out to the living room and put them all in the fireplace and locked the fire screen to trap them in. I figured Santa would come down and crush them before they could talk or come back to kill me in my sleep.

Needless to say, my parents were bewildered to find me asleep in the living room with the fire poker to protect me from Santa's evil spy dolls.

LF

Knowing that Santa Clause was always watching me and possessed of the speed to deliver all of those presents all over the world in a single night, and with annual, tangible proof of his existence, I would sometimes pray for Santa Clause to protect me if I was afraid of some situation.

Anon

When I was little, my Mom, Dad and I would stay at my Grandparents house on Christmas Eve. They had a three story house, not including basement. Well, one year I slept on the third floor. After I heard everyone go to bed I heard a loud thump on the roof, then footsteps, and then I heard something slide down the chimney that ran from top to bottom in the center of the house. Followed by a large thud from the living room downstairs and ornaments hitting eachother.

My father is kind of a nut and would try to do something like that in his younger days. So maybe it was him. But I don't think I will ever know for sure, perhaps I will question him later.

Anyways, though I am 22 and no longer believe in Santa, this event still puzzles me and makes me wonder.

people's champ

i used to believe that santa could shrink really small, because one year i said to my mum "how does santa get in? we don't have a chimney" so my mum told me he came in through the letter box.....

Also, bit emmbaressing this, i am 15 and it was only last year, i asked my mum if santa minds us going to bed later and she told me "Heather, Santa doesn't exsits it's me that puts the presents out" i was absolutly gobsmacked!! more that my mum could lie to me all that time than the fact he didn't exsist!!

= [ Santa's gone?? ] =

sometime in




In early
december, my mother would tell me that "Christmas is right around the corner". Until christmas arrived, every day I would run down to the end of our street to see if santa was coming with the toys.

Anon

In order to stop me staying up on Christmas eve, my father used to tell me Father Christmas was an evil tramp who controlled a bunch of equally nasty dwarves. Small boys were known to have been blinded for life by simply glimpsing their hideousness.

Anon

As Christmas approached, whenever I misbehaved, my Mom used to pick up the phone to call Santa and rat me out that I belonged on the "naughty list." I'd beg and plead for her not to make that call, and it always straightened me out for at least a few days.

RT, Sutter Creek, CA

When I was 7 or 8 years old, I was riding with my parents along a street in our small town. Lo and behold, there was Santa walking with a bag of goodies! My dad pulled the car alongside, and Santa jovially wished us "Merry Christmas" and presented me with a Hershey bar. I was agog that, first of all, we'd encountered Santa during a casual Saturday afternoon outing and, secondly, that my parents obviously were well acquainted with him, as they chatted in a most familiar manner. As we pulled away, I commented that Santa had been wearing a ring "just like Uncle Elmer's!" "Are you sure?" my mother said doubtfully, throwing me off the scent. It wasn't until a few years later I realized I'd been had! 

Betsy 

My mum used to get us to write to Father Christmas on Christmas eve each year and leave the letter out with the mince pie, carrot etc. Each year he'd reply with writting strangly similar to mums, one year though we got a reply in hand we didn't recognise and I was torn between my definate knowledge that there was no father christmas, and the undeniable fact that mum hadn't written the letter.....I was 10!! Sad huh?

Claire UK

One christmas I had a HUGE list for santa. And the contents weren't that cheap, either. So my dad told me to pick just one to which I scolded him, "Don't worry, daddy. They're from Santa! It's FREE!" Yeah, I didn't know the value of a dollar back then.

Em Blan Smi

When I was little, I asked my mom where the Easter Bunny got all the plastic eggs with money in them that he hid in our house. She said that she bought the eggs and left them and some money in the middle of the living room floor, and then when everyone was asleep, the Easter Bunny came and put the money in the eggs and hid them. This answer made perfect sense and I accepted it with no problem.

Later on, I wanted to know where Santa Claus got all the brand-name toys he gave us, because I was sure he couldn't make them at his tinkertoy workshop. I remembered what my mom said about the Easter Bunny and came up with the idea that a few weeks before Christmas, the employees of all the big toy stores would leave out huge piles of toys in the middle of the floor, shut off the lights, and either go in the back room or go home. Then when the coast was clear, Santa would sneak in through the store's ventilation system, wrap up all the toys he needed, and take them back outside in his sack. I thought it was very nice of the toy store people to respect Santa's privacy and help make his job easier like that.

Mandi

When I was little I used to believe that if our family was out visiting on Christmas Eve too late, and came home and interrupted Santa while he was bringing presents, Santa would never come back to our house again. And Santa visited on the stroke of midnight so you had to all be in bed by then. So I was always in a state of high anxiety on Christmas Eve when we were forced to stay at our boring cousins' house until 11:30 p.m. We would never get home in time!! Stupid grownups!!

Also, I believed Santa needed a chimney to come down. This was never a problem because my mom would always put up a fake cardboard chimney decoration in the living room. I knew very well it wasn't a real chimney and didn't lead anywhere, but I believed Santa could use it.

Anon

As a kid I had a back up plan at Christmas, if Santa thought I had been bad and didn't bring me any gifts I had it planned that I would simply set out all my toys that I already had and just act surprised. For some reason I thought my parents would fall for it if it actually came down to that. I have no reason why I actually ever came up with this because I was a really good kid!

Jilliane D.

My dad made Christmas awesome when I was little. One year when I was sleeping, he took some bells and scattered them around the yard and-get this-that same year he took a brownie and molded it to look like poop and on Christmas morning he took me out to the yard to show me it and told me it was reindeer poop and the bells fell off of Santa's sleigh.
And, on the other the side of his Christmas fun, he always would have my mom and i make his favorite kind of cookie to give to Santa because he thought it was an excuse for us to make him cookies!

MaryKate,12, Connecticut

I used to believe that Santa Claus lived on the moon in a city called North Pole. I thought that if you looked at the moon the right way you could see him watching you....

Travis

I used to believe that Father Christmas's elves would come and tickle your toes at night if you where naughty.

yvonne

I used to believe that Father Christmas lived up my granddad's chimney, after Granddad held a candel stick up there and I never saw it again

Reigna Mitchell

I am the youngest of four kids and I guess my Mom was getting tired of the holiday gift giving thing so when the opportunity came up to burst the bubble on the Easter Bunny, she was happy to stop having to give out the Easter Baskets. The same happened with Saint Nicholas' gift giving a few weeks before Christmas. To me this meant the death knoll for Santa Clause and the almighty gift giving he enabled so I remember my thinking I would never, ever admit to not believing in Santa. That led to my Mom finally coming out and asking me at 15 that I really didn't still believe did I? Oh yes, of course I did I lied.

Rebecca

When I was a kid, I was told about Santa Clause like most young children. The difference is that when Santa was in your house delivering toys, if you were awake and tried to take a peek at santa that he would spit in your eyes. The spit would make you blind until he would leave if not for life.

Anon

When I was about 8, I noticed in the holiday books that Santa Claus was fat, so on the next Christmas, I left him fat free cookies.

Ho Ho Happy Holidays