santa? real?

fabcat

Sorry if this has been done before, just wondering. When did you find out Santa wasn't real? Personally I was only six, I remember vividly because a bigger boy in school told me that Santa wasn't true and when I asked my Dad he said of course he was and to prove it he would get Santa to leave me a letter. Santa left me a letter. The letter was in my Dad's handwriting, which is VERY disctinctive. I wasn't a happy child.

Ruu_Old

Ah no, I wasnt that young! My wifes parents told her when she was around that age too. I think I was around 10 but I knew a bit before that, but didnt want to believe it. "He is real, HE IS REAL!" I remember our teacher telling us in 6th class in primary school a few days before we were finished for the summer holidays. "You all know that Santa isnt real, dont you?" I saw some very VERY blank stares around the room.:eek:

r3nu4l

I found out when I was 11. I began to notice some of my friends were asking each other "What are you getting for Christmas?" whereas the year before everyone was asking "What's Santa bringing you?"

Suspicions roused! Went home, got my religion book and asked my Mam to swear on it (I didn't have a bible!) that Santa was real. My Mam swore he was but then later when she packed my brother off to bed, she told me the truth :eek: :eek: :eek:

Wow, Ruu! If I have kids and their teacher ever says anything like that I'll be very very angry! Kids should find out in their own time but obviously not so old that they are still believers when they are doing their Leaving Cert

petes

I was nineteen. God I have lived a sheltered life.

Kolodny

I think I was about 4 or 5, I can't recall exactly.

Me and my mum would always leave out a small plate with a mince pie and a tiny glass of sherry near the window on Christmas Eve for 'Santa' when he was dropping off the pressies. On Christmas morning the sherry glass would be empty and there would be only a tiny bite taken out of the mince pie.

Eventually I made the connection between this and the fact that my father hated mince pies and confronted my mum - not so much upset at Santa's non-existence as the fact she'd lied to me. She admitted the truth but she did ask me not to discuss it with my younger cousins or any of my school mates who talked about Santa in case it upset them - I think I told a couple of friends my own age though, I'd say their parents loved me

tk123

I kept finding the toys - one time in my nana's there was all these toys and then low and behold thats what Santa left for my brother!! "no they're not your's - they're presents we got for <insert cousins name>":rolleyes:

the Shades

fabcat wrote:

Sorry if this has been done before, just wondering. When did you find out Santa wasn't real? Personally I was only six, I remember vividly because a bigger boy in school told me that Santa wasn't true and when I asked my Dad he said of course he was and to prove it he would get Santa to leave me a letter. Santa left me a letter. The letter was in my Dad's handwriting, which is VERY disctinctive. I wasn't a happy child.

Didn't you know? Santa's illiterate, he probably asked your dad to write the letter just to help out. You must really have broken his heart not believing for all these years

Tar.Aldarion

I think I must have been 5 or 6 when I questioned the physics of this 'santa'. I can only imagine what my parents faces were like at this stage.

YeAh!

Was about 9/10. Christmas was never the same again . After that I just felt guilty that my parents were forking out money for presents

monkeyfudge

Please use spoiler tags people!!!!

Rantorama

monkeyfudge wrote:

Please use spoiler tags people!!!!

Best laugh I've had today.

Anyhoo,think I was about 8.

Santa Claus

So I'm not real eh ???

That's 10 more names for the naughty list so !

Ruu_Old

monkeyfudge wrote:

Please use spoiler tags people!!!!

Haha great stuff, got a chuckle out of me

311

I found out when i was walking back up the stairs from checking to see if he was there yet ,
my old man and his Y fronts jumped about 3 foot in the air with the fright of me creeping around.

CrimE

...theres no santa?

Santa Claus

CrimE wrote:

...theres no santa?

Of course there is CrimE....don't listen to them. They're just biter after many years of being on the naughty list (The things I could tell you...just wait for my memoirs)!

Rovi

Santa brought me stuff until I was 21

Explanation-
I actually found out when I was around 8 or 9, but I wasn't dumb enough to let on. My Mum 'broke' the news when I was 10 or so, sometime around 5th class in Primary School.
My younger brother (by 3 years) however, was still a believer, so Santa was still putting in an appearance for another couple of years. (the quality of gift went down, though )

A few years passed with no Santa in our house.
Then, joy of joys, we had a little 'surprise' when I was 14, and my youngest brother was born.
Santa came back!

The quality of gifts improved too, but that was mostly because I was buying them myself :rolleyes:



I presume everyone's seen this, but it fits nicely with the thread subject-

THE SCIENCE OF SANTA CLAUS

No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT, there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn’t (appear) to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that is 91.9 million homes. One presumes there’s at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75½ million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest manmade vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN times their normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer with absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion: If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's now dead.

Rhyme

Better than An Post anyday...

I found out when i caught my Dad trying to heave a bike through the front door and into the sitting room... i thank my good hearing and me being a light sleeper for that.

Santa Claus

Rhyme wrote:

Better than An Post anyday...

I found out when i caught my Dad trying to heave a bike through the front door and into the sitting room... i thank my good hearing and me being a light sleeper for that.

Well you don' expect me to carry bloody bikes in do you ??? I mean come on, the parents have to help me out some times! !!!

The Bollox

I never brought it to my parents attention that I knew Santa wasn't real (I found out when I was about 10) so the presies went well for another 2 years, but then they assumed I know the horrible truth and the calibur of pressies dropped quicker then a whores knickers

matu

Yes I was the same as you Marts I left it run as long as I could at a young age I figured out what would happen if I let on so I lived a lye until the age of 11.
I knew where they kept the presents for years, when I found them I would see if what I wanted wasnt there and then put that on my list of things to annoy my parents about it over the holiday session.
back then I was plotting and planning as I still am today
Muhahahaha ( slighty evil voice )

Dermington

I was 5 years old. 1990 :eek:

fuzzywiggle

I was 11 or 12 I think. Wanted to get money out of my mam's purse.. as I was having a look.. bang! What did I find? All the receipts of my xmas presents! She told me then. I cried

nollaig

I never brought it to my parents attention that I knew Santa wasn't real (I found out when I was about 10) so the presies went well for another 2 years, but then they assumed I know the horrible truth and the calibur of pressies dropped quicker then a whores knickers

Thats what I did, I'd say I was 8 though, Must have been pushing onto 11 or 12 when they realised

Dudess

10. 1988. Was gutted. Mean girl in class told me. My mum tried to keep up the pretence but it was too late. Later on, though, I felt all cool and grown-up.

GoldieBear

Found out when i was five, the girl next door had a hissy fit and told me!

emeraldstar

i was 8 i think. i had been asking my mom for ages if he really existed and then eventually when she'd had enough of me insisting he wasnt real in front of my younger bro and sis, she shook her head at me and put her finger to her lips...the lil bro and sis were in the room at the time...it was funny. Then she made me tell my lil bro when his turn came around to question santa's existence.

it's a long time since we've had santa in our house now tho......kinda sad, i looove christmas so much, still do

Dudess

Yeah, I don't care if it's only supposed to be for kids. I still get just as excited now (at the age of 28) as I did when I was 6. And a damn good thing too!