I recently read that the average age children stop believing in Santa is age six. I was both horrified and scared senseless as my lovely Molly turned six last week. I am determined she will be believing for years to come so I am going to up my game in the Santa stakes this year.
It got me thinking about when I stopped believing myself. I was seven. I think I would have kept believing a lot longer had it not been for my darling sister. I vividly remember it to this day. At the time we shared a bedroom with bunkbeds, covered in amazing Snatch The Dog duvets, and every Christmas Eve we would wake up in the middle of the night and open our stockings. It was our little ritual and something I loved doing. We’d open the presents then carefully put everything back in and go back to sleep till morning.
The particular Christmas Eve in question I was merrily snoozing away when my sister leaned over from the top bunk and poked me to wake up. “Has Father Christmas been?” I blearily asked. To which she replied. “It’s not Father Christmas, it’s Martin”. Dream shattered.
Seems my sister had awoken to find our stepdad hastily stuffing presents in the stockings and when she questioned him he said he was just checking Father Christmas had been. At nearly nine she was no fool.
To be honest it didn’t ruin Christmas for me and it was still a lot of fun from then on, just that a little bit of the magic had disappeared.
I’m determined to keep the Christmas magic alive for a few more years yet. When did you stop believing and have any of your children cottoned on yet?
And if you fancy some more festive discussions head to Rock My Style where we are having the whole real vs fake tree debate.
I believed for way too long (probably about 9). I think my baby sister told me he wasn’t real. I even caught my mum sneaking into my bedroom to take and fill the stocking and when I asked what she was doing she said she was going to iron the stocking so Father Christmas didn’t think we were slovenly. And I believed her!
Haaha Kat, that is hilarious!!
Love this. Your mum sounds ace!! xx
It’s so funny isn’t it? I think it depends a LOT on who your children are around. When I was little all bar one in my class at school were first born children, so there were no older siblings really to break the magic (and the one boy with older siblings I think had parents who refused to let the secret get out!!) so we were quite old – probably 8 or 9 – before any of us knew! I definitely think it is lovely to keep the magic going for as long as possible, although sadly in reality the secret does get out earlier and earlier I suspect. We never had stockings in our room though (and still don’t) – I think that helps slightly? At least no parents have to sneak in and out of the room, we left them on the sofa by the fire.
My niece (apparently) still believed up until moving to secondary school (at age 11). My sister-in-law had to break it to her because she didn’t want her to suffer other kids laughing at her for still believing. However, my niece is the oldest of three sisters and I kind of feel she was playing the “still believing” card to her advantage. Sound like a right old cynic!!
I believed up until then too haha! It was actually the primary school head teacher that said about it being false in assembly as he obviously presumed that none of us still believed by that age.
I remember seeing my mum laying the stocking on my bed one year – when I questioned her she told me the truth and I vividly remember being absolutely heartbroken by It! Think I was probably 7 or 8. A read a few years ago an article about how to break it to your kids and it said something along the lines of telling them they’re finally old enough to be let into the adult secret which they now need to help spread, so they still feel special and don’t ruin it for the younger ones! Def something I’ll do with my kids!
I don’t actually remember believing. I also had an older sister to break the news to me and an early memory is of her trying to catch my parents out by setting up camp in front of the fireplace at bedtime on Christmas Eve!
We always hung a pair of my mum’s old tights on our doorhandles! No way would I risk stockings on beds, the tooth fairy is stressful enough!
My eldest is 5 i really hope he has another few years of believing. God they are little for such a short time. First 2 years don’t even count as they don’t really know what’s going on.
All of my children still believe, my oldest is ten years old. Christmas is magical, i hope they believe for a few more years.