Santa Is Not Alive In My House Anymore

It’s Official – Santa Is Dead

Or maybe not “dead”, but apparently he is very much not alive. At least according to my five year old.

The note reads:

I love you Santa but you not alive

It seems like such an odd time of year to be dealing with this sudden revelation. It’s barely even spring and we’ve already had a couple of very in depth discussions about the existence of the jolly man in the red suit.

Apparently at school there was a discussion in the playground and two of Miss Five Year Old’s friends told her that Santa isn’t real. That it’s really your parents who put out the presents. That it’s all made up.

And with this new information Miss Five Year Old has firmly decided that she no longer believes in Santa. And that’s okay. It makes me a little sad, but it’s okay that it’s over.

I asked her if she wants to still pretend to believe – because it’s fun to believe. And she has agreed that she still would like to get presents “from Santa”, knowing they’re really from me. She still wants them placed in her Santa sack in the night so when she wakes up Christmas morning there’s still magic. It’s just pretend magic. It’s just a game we’re going to keep playing. And honestly she seemed thrilled just to be in on the secret!

Santa Has Been Retired Here Before

She’s our younger child, so we have been through this before. Our son stopped believing in Santa a couple of years ago too. But he’s happily kept up the charade with us because it’s fun for his little sister. We made him promise not to tell her, to let her believe for as long as she can. Which he has done dutifully. He’s even made some pretty compelling arguments to convince her than Santa is real, knowing full well that he is not.

I do wonder though how quickly the domino effect will hit and she realises that if Santa isn’t real, then neither is the tooth fairy or Easter Bunny. I guess we’ll cross those bridges when we get to them. (Soon probably, because she does have a wobbly tooth!)

And even though I’m a little sad that the time for believing in magic and make believe is over in my house, I am relieved that it’s gone over so well. She’s okay with finding out it’s not true. The only thing is trying to get her to promise not to tell other children that it’s not real!

How old were your children when they stopped believing in Santa? How did they take the news?