When I was a child there were Santas everywhere at Christmas time. They hired more of them back then. There were so many and everyone was always telling me there was only one Santa that was real and a whole lot of fake ones. I never could figure out how anybody knew which one was the real one. Couple that with the confusion of trying to fit Santa in with the biblical Christmas story and it was all just very perplexing at the time.
I came from an Asian family, so we didn't celebrate Christmas the traditional way nor any other Christian holidays. We did buy gifts for each other and what not, but that's about it. I never really cared who gave me the gifts as long as it was cool, and I never really believed in Santa.
My parents were members of a Christian denomination that didn't recognize Christmas as the day Jesus was born and they had much negative stuff to say about Santa Claus. Because of those teachings when I was young I figured I knew enough about Santa Claus how he was evil as my parents had taught me and that kind of stuff. Most of the residents of the town were adventists there were no people going around dressed as father Christmas so questions like why are there so many of them would never cross the mind. Even the thought of him didn't cross the mind.
Santa as a concept was never taught to us when we were kids so as far as I knew he was just a symbol and I always just saw this character in commercials and movies. It wasn't until later on that I fully understood that parents used this concept to find out what their kids wanted and that they were essentially lies told to kids until they were teens. Seems a bit odd to me, to be honest, but as long as kids get their preferred gifts.
i learned pretty early on that Santa did not actually exist - but i never let on to my parents about that. In our family - you didn't get as many presents if you didn't believe -- so we all believed -- until our parents no longer believed that we believed LoL.
Til your parents no longer believed you believed. lol. I love that! That's pretty much the way it was at my house, too. On the last year I pretended to believe I got up and found a nice new King James Bible under the tree from "Santa". Boy did I have fun with that one, going around asking everyone why they thought Santa would give me a Bible. Then I told them I didn't think Santa had left it and had fun trying to find out who did. I really wanted to know who in the family had chosen it out for me; but as no one would tell me I had to resort to turning in the Bible to the place where you write the name of the person who presented it to you and saying in a loud voice, "I guess I'm just going to have to write Santa in here (with a crayon) since no one will tell me the truth. Boy is that going to be embarrassing later on." It worked and I found out my great grandmother had given it to me. My grandmother was sitting there laughing and saying she'd known it was a bad idea to leave that Bible out from Santa. I still have that Bible today. I keep it for the sake of the memory, but the print is now too small for me to comfortably read.
My brother and I figured Santa wasn't real when he didn't eat his mince pie or drink his Babycham that we left out for him. We used to get up early to check, but there were presents still and I saw my parents sneak into our bedroom to fill our stockings when I was nine years old. Also I didn't think Santa could get around everyone in the world, but it was nice to think there was someone who would give put presents to good children.
I liked the fact that you mentioned "the biblical Christmas story", because, that is where I learned to not believe in Santa as a child. I was never confused about Santa as a child because my parents made sure to instill in me the fact that there's no such thing as Santa, futhermore, Christmas trees where not even around my house, but yet still, we did celebrate and enjoy the festive season. To add, I've never really heard of a children full out believing in Santa Claus, so that's a good thing. And, I think this whole "Santa" story is to lead people away from the true reason of Christmas. And that is, to celebrate Christ. If you jumble the letters of the word "Santa" in the following order, S-A-T-A-N, what does that spell? it's all a trick...
On one hand, it seems odd that parents would go to such lengths to lie to their children and perpetuate a fantasy. It almost seems cruel because you know they are going to be disappointed one day when they find out he isn't real. But I remember fondly the days I would sit up late at night and fog up my bedroom window as I sat close, looking, and listening. Those were the years when Christmas had a real and tangible magic to it, just because I believed it. On the other hand, my parents didn't go out of their way to make it seem as if Santa had visited our house. He was just this character that was in movies, and in stories. They would wait until late on Christmas eve to put all the presents under the tree though.
I never got confused about Santa Clause because I was always told that he was not real as apart of every church I ever went to. This was told to the children to affirm their belief in Jesus, and to encourage them to worship him and no other. As for me, I'm writing "From Santa on my kids presents even though they question the validity of his existence.
