Finding out about Santa… Team Sassy share their stories!

Dropping the ‘S’ bomb! Team Sassy reveals when they first found out Santa didn’t exist (sob, sob)…

Although we’d all still love to believe that the big man himself flew from rooftop to rooftop every year delivering presents, there comes a time in one’s childhood where we’re sat down and told the heart-breaking truth… or it’s let slip in a heated argument between siblings and the magic is ruined forever (thanks, guys). Besides, how does Santa even get down a chimney in Honkers anyway? To be fair, we really should have seen this one coming…

I don’t really remember this one, but I do recall one year my cousins from Malaysia were visiting us. The whole family had gone out for dinner on Christmas Eve, returned home and all the young kids were promptly put to bed except my cousin (who was about my age) and I. The clock struck midnight and we both went up to our folks and begged and pleaded to open the presents from Santa (which were not under the tree yet!) as we knew Santa wasn’t real! Then we promised to wrap everything and put it back under the tree so the kids wouldn’t know we’d been so sneaky in the morning…

…What do you mean Santa’s not real?

I discovered that Santa (The Three Wise Men in my case, as we don’t have Santa in Spain) weren’t real at the tender age of 7 or 8. Very young. I remember out of innocence I broke the news to other kids in school, as if it were the discovery of the century, and the poor things were in denial.

Keeping the ‘Santa’ secret with two older brothers was never going to be an easy feat, but they held out as long as they could before giving up the game over a heated battle as to who was next in line to use the computer… I was seven. Can’t lie, for another year or two I secretly hoped that it wouldn’t be true. I may have even continued to leave mince pies out, you know, just in case *cue violins*. Come to think of it, I always wondered why ‘Santa’ preferred brandy over a glass of milk….

I was late to the game! I think I was around 12 and it was because I found a gift I made for “Santa” in our garage. My parents did a really good job keeping the magic alive!

I was around 6 or 7 and I think I saw my parents hiding the presents… and put 2 and 2 together (which, for the record, equals Santa is not real).

I can distinctly remember having an intense conversation about “what did or did not exist” with one of my best friends, Emma, on the playground at school. I must have been 9 or 10 years old, and we were still firm believers in Father Christmas. Not the Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny, obviously. Fairies who gave money for teeth and chocolate-loving bunnies couldn’t exist by our logic, but a rather large, jolly old man who gave gifts to every child in the world was clearly more viable. So I guess I was late to the game because I definitely justified his existence until then! I probably became more skeptical in secondary school but I was cautious around my parents out of fear of the phrase “if you don’t believe, you don’t receive“. Long live Santa! And a suitably stuffed stocking…

When I was 7 years old…my parents and I moved to India — I was curious why Santa was darker than I was used to and why he spoke with an Indian accent. Reality sunk in like a brown man dunks his samosa in chutney.