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[Misc] How Old Were You When You Stopped Believing In Father Christmas ?







Bakero

Languidly clinical
Oct 9, 2010
14,975
Almería
I remember a boy at school telling our class of 6-year-olds that Father Christmas was mythical. Although it raised levels of scepticism, I don't think anyone was upset by the revelation.
 




Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
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Oct 8, 2003
56,707
Faversham


GT49er

Well-known member
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Feb 1, 2009
49,443
Gloucester
This is the funniest thing I’ve heard, the secularisation of Christmas to the extent the Church/vicars should have nothing to do with it - You do realise that ‘Christmas’ is actually supposed to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus?

Father Christmas isn’t a lovely tale for the millions of kids living in poverty who can’t understand why Santa favours other children over them or the millions of parents who feel under pressure to spend money at Christmas when they really can’t afford to. Maybe the ‘gifts of charity and kindness’ are better stories to bring our kids up on?

Not the first time a member of the clergy has tried to ‘reclaim’ Christmas and probably won’t be the last.

Perhaps I should have specified 'Father Christmas' rather than just Christmas, but my point still stands. If they can't stop themselves from spoiling Christmas for a lot of kids they should go and do something useful. After all, in spite of wokish pressure from some quarters, most schools still have their nativity plays to tell children the other story of Christmas, without the need to bring in a gormless and unthinking priest to preach it.
There is much of Christmas which is secular anyway - all the commercial side for a start - but to say that vicars shouldn't speak out to kids not to believe in Father Christmas is secularising Christmas is, well... :facepalm:
 
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BigBod

Well-known member
Dec 12, 2014
383
Christmas for me as a kid was pretty shit, I'm just glad I managed to make it so magical for my daughter. She's 17 now and absolutely loves Christmas and has many fond memories from when she did believe. We still try to make it a special time in our house.
 




Greg Bobkin

Silver Seagull
May 22, 2012
16,281
The youngest Bobkin Jnr is just shy of 11 and I think they WANT to believe it but, in reality's, the game's up.

Me? I can barely remember yesterday (thankfully), let alone when I found out.
 


Zeberdi

“Vorsprung durch Technik”
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Oct 20, 2022
7,211
Perhaps I should have specified 'Father Christmas' rather than just Christmas, but my point still stands.
But you didn’t say that did you though, you said this:

It made me feel that some vicars shouldn't be allowed to have anything to do with Christmas! (this is apart, of course, from the vicars and bishops who should never be allowed near children
I was specifically responding to what you actually said, not what you subsequently decided you meant to say after seeing my initial response and making up a new point.

- but to say that vicars shouldn't speak out to kids not to believe in Father Christmas is secularising Christmas is, well... :facepalm:

Er … Where did I say that ‘suggesting vicars shouldn’t bust the myth of Santa to young kids was secularism’ ?

That’s ridiculous and not what I said at all - I actually think they shouldn’t disabuse kids of Santa Claus and most vicars don’t.

Not only have you now completely changed the original meaning of your post I originally replied to but made up a whole new response to your new post and attributed the comment to me (which I never made) and had the cheek to use a head in hands emoji as if I was the one who misinterpreting what you are posting 😂
 






chickens

Have you considered masterly inactivity?
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Oct 12, 2022
2,784
It made me feel that some vicars shouldn't be allowed to have anything to do with Christmas! (this is apart, of course, from the vicars and bishops who should never be allowed near children).
Father Christmas is a lovely fairy tale for kids - it makes them happy, and I'm sure they go on sort of half believing it, or pretending to, even after they've started having suspicions! They might well realise that mum and dad eat the mince pies, and that the carrot for the reindeer ends up in the Christmas dinner - but it's like a comfort blanket to keep the myth going. A bit like God really - and vicars and bishops of all people should have the sense to realise that!

Someone else posted this on a different thread, but I think given the ultimate truth of it, those involved in any religion should be extremely careful about pissing all over other irrational belief systems.

 








Brovion

In my defence, I was left unsupervised.
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Jul 6, 2003
19,957
It made me feel that some vicars shouldn't be allowed to have anything to do with Christmas! (this is apart, of course, from the vicars and bishops who should never be allowed near children).
Father Christmas is a lovely fairy tale for kids - it makes them happy, and I'm sure they go on sort of half believing it, or pretending to, even after they've started having suspicions! They might well realise that mum and dad eat the mince pies, and that the carrot for the reindeer ends up in the Christmas dinner - but it's like a comfort blanket to keep the myth going. A bit like God really - and vicars and bishops of all people should have the sense to realise that!
Indeed. I stopped believing at 5. It was about March, and my neighbour at the time, a much older boy, (about 9), out of the blue asked me If I still believed in Father Christmas. I just nodded shyly. He then told me, quite authoritatively that he wasn't real and that it was my mum and dad. I remember thinking "Yes, that makes much more sense." However I went on pretending to my parents that I still believed as I realised it was part of the Christmas fun for them.

My grandson (5), still believes and I want to keep it going as long as possible.
 


WATFORD zero

Well-known member
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Jul 10, 2003
27,945
I had the discussion with my mum last Xmas and she said if I didn't believe, then I wouldn't get anything same as she's always said. She's now 92 and I'm 64 :wink:
 


Zeberdi

“Vorsprung durch Technik”
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Oct 20, 2022
7,211
A bit rich of a vicar to disclose that Father Christmas doesn't exist when he is actively pushing another person that doesn't exist!

Can you prove God doesn’t? 🙂

Can you prove Santa doesn’t? 🙂

Ironically we were bought up to believe in hobgoblins, trolls and elves and the fairies that made toadstool circles in the woods but not fat men forcing themself into the house in the middle of the night - perhaps in some strange way, my parents thought elves and hobgoblins were less threatening than the idea of a house invasion.😉

(My parents were Grimm’s Fairytale fans, we didn’t do snowflakes and sugarcoating :lol:)
 


Perfidious Albion

Well-known member
Oct 25, 2011
6,410
At the end of my tether
I was never able taught to believe in Santa. My parents thought it was wrong to mislead us. My wife has said that after she found out that it was all a lie , she was angry to learn that adults had been having her on. She said she never really trusted what her Mother said , after that …..
 




Cheshire Cat

The most curious thing..

The Way Through the Woods​

Rudyard Kipling
1865 – 1936
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.
 




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