As the holidays approach, students share their experiences of how and when they found out that Santa Claus isn’t real:

“When I was younger, I thought [Santa] was great, but one day I wondered why homeless people didn’t use him to get presents and food, and why some of my friends got more or less presents,” Nathan Russell ’21. “That led me to believe that Santa isn’t real. My mom told me the truth and taught me the importance of Christmas spirit and giving.”

“I’ve never had a defining moment,” Jenny Yoon ’19 said. “I just kind of played along with my parents’ games. I think we mutually know he doesn’t exist, but we’ve never addressed it.”

“I figured out it on my own,” Nathan Lee ’20 said. “Over time, I thought that there was no way that Santa could exist.”

“I’m pretty sure I never really believed in him,” Ben Weinberg ’21 said. “One time, I saw my grandma eating the cookies at night, which confirmed my beliefs.”

“We had Christmas in the hotel and I woke up in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve,” Caroline Tilton ’19 said. “[That was when] I caught my mom wrapping the presents.”

“I found out Santa wasn’t real when I was about 8, when my mom slipped up and bought gifts ‘from Santa’ while I was there,” Samantha Mcloughlin ’21 said. “I was upset because I thought that if my mom knew that I knew Santa wasn’t real, I would stop getting gifts. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and it was fun to be part of the collective process of keeping my little sister’s faith in Santa alive.”

“My parents made it clear from a very young age that Santa didn’t exist because we don’t celebrate Christmas,” Tara Reddy ’20 said. “I didn’t really think about it until I was much older.”