I don't believe in Santa...

[pretty_snowdrop]

My eldest daughter announced at bedtime that she doesn't believe in Santa. I gave her all the usual explainations and she looked as me as though i was stupid lol. She is only 7 years old. She is a very logical child, so this actually comes as no surprise, but i thought i would get away with it this year. I feel quite sad but i don't know if i ought to come clean or try to persuade her that santa exists. She has a younger sister so i don't want her telling her. What shall i do?

[China Doll]

Tell her it's fine if she thinks that but to not let her sister know as it might spoil things a bit for her, it'll make her feel grown up. I don't think seven seems a young age for her not to believe in that, I'm pretty sure I didn't believe by then but I never told my younger sisters.

[maggiebee]

Think my seven year old grandaughter still believes - maybe she's just hedging her bets though. Kids grow up too quickly these days, sure I believed until I was about 10 but then that was back in the dark ages.

[sophie_1003]

I read something this time last year that said children tend to stop believing much earlier than their parents think and most just don't admit it; one child was quoted as saing they had stopped believing but they didn't want to tell their mum because they thought she might be upset (it might have been on here actually that it was mentioned!)

[owdhamer]

I used to lie awake for what seemed hours, never caught him.

[boxtops]

I laid awake one year and caught my mother sneaking in with the stocking....

[Maydup]

No don't, my Mum has never come clean and us children are 50, 46, and 40!

For the sake of the younger ones I had to play along. Dad let me help him which was very special but Mum pretended not to know .

Now she still likes to creep about with things very early on Christmas morning and we all have to ask if he's been! Keep it special and magical whatever they believe.

[Anngel123]

I told my children they stopped getting stockings if they didn't believe...guess what ! they believed until they left home LOL

[askyourgran]

Tell her the truth now that she has brought the subject up, but ask her not to spoil the magic for her little sister.

[firewatch]

tell her santa may not exsist but you have the toys stay stum or christmas is cancelled she sounds like a smart cookie!

[annie0000]

I'm pretty sure my 11 and 10 year olds still believe although the younger one did say to his brother that the tooth fairy wasn't real and he looked devastated!!

You could probably squeak another year by telling her that santa doesn't come to children who don't believe and so their parents buy the presents. So if she doesn't believe that's fine but her present list will need to be a bit shorter cos you can't afford everything that santa usually brings.

[Ann]

As children, me and my brother 5 years younger always wrote letters to Father Christmas (as he was always known in the 50s) with requests for presents etc. and gave them to Dad to post. Imagine my delight when my Mum discovered a bundle of these letters after my Dad died in 1977. He had treasured these all those years and it was amazing reading them in my childish handwriting all nicely illustrated with little pictures (ha ha "Me in bed waiting for Father Christmas! - very dodgy! Hubby really laughed!!) What a lovely thing to find and I still have them to this day - pity we had no children or grandchildren to pass them on to though......

[venator]

You'll be telling me the tooth fairy doesn't exist next...

[maggiebee]

Well I certainly do believe - in fact I'm going on the Santa Express steam train on the 18th December just to meet him. May take the grandkids too if they're good.

[venator]

Sorry annie0000 - just noticed you'd blown the gaff on the tooth fairy!

[treetops1]

I told my grandson today that we used to send children up the chimney to clean it,but as times are hard we now have to wait for santa to come down. He said he much prefered Santa to do it.

[sherrardk]

I have a feeling that thing 1 (3 years old) is never going to believe. I tried telling her today that Father Christmas was watching her, so she had better behave or he wouldn't bring her any presents. She said 'that's rubbish, where is he then?'.