Well, it's been a long time since I've posted, but here I am.
It's been a busy year, both personally (we got married! We're looking to buy a place!) and professionally (lots of travel, lost of books to edit, lots of managing), and thus we stayed in NYC this holiday season--couldn't bear the thought of getting on a plane and going cross-country again. I need time to unwind and decompress (see my post over at the Blue Rose Girls on Battling Burnout).
I was reading this post on Gawker: "The Day we Became Cynical: How did you find out Santa Isn't Real?" and thought I'd post my own experiences.
I don't remember how old I was, but there were two main incidents that led me to the knowledge that Santa wasn't real.
1) my older brother and I decided to write a letter to Santa with all of our questions. One question involved Rudolph. I can't remember our question, but when a letter from Santa came back (his handwriting suspiciously similar to our father's handwriting), his answer was something to the effect of "Rudolph lived so long ago, I can't remember." Of course, my brother and I were indignant--I assume my brother probably did not believe at that point. For me, it gave me some nagging doubt.
2) one of Santa's gifts to me (a teddy bear) came wrapped in an old shoebox that had been sitting in our basement for a while. I pointed this out to my parents, who replied that Santa probably saw it and decided to use it. I wasn't convinced.
Of course, my brothers and I pretended to believe in Santa long after we learned he wasn't year. We wanted more presents, of course!
Happy holidays, all!
3 comments:
Welcome back! I just posted about Santa, too... :)
Oh, I remember that! We had a children's book about Rudolph that showed him without antlers, which contradicted the TV special about him where he grew his antlers during that time he'd run away. So we wrote to Santa asking whether not he had antlers by the time of that foggy Christmas Eve.
And Santa's response (in Mom's handwriting) was that he had way too many reindeer to remember. Which, of course, I didn't believe because... well... it's Rudolph! Plus he names all of the reindeer both in that song and in "Twas the Night before Christmas."
Had forgotten about the shoebox thing, though!
I blogged about my Santa experiences once: http://rhcrayon.livejournal.com/2008/02/04/ . (Just went looking for it.) I love that you and your brother played along after figuring it out, to game the system back. :D
Was just thinking of you, wondering how you are. :)
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