The father christmas myth

I was the one who told my younger brother that Santa wasn't real. It was a long time ago and I'm pretty sure he's over it now but I did feel pretty bad about it for a while after. In my defense (because obviously I am going to have one) my sister had only just broken the news to me and I wasn't sure if my brother still believed or not. So I asked him and all bravado he said he didn't really think there was a Santa and I replied good because I was in Toymaster with the parents picking out your Christmas presents at which point his face just fell and I became the bad sister.

I think I was a lot more innocent than kids are now. It was fairly common when I was younger for kids to believe in Santa well up until they hit that pre pubescent stage whereas nowadays you are lucky if you can stretch out that magical part of christmas until age 10. 
As a child  I fully lapped up all things Santa Claus. I got over excited in the lead up to Christmas and I didn't question many of flaws in the whole Santa Claus story. Like how sometimes Santa just wanted Guinness and a mince pie even though all the stories suggested cookies and milk were his foods of choice. I used to have difficulty sleeping Christmas night, worrying he wouldn't come or be able to bring all the things I really really wanted and I'd fidget and fret until exhaustion won me over but not before going downstairs twice to check my parents had put out the fire out of fear that Santa would change his mind if he had to risk getting burnt delivering my presents. Unfortunately for my parents this meant they had to sit downstairs in the cold living room waiting for us to fall asleep. 

I think half the magic of Christmas is for the parents when they have children young enough to still believe a man and magic reindeer travel the world one night a year delivering gifts to every well behaved child in the world. I know plenty who try and use it as a bribe to keep their children well behaved in the months leading up to Christmas and yet it's not a plausible story given that the little shit from two doors down never fails to get a Santa visit despite the unlikelihood of him ever making the nice list. My parents went out of their way to keep us believing in Santa. One year my sister even got a present from them because she found one of her Santa presents early. When Santa couldn't bring us something we had asked for he would always write a note explaining and the excitement of receiving the note almost always outweighed the disappointment of not getting that one thing you were really hoping for. As children were demons for getting up far too early on christmas morning to try and find out what had been left under the tree and I was often the one sent downstairs to investigate.  When I was young for a few years I shared a room with my brother and sister and my sister would gently suggest that seeing as I was getting up to pee anyway could I not just have a quick peek under the tree. So I would leave the room loudly announcing I was off to the bathroom just incase my parents were keeping an ear out. I would noisily creep downstairs as stealth was not my strong suit and then peek into the living room with the light off and make wild guesses about what I saw in the shadows. I probably wasn't the best person to send because my guesses were generally miles off. Eventually Santa got smart and starting Jamming the door shut with a note that asked us not to be peeking before morning.

Those were the good years while we all still believed and some parents are more reluctant than others to hold on to that special time. I remember my aunt and uncle, in response to the wavering belief of their two kids, staging an elaborate show on their roof where they made hoof prints and possibly used bells to create a realistic impression that Santa was real and maybe stretched one more year than they would have gotten anyway. Now it's harder to hold on especially with a greater mix of ethnicity's  in schools, children are meeting others their age who don't celebrate Christmas and this may cause them to cast doubt where none was before. For now I will be indulging my nieces and hoping we have a good few more years before they believe Father Christmas is anything but real.