The Day My Santa Died: Absolutely True Stories of Holiday Innocence Lost
All good things must come to an end. And sometimes that end involves the heart-wrenching realization that life is far less magical than we once believed.
(Spoiler Alert!) The following stories contain language that may or may not be construed as implying that it’s possible that the notion of Santa Claus is somehow less than truthful. If you, or anyone nearby, remain under the impression that the legend of the flying fat man is even remotely factual, please cease reading.
The Hard Right
My first clue was the wrapping paper. I was snooping around in my parent’s closet and I found these huge rolls of holiday wrapping paper. That’s odd, I thought. And then what do you know but on Christmas morning, every one of my gifts was wrapped in the very same paper. I looked at the paper and looked at my parents. I looked back at the paper and then back at my parents. A light bulb went off in my head and I said, wait a minute! This is the same wrapping paper… and then, BAM! My dad punched me right in the mouth. He just glared at me and kept jerking his head toward my little sister. I stopped the bleeding with the front of my Captain America pajamas and realized that he wanted me to shut up and not ruin my sister’s morning. My dad felt bad about it later, but not bad enough that it kept him from making it a running joke every year after that. He still thinks it’s funny to greet me on Christmas morning in his robe with his right hand wrapped in paper and topped with a bow. He shakes his fist and asks, “You want to open this one first?” Then he laughs like a big idiot.
— Darrell, 32
Sick Leave
It was sometime in the middle of the night and I remember hearing someone opening and closing the doors of the family van. I peeked out the window and saw my father carrying two new bikes into the garage. I started crying until my mother came in to ask me what was wrong. I told her I was sad because I just found out that my father was a bicycle thief. She explained to me that no, he wasn’t stealing those bikes. He was just helping Santa Claus. I asked why Santa Claus would need my father’s help since Santa was supposedly magical and could do anything he wanted just by wiggling his nose. So she told me that Santa was sick and that’s why he needed daddy’s help. I asked if Santa had a cold and she said no, it was much more serious than that. The flu? No honey, she said, Santa has bone cancer and he probably won’t survive the winter. Then she told me to get to sleep and stop asking so many questions.
— Heather, 43
Moving Violation
For me it was pretty early that I figured out the whole Christmas thing. Maybe I was six, could have been seven. I never slept well on Christmas Eve and I was always sneaking downstairs to get a peek at what was under the tree. If my parents were asleep, I’d lift the corner of a package and try to make out what was under the paper. Well this one year I thought my parents were asleep, but they weren’t. It turns out that they were in the garage yelling at each other and I could hear my mother crying. It sounded pretty messed up and I didn’t want any part of some dumb ass holiday argument. But I was going back upstairs when I heard a man’s voice I didn’t recognize. Being six, or seven or whatever, I must have immediately assumed they were talking to Santa Claus (it made total sense at the time). So for a minute I just totally lost my mind and pushed open the door to the garage, grinning like an idiot. I still remember the horrified look on their faces. On the ground I saw a pair of black boots connected to a couple of mangled legs sticking out from under the station wagon. The garage smelled like motor oil and burnt hair. I asked, was that Santa Claus under the car? My dad laughed. Yep, he said, that’s Santa… he’s dead and mommy killed him. I want to say I threw up, but maybe I just felt like throwing up. For the next 10 years I just assumed my mother had murdered Santa with our Chevrolet Caprice Classic. Then one year she confessed and told me the whole “running over the drifter and dragging him home under the car” story. Apparently they buried him where the sun porch is now, which is messed up because that’s where I used to eat breakfast just about every day.
— Mike, 36
The Littlest Detective
Back in ‘89, you could have called me Columbo and it would have been a completely serious compliment. I could just about figure anything out that was hard as hell for other people to figure out. You might even say that I was the first kid in my school to get hip to the real truth about Santa Claus. That shit was NOT hard at all to figure out. Not for me. I just sat outside in the bushes on Christmas Eve and waited for him to show up. Dude never came, but somehow I got presents anyway. I was like, WHAT? It freaked me out until I deduced that there never really was a Santa Claus in the first place. I realized it was just a story that people made up to keep stupid kids happy. Why don’t they just tell them the truth? You got me. It seems like coming clean and telling them that Santa is really just Jesus, except older and fatter is no big deal. I’ve told plenty of dummies the truth and they weren’t even sad or nothing. They almost get mad a little bit when I tell them that it’s Jesus who brings the presents and he can be totally invisible, because they’re like, “Of COURSE!” Like they know they should have figured that shit out for themselves. They ask me, how do I know it’s Jesus? And I tell them it doesn’t take a genius to figure out. Think about it, they both have beards, right? And dude, it’s his birthday! Jesus totally gives people presents because he’s like 2000 years old and he’s already got every present ever made, right? All you have to do is connect the dots. Shit is so simple it’s stupid.
— Raymond, 48
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Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
I was in 4th grade and we had a temp teacher because our real teacher had birthed a baby. Our temp teach was talking about christmas and said something about how of course we all know there is no santa. My mind was literally blown. I went home feeling like I had the whole world figured out. My mom could tell I knew something and asked what was up. I told her I knew there was no santa and my teacher had told me. She wrote a note to my teacher for me to give to her. The next day I handed the note to my teacher having no idea what was written in the note. Turns out my mom said something to her about me not believing in santa anymore. So, the teacher makes an announcement to the class about how MY mom pointed out to her that santa could be real.
I wanted to die. For multiple reasons.
I’d started to figure out about Santa (I started to say something like, oh because I’m an early cynic blah blah blah but then remembered that in high school I was definitely into fairies), and was asking leading questions – but this was really early on, so my sister protested to the rest of the horde, and that Christmas I came downstairs and there were BOOT PRINTS in the ashes in the fireplace. That kept me going for at least another three years, when I asked my dad if Santa was really real or what, and he answered something like “He’s real…in our hearts?” And I was like “Ohhh I get it, it’s BS” or whatever. It didn’t even occur to me until recently to ask about those prints, and my oldest brother admitted to it, and even though I am totally with it and not into fairies anymore, it still disappointed me that someone actually made those prints themselves.
I can’t remember when I stopped believing in Santa. My wife will have you believe it was a traumatic experience because now I AM TOTALLY AGAINST SANTA.
SURE IF YOU GUYS LIKE LYING TO YOUR KIDS HAVE FUN WITH THAT.
Also, SATAN? I’M JUST SAYING.
Jk/jk — KIND OF.
It’s called a fun fantasy that gives one pleasure as a child. Have you heard of “fun,” Ross?* Plus, like Matthew had, you get the coming-of-age satisfaction of figuring it all out.
*I can’t remember how that joke started.
one christmas it snowed and there were sleigh tracks and hoof prints in our driveway (because santa was respectful and didnt park it on the roof.) but no people prints around the tracks, just pristine snow.
Still don’t know how my dad did it.
one moves from childhood to adulthood when one realizes Santa is make believe, weird word makebelieve, reminds me of nuns whacking you on the knuckles with a ruler
Whether Santa is real or not does not answer the real question: Is Santa black? A recent trip to Dollar General would appear to confirm that he is. Then an ill-fated late night trip to Wal-Mart convinced me he was Hispanic and that his name was Santos. Now, there is a white Santa in Carytown. Just how many Santas are there, and of how many races? It is probably a union of some kind, like Fight-Club. As more and more people were born, affirmative action took effect, etc., they needed more Santas and so they split the job up between a lot of people, and the magic was divided over and over again, until Santa was just another poor schmuck like the rest of us. People, the problem is not whether or not Santa exists… We just need to condense the magic into one santa again. I would pay good money for some kind of no holds barred Santa Cage Match where all different Santas fought to the death. A lot of people would pay good money to see that. I have questions about Mrs. Clause’s relationship to all of the different Santas and the possibility that it violates some serious International Conventions, so this would solve any loose ends there too. It reminds me much too much of the Smurf’s relationship to Smurfette. Is there a Native American Santa? A Mohican Santa? Would he be excluded from the cage match because of his sovereign status? Would that ruin the whole condensing of Santa? Focus people, on what really matters. The Last of the Mohican Santas!
WTF brilliant!
Obviously I am a little behind on reading this, but I am at work on a Saturday and bored. I was already laughing pretty hard when I read Susan’s “but then remembered that in high school I was definitely into fairies” comment and almost threw up in my mouth. RIDIC. Thank you everyone for such a wonderful way to kill time at your local YMCA.
ps. i figured it out when i was 5 years old. MOMS SHOULD DISGUISE THIER HANDWRITING WHEN TRICKING YOU INTO THINKING YOUR GIFTS ARE FROM SANTA.
Also, I published that comment without proofreading. There are numerous places where punctuation would have been necessary/helpful. MY BAD