I can still remember the tightness in my chest.
I still can feel the maelstrom of thoughts racing through my head.
It couldn’t be, and yet somehow I knew it was.
But above all else, what remember most most clearly was the sense of betrayal.
The people I believed in most in the world had betrayed me and even now I can still recall that hurt.
It was a beautiful summers day when I ran sobbing though our pub, into the kitchen beyond.
There I hid behind the kitchen door, hiding but wanting to be found, hiding but sobbing loudly.
Granny rushed in to see what the problem was.
I couldn’t tell her and so Mum was called. Again I couldn’t bring myself to tell them, I just kept crying, and repeating the words ‘ you lied’ over and over.
They had no idea what I was talking about.
I couldn’t believe that I had found out about the greatest deception that they had ever spun, and they still didn’t get it. Maybe it was the sunshine that threw them off, the fact that last Christmas was long forgotten and next Christmas was yet to be thought of.
When I eventually managed to blurt out that I knew about ‘Santa’ I saw Mum’s face crumple.
Who told you? she asked
‘What difference does it make’ I replied.
It was she who had lied, she and Dad and Granny and every other grown up I had known, and now all she wanted to do was apportion blame!!
I look back now and can see it with a different perspective, but I can also still feel that sense of betrayal, that shaky feeling when you wonder what other lies were told.
And here I am repeating the same lies to my children, conscious that someday their world will be rocked when they find out the truth.
I wish I had done it different, I wish I had been brave enough to stand up against the idea of Santa.
I adore Christmas, I love the sense of gathering, of sharing, of being on holidays but staying put. Of being surrounded by people you love and spending time with them.
I dislike the frantic shopping, the feeling that people can ‘buy’ a good Christmas.
I dislike hearing of children that see their Santa letter as an order form with no thought to the immense sacrifices made by their parents to get them gifts.
I would love to have been brave enough to stand up against this, to give our children gifts but with their knowledge that they were from us, and given out of love.
I know now that this would never take from the magic of Christmas, but enhance it, because the magic of Christmas does not come wrapped under the tree, but in the family gathered around it.
I hope when my children grow up, before they have children of their own, that they read this and choose differently, choose better, choose to opt out of the lie and yet keep the magic that really is Christmas.
I remember feeling sad and a bit stupid to be honest. But my mother has since told me I said it had ruined christmas for me. I don't remember this. However, my boy who will be 7 New Years day has already asked me a few times does Santy exist REALLY and is it not just me buying presents. He's SEVEN!!!!!!! Someone's talking and I aim to hunt them down. *Not really*
Oh yes…the feeling of foolishness…I still remember that!! And while we are now smack bang in the middle of the lie I hope we have a few more years before the truth will out. Still though I do wish we hadn't woven this web!
Reading this again. I still think it's a nice web we weave.
Thank you for this. I felt a bit the same – I remember sitting in Mass and wondering if that whole thing was just the grown-ups having a laugh at us kids too.
My husband and I did/do Santa but we never really went the whole hog with it, or pushed it much to the kids. They both cottoned on quite early – around 5 or 6 – and asked for the truth, which I told them with relief. Now that everyone knows, we actually have a lot more fun pretending.
I know what you mean, as soon as we are asked straight out I know I will not be able to lie to their faces. One half of me hopes they believe for longer…the other half just wants the lie to end!
I love how the do it in Spain, it so much more about the ritual of giving….someday it might catch on!
I remember feeling deflated but not betrayed. But reading this, I would hate my kids to feel betrayed. I wonder is there a way to avoid that? I love the magic of Santa – I loved it as a child, and finding out the truth didn't take from it for me – and I love seeing my kids so excited about it. But yes, I do worry about what they'll say when they find out…
I'm very gullible…always was, so I think that compounded the sense of betrayal!!
I don't think there is a way to soften the blow unless you have children who tend not to take things at face value. My older sister was much more clued in than me and for her it wasn't a shock at all..she suspected anyway…..clearly I'm the big eejit in the family!!