Do you believe?

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  • kikokateyy
    kikokateyy Posts: 136 Member
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    Yup, and even now my mom will say that once any of stop 'believing' we wont get Santa gifts because he only brings them to people who believe in him. That includes my 31 y/o brother. lol
  • kmorg22
    kmorg22 Posts: 180
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    was taught santa..... didnt believe in santa....... do not teach my kids about santa......my kids get toys and clothes and games and crap all year long..... they dont get gifts at christmas from me.... unless its something I want to buy them that on sale during that time. our christmas is spent together, cooking together, playing games, traveling, watching movies, visiting nursing homes, visiting family. I devote more time on quality time than buying them the hot new gadget.
  • firelle
    firelle Posts: 118 Member
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    I always suspected he couldn't be real because I was one of those kids who would watch TV shows and go "Well, 1) I don't have a chimney and 2) I always see the present's in mami's closet." Guess that's what makes me the smartass I am today. :P

    I won't discourage my kids from believing because I still went to mall Polaroid picture events (HA! I still have my camera) and watched the specials. So I'll leave it up to them to believe or not. If they're anything like me, they'll already know the truth.
  • kenyabenya
    kenyabenya Posts: 21
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    When my oldest son was 3, we were leaving a restaurant and an older lady asked him if he was ready for Santa to come. He looked at her with a stone face and said "Santa's not real."

    She was shocked.

    Warmed my heart.


    That is so cute!
  • k8blujay2
    k8blujay2 Posts: 4,941 Member
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    I don't think Santa necessarily has to detract from the whole meaning of Christmas, if it is approached right. When my kids are a little older (I only have one so far and he's only 11 months) I fully plan on teaching them about Santa, and say that because Jesus is in Heaven, He gave Santa "magic" here on Earth and asked him to give special presents to all the good kids who are kind to one another and obey His teachings. :) And then I guess I'll let them figure it out on their own in due course. That's the plan, anyway. :)

    ^^^This, only I think we will approach it differently... As Santa Clause as we know him is spun off of the Dutch Sinterklaas which is spun off of St. Nicholas. But I never thought my parents were 'lying' to me... nor did I feel betrayed.
  • k8blujay2
    k8blujay2 Posts: 4,941 Member
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    Santa is based on a REAL person....a bishop from Holland. Look up St Nicholas. I learned a lot about him when I was a Catholic cuz my birthday falls on St Nicholas Day - Dec 6th.

    Let kids be kids and believe in these fun things................they can also learn about Jesus and such, but I think some religious folk get a little goofy about it all. As a Christian myself, I believe in JOY AND FUN...............Jesus would like that :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

    Actually St. Nicholas was from Turkey.
  • k8blujay2
    k8blujay2 Posts: 4,941 Member
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    I was raised to believe in Santa. I mean, why not? Jesus was born in late summer, and Christmas traditions are all based on pagan traditions and even celebrated as a pagan Holiday. Even the idea of celebrating birthdays, ie Jesus' birthday, is a pagan tradition. So, with that being said, since Christmas, and Easter, are both Pagan holidays, why not keep the pagan traditions?

    Not exactly. While you can trace the birth of Jesus back to around April and not December, the celebrations aren't based on Pagan traditions. They were moved to coincide with Pagan traditions in an attempt to sway people to believe in Jesus and away from Pagan ways.

    While I agree that they moved the holiday for marketing reasons (much like Easter), the decorating of trees and giving of gifts is not a Christian Tradition.

    While this is true @Doorki, it can be applied to Christian themes as well. For example, the giving of gifts, as done by the Wise Men. But that is all really moot at this point.

    Oh and Easter (or should I say, the Celebration of the Resurrection) is supposed to coincide with the Passover feast, which I do believe has specific dates on the Traditional Jewish calender.... But again, that is all moot.
  • penrbrown
    penrbrown Posts: 2,685 Member
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    Santa is based on a REAL person....a bishop from Holland. Look up St Nicholas. I learned a lot about him when I was a Catholic cuz my birthday falls on St Nicholas Day - Dec 6th.

    Let kids be kids and believe in these fun things................they can also learn about Jesus and such, but I think some religious folk get a little goofy about it all. As a Christian myself, I believe in JOY AND FUN...............Jesus would like that :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

    Actually St. Nicholas was from Turkey.

    http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=371 ... and now you know, the rest of the story.
  • HurricaneElaine
    HurricaneElaine Posts: 984 Member
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    I never believed in Santa Claus. I went to nursery school and kindergarten at my church (Methodist) so I knew all about the story of Jesus' birth. I was smart enough to realize what was the truth, and also not ruin it for the other children.
  • tenajh
    tenajh Posts: 208 Member
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    Yes. Not as a child, but I do now. I was honest with my children when they asked me to "be Honest Mom" but not until I knew it would be ok, guess they were close to 10. We all can be a Santa and it is a valuable lesson for children to know they should be givers -- even if all they can give is a smile.
  • Drop_it_Like_Its_Hawt
    Drop_it_Like_Its_Hawt Posts: 226 Member
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    When I was a kid, there was one night where I SWORE up and down that I'd seen him escaping up the chimney. Not the entire guy, mind you, but just a flash of red pants and black boots, whooshing up as I snuck down the hallway. I used to sleepwalk, though, and had a habit of half-dreaming when I did, which probably explains that. Probably.

    I don't tell my kids that Santa is real, persay, but I tell them that he's more of the "spirit of giving" and the big red guy they see in the commercials is just a metaphor for the person inside all of us who wants to give to others. Then I tell them we can "be Santa ourselves" as we help with toy drives, food drives and the like, even dressing in Santa hats during Christmas. It still keeps that Santa fun going, but not in a way that has them hating me later for lying to them (or the inevitable dissapointment of finding out via them not getting that pony they wanted down the road).
  • smantha32
    smantha32 Posts: 6,990 Member
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    My uncle who is an engineer sent me this a couple years ago. :smile:



    There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in
    the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim,
    Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this
    reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378
    million (according to the population reference bureau). Assuming an
    average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that computes to 108 million homes - presuming there is at least one good child in each.

    Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the
    different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to
    west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per
    second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good
    child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop
    out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the
    remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left
    for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh, and get onto
    the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is
    evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be
    false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are
    now talking about 0.78 miles per household. This amounts to a total
    trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.

    This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,000
    times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest
    man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4miles
    per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles
    per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element.

    Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO
    set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousands tons,
    not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can
    pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying"
    reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done
    with eight or even nine of them---Santa would need 360,000 of them.
    This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh,
    another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen
    Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons travelling at 650
    miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up
    the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the
    earth's atmosphere.

    The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of
    energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames
    almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and
    creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer
    team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right
    about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it
    matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a
    dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to
    acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems
    ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by
    4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs
    and reducing him to a dribbling mess of twitching innards.

    Therefore, if Santa ever did exist, he's dead now.

    Merry Christmas everybody.
  • AprilRN10
    AprilRN10 Posts: 548 Member
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    We are atheists. We have never done any of that in our house. We celebrate holidays as reasons to be with our loved ones and tell our daughter that Santa, etc. is all a big game that everyone plays and so she plays along but knows the truth.
  • sapphireswi
    sapphireswi Posts: 583 Member
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    I practice Jainism . . but I believed in Santa when I was a child. . .my parents hadn't told me anything about him . .I guess I caught it from cartoons and movies on TV . . .I used to write him heartfelt letters. . use my woolen socks and put my letter in it . . .lay out milk and biscuits . . .
    But Santa never came . . .obviously . . .

    I still believe in him . . . maybe someday he'll come . . . carrying my letter from then in his pocket
  • Prahasaurus
    Prahasaurus Posts: 1,381 Member
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    I don't think Santa necessarily has to detract from the whole meaning of Christmas, if it is approached right. When my kids are a little older (I only have one so far and he's only 11 months) I fully plan on teaching them about Santa, and say that because Jesus is in Heaven, He gave Santa "magic" here on Earth and asked him to give special presents to all the good kids who are kind to one another and obey His teachings. :) And then I guess I'll let them figure it out on their own in due course. That's the plan, anyway. :)

    I'm sure if your kids are given a proper education, learn critical thinking, keep an open mind about everything, and the indoctrination in their youth isn't too strong, then yes, you are correct. They probably will figure out a lot of what they were told as a child by their parents is just not true. And it's only this early indoctrination that allows these crazy stories to be believed.

    --P
  • Mandino788
    Mandino788 Posts: 226 Member
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    I believed in Santa. I would write a list and my parents would leave little notes and stuff for me...it was awesome.

    One year I was typing up my list, because I was quite the technologically advanced child, and Jenny goes "You know Santa's not real, right?" My mom flipped out on her...it was mom's reaction that sealed the deal.


    Childhood. Ended.
  • brevislux
    brevislux Posts: 1,093 Member
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    I don't believe in any mythical/supernatural thing and never did, that's not how I grew up... My family is atheist. I think when I have kids I won't lie to them about it. I think it's kind of stupid.
  • NJSunshine13
    NJSunshine13 Posts: 116
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    I was raised to believe in Santa. I mean, why not? Jesus was born in late summer, and Christmas traditions are all based on pagan traditions and even celebrated as a pagan Holiday. Even the idea of celebrating birthdays, ie Jesus' birthday, is a pagan tradition. So, with that being said, since Christmas, and Easter, are both Pagan holidays, why not keep the pagan traditions?

    Not exactly. While you can trace the birth of Jesus back to around April and not December, the celebrations aren't based on Pagan traditions. They were moved to coincide with Pagan traditions in an attempt to sway people to believe in Jesus and away from Pagan ways.

    While I agree that they moved the holiday for marketing reasons (much like Easter), the decorating of trees and giving of gifts is not a Christian Tradition.

    While this is true @Doorki, it can be applied to Christian themes as well. For example, the giving of gifts, as done by the Wise Men. But that is all really moot at this point.

    Oh and Easter (or should I say, the Celebration of the Resurrection) is supposed to coincide with the Passover feast, which I do believe has specific dates on the Traditional Jewish calender.... But again, that is all moot.

    Easter is on the first Sunday after the full moon ..... what does that have to do with dying or being resurrected? Births and/or death dates should not change willy nilly.
  • doorki
    doorki Posts: 2,611 Member
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    I was raised to believe in Santa. I mean, why not? Jesus was born in late summer, and Christmas traditions are all based on pagan traditions and even celebrated as a pagan Holiday. Even the idea of celebrating birthdays, ie Jesus' birthday, is a pagan tradition. So, with that being said, since Christmas, and Easter, are both Pagan holidays, why not keep the pagan traditions?

    Not exactly. While you can trace the birth of Jesus back to around April and not December, the celebrations aren't based on Pagan traditions. They were moved to coincide with Pagan traditions in an attempt to sway people to believe in Jesus and away from Pagan ways.

    While I agree that they moved the holiday for marketing reasons (much like Easter), the decorating of trees and giving of gifts is not a Christian Tradition.

    While this is true @Doorki, it can be applied to Christian themes as well. For example, the giving of gifts, as done by the Wise Men. But that is all really moot at this point.

    Oh and Easter (or should I say, the Celebration of the Resurrection) is supposed to coincide with the Passover feast, which I do believe has specific dates on the Traditional Jewish calender.... But again, that is all moot.

    Easter is on the first Sunday after the full moon ..... what does that have to do with dying or being resurrected? Births and/or death dates should not change willy nilly.

    And isn't the term "Easter" actually the name of a nordic fertility festival?
  • MsDover
    MsDover Posts: 395 Member
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    I was raised to believe in Santa. I mean, why not? Jesus was born in late summer, and Christmas traditions are all based on pagan traditions and even celebrated as a pagan Holiday. Even the idea of celebrating birthdays, ie Jesus' birthday, is a pagan tradition. So, with that being said, since Christmas, and Easter, are both Pagan holidays, why not keep the pagan traditions?

    Not exactly. While you can trace the birth of Jesus back to around April and not December, the celebrations aren't based on Pagan traditions. They were moved to coincide with Pagan traditions in an attempt to sway people to believe in Jesus and away from Pagan ways.

    While I agree that they moved the holiday for marketing reasons (much like Easter), the decorating of trees and giving of gifts is not a Christian Tradition.

    While this is true @Doorki, it can be applied to Christian themes as well. For example, the giving of gifts, as done by the Wise Men. But that is all really moot at this point.

    Oh and Easter (or should I say, the Celebration of the Resurrection) is supposed to coincide with the Passover feast, which I do believe has specific dates on the Traditional Jewish calender.... But again, that is all moot.

    Easter is on the first Sunday after the full moon ..... what does that have to do with dying or being resurrected? Births and/or death dates should not change willy nilly.

    And isn't the term "Easter" actually the name of a nordic fertility festival?

    Yep. The word "Easter" comes from "Eostre". Just another Pagan tradition we're happy (and accustomed) to sharing with another religion :wink:

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