Winter break is closer than we think and with the holidays coming around how about we talk about one of your childhood lies, Santa Claus. We asked Topeka High staff and students about how they figured out how good Ol’ Saint Nick wasn’t real.

How did you find out Santa wasn’t real?

“So for Christmas I would go to my mom’s house, so one Christmas I woke up to go to the bathroom and my mom was putting the presents under the tree so I ask what was going on and she was like, ‘Oh yeah there’s no Santa Claus so help me wrap presents.”

-Jason Drinkard, teacher.

“My dad would write letters, like notes that would be from Santa, but I realized that the handwriting was the same as my dad’s.” 

-Trevor Carpenter, senior.

“When I was in fifth grade and everybody had been talking about how Santa wasn’t real so I asked my mom and I was like ‘Hey mom everyone is saying that Santa isn’t real, like is this a thing?’ and then she went quiet and I was like ‘Mom are you serious’ and she was answered yes and I started crying.”

-Margaret Sullivan, senior. 

“When I was about seven or eight I still believed in Santa Claus and at night I had gone asleep relatively early so I woke up around ten and my whole family was working on putting stuff under the tree labeling stuff from Santa.” 

-Julia Johnson, sophomore.

“I was four and my little sister was two and she was crying over Santa not giving her what she wanted and I told her, ‘It’s okay he’s not real anyway,’ and my mom got really mad because my sister started bawling her eyes out because I kept saying he wasn’t real, then my mom told me I was right and I needed to make my sister stop crying and tell her that he was real.”

– Cierra Ransom, freshman.

Do you have some stories on how you figured out how Santa wasn’t real? Tell us in the comments.