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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/BarneyReject123 on 2024-11-28 18:27:38+00:00.
According to some brief research, the average age a child stops believing in Santa is about eight years old. That would line up pretty nicely with my childhood. For me It didn't happen abruptly, there was never a confrontation or a confession from my parents, after my seventh Christmas I just slowly started finding the idea more and more implausible. Then after summer break, most of my classmates also stopped believing. The few kids in my class who still believed were made fun of.
Once I definitively decided he wasn't real, I was a little sad but also pretty curious about the details. What happened to the Christmas lists that we supposedly sent to the North Pole? Did Mom and Dad buy all the presents that were "from Santa" or were some from relatives? Who came up with the idea in the first place?
The only reason I didn't raise these questions to my parents was because my friend Mike said that his older sister told him: parents stop trying as hard to get good presents once they know their kid doesn't believe in Santa.
So I pretended. That December, I wrote a list and sent it to the "North Pole", went to the mall and talked to "Santa", and listened attentively on Christmas Eve as Mom told us Santa's location with the "Sleigh Tracker" on her phone.
I figured I would keep pretending for as long as I could. Little did I know I wouldn't need to. The events of that year's Christmas Eve would make me believe again.
As Mom tucked me into bed, I remember thinking that it would be easier to get to sleep, since I no longer thought that Santa was coming, but after just a few minutes it became clear that it wouldn't be. I still tossed and turned and imagined the morning all night. It was irritating, but also reassuring, the magic of Christmas hadn't disappeared.
Mom and Dad came up the stairs and gave me and my brother a final good night.
"And get to sleep!" Dad spoke in a mock serious tone. "Santa's coming."
After I heard the door to my parents room close, I resumed my attempt to lose consciousness. This time I covered my whole body with my blanket and shut my eyes. I reached a point so close to sleep that my train of thought had stopped when suddenly I was wide awake.
I didn't know what it was but something had woken me up! Then I felt it.
Tap
Something was tapping on my shoulder.
Tap
I couldn't move.
"Wake up." It was Luke. I took off my blanket. "I wanna try to see him." He didn't have to tell me who he wanted to see. Not tonight.
I don't know why I went with him, I guess subconsciously I was more upset about losing Santa than I thought. Whatever the reason, I got up and walked with Luke into the hall.
"Do you think he's real?" Luke whispered. "Chuck says he's not real."
"Didn't you hate Chuck?" It wasn't a rhetorical question, I could never keep track of Luke's friends.
"I used to." He said with some annoyance. "He told me that Santa couldn't go to all those houses. He said even military planes couldn't go that fast."
"Chuck's an idiot. Santa's sleigh is magic." I said it to reassure Luke, but part of me wanted to believe it too.
"I guess." Luke was about to say something else but he noticed the bathroom door. In an instant he leapt up and touched the top of the doorway. For whatever reason the bathroom door was just a bit lower than all of the other doors in the house, and Luke had always been tall, so with his most recent growth spurt he became able to reach it.
If I was a better older brother I would have let him have that, but I knew that he was on pace to outgrow me and soon. So I jumped up and touched the ring on the hallway ceiling.
"What's that?" Luke pointed to the ring I had just touched. It was a black circle circle that was attached to the ceiling. It looked like it was made of metal. I had noticed it sometimes, but never really thought about it.
"I don't know. It's been here since we moved in." If the object ever had Luke's attention it lost it very quickly. We crept down the stairs.
Immediately Luke rushed to look at the presents beneath the tree. Then I realized that if Santa really wasn't real, our parents would have already put the presents underneath the tree. I felt guilty for not stopping him from going down stairs in the first place. Why didn't I talk him out of the idea? I was going to ruin Santa for Luke on Christmas.
I thought of a plan.
"Stop!" Luke turned to me. It didn't seem like he'd seen any of the Santa presents.
"What?"
"If Santa sees you looking at your presents before Christmas-" I didn't have to finish, Luke quickly stepped away from the presents. "Where should we hide?"
"Over here!" Luke walked into the dining room, which was connected to the living room, and crawled under the table, hiding himself around a table leg. I followed, bumping my head once. From beneath the table we had a clear view of the tree.
We sat there for a while. Waiting. Luke, waiting for Santa, and I waiting for Luke to fall asleep. That was my plan; I'd wait for Luke to go to sleep, then I'd wake him up and tell him that he just missed Santa, and Christmas would be saved. Luke was committed to seeing Santa, and he didn't fall asleep for a long time, but not even Santa himself can keep a six year olds attention for very long, eventually he fell asleep.
I decided to wait a minute or two just to make sure he was really asleep,
Then I heard it.
A repeated thumping sound was coming from upstairs. Then after a particularly large thump, everything went quiet. I heard wood creaking. Then the creaking stopped and a strange metallic sound I swore that I'd heard before began. Actually all of the sounds felt familiar in a strange way. I think now that I heard those same sounds in a groggy half asleep state last Christmas Eve.
Then came the footsteps. First they were on metal, then on my house's creaky floorboards. I wasn't afraid, as the footsteps descended the stairs. I only felt relief and happiness as I saw Santa enter my living room.
His coat and hat were about what I expected; red and white with a black belt on the coat, but other than that he was nothing like people described. Firstly he was giant, he was at eye level with the star on our tree. Also his beard was not white but instead varying shades of gray. As he turned to place presents beneath the tree, I noticed his sack of presents. It was a simple brown bag that seemed far too small, but I figured it had to be magic anyways to store all of the presents it would have too. His body blocked my view so I couldn't see the presents as he put them down, but It didn't matter I wouldn't have looked at them anyway. He finished placing the gifts and stood. I couldn't wait to tell all my classmates that they were wrong.
Then he turned towards the kitchen. At that moment I realized that since I didn't think Santa was coming, I hadn't thought about whether Luke's hiding spot would actually keep us hidden. Santa's eyes focused on me and I could tell already that it didn't.
I was afraid. I was afraid that Santa would take the presents back if he knew that I snuck down here. As he approached I noticed that his hat was actually a lighter shade of red than his coat. It only took him a few steps to be standing right in front of the dining room table. So close that all I could see were his legs. He kneeled down so we were at eye level, I wasn't sure if it was just because of the circumstances, but his face didn't seem as warm and merry as people always said it was.
He reached a gloved hand towards me, and patted my head. His spoke in a soft voice:
"Merry Christmas."
With that he was off. I heard his footsteps ascend the stairs, then collided with whatever the metal was (I wondered if maybe it was his sleigh), then the metal sound followed by the creaking of wood, and then it was silent.
I didn't wake Luke up, I didn't know what I could say. Instead I carried him up the stairs and tucked into his bed. That Christmas we would get a lot of gifts, Luke's favorite was a complete giant Voltron figure, mine was a copy of Majora's Mask for my 2DS, both were from Santa and came in brown wrapping paper.
After I got Luke to bed, I walked through the hallway to my room. I remember seeing the black circle on the ceiling and deciding that I would ask my Dad about it the next day, but in all the excitement of Christmas I completely forgot about it.
Sometimes I think that if I had asked him about it, maybe the next year's Christmas would have gone differently.