When you were a child, did you ever try to stay up all night to wait for Santa?

[Jilly_in_VA]

8. I thought about it once or twice

but by the time I was about 7 I knew Santa wasn't exactly "real" because one of the kids at school had said something and I asked my mom. She told me, but also told me not to tell my younger brothers because it was good for them to believe. I didn't. And I still sort of believed.

Until the Christmas Eve I woke up and heard my parents putting presents under the tree and talking about one in particular that I hadn't expected to receive---a doll cradle that my grandfather, a gifted woodcarver, had made for me. That spoiled everything.