I recently read that the average age children stop believing in Santa is age six. I was both horrified and scared senseless as my lovely Molly turned six last week. I am determined she will be believing for years to come so I am going to up my game in the Santa stakes this year.

It got me thinking about when I stopped believing myself. I was seven. I think I would have kept believing a lot longer had it not been for my darling sister. I vividly remember it to this day. At the time we shared a bedroom with bunkbeds, covered in amazing Snatch The Dog duvets, and every Christmas Eve we would wake up in the middle of the night and open our stockings. It was our little ritual and something I loved doing. We’d open the presents then carefully put everything back in and go back to sleep till morning.

The particular Christmas Eve in question I was merrily snoozing away when my sister leaned over from the top bunk and poked me to wake up. “Has Father Christmas been?” I blearily asked. To which she replied. “It’s not Father Christmas, it’s Martin”. Dream shattered.

Seems my sister had awoken to find our stepdad hastily stuffing presents in the stockings and when she questioned him he said he was just checking Father Christmas had been. At nearly nine she was no fool.

To be honest it didn’t ruin Christmas for me and it was still a lot of fun from then on, just that a little bit of the magic had disappeared.

I’m determined to keep the Christmas magic alive for a few more years yet. When did you stop believing and have any of your children cottoned on yet?

And if you fancy some more festive discussions head to Rock My Style where we are having the whole real vs fake tree debate.