no boys allowed in the room!!!!

I got mine at 15 too but I didn't believe in Santa...is that a euphemism I don't understand?

It's no picnic getting your period early, either.

Speaking of, I just got my first period since April 2013. I was so hoping for menopause. Rats.

:(

if i haven't posted here about how I got my period for the first time the day before my 10th birthday, and I was having a bunch of friends from my new school over for a slumber party ... anyway that was very traumatic

holy shit dude

I thought I was an early starter but I think I was 11 rising 12?

At least you had a 10th birthday party... unlike some.

if it makes you feel any better, I had to cancel my 40th because i was sick, also too sick for plan B which was to see one of my bffs play with David J at a book signing

Aw, I'm sorry. That sounds rub!

(But haha I wasn't talking about me, I was talking about my number-one hate-crush, never mind. Failed joke.)

I got mine at 15 too but I didn't believe in Santa...is that a euphemism I don't understand?

― La Lechera, Saturday, December 6, 2014 2:48 PM (Yesterday)

naw, like you know santa, mythical deliverer of gifts and good-hearted guy, is probably fake because empirical evidence + everyone says so – but you still "in your heart" believe he's real
maybe I just mean "not having outgrown the magical thinking of a child"

my parents had to break the news to me that santa was not real when I was 11
I cried and cried
I still didn't really believe them
or maybe I did, but I didn't want to
I was honest about it with my peers, too – another piece of bully fuel just handed to them

when i was 11 kids in my class chased me around the playground all recess yelling that he wasn't real & laughing at me

a girl named julie who was pretending she was my friend that day tried to console me this way:
"santa died a long time ago. his brother does it all now"

which still makes me lol

Kara Blakeley told me Santa wasn't real on the school bus. She was a mean girl.

I don't remember ever believing that Father Christmas was in any sense "real". My parents have told me that quite early, my brother sat me down for an urgent lesson in being disabused of such romantic notions, the most salient lesson of which was: "adults lie!"

I can, however remember a family conference, aged not more than 7, during which my parents begged us not to disillusion our younger cousin, who "still believed." I remember thinking her parents were very cruel to deceive her that way.

(I was not an un-magical child; I still believed in hobbits, piskies, G-Force, and the Closet Monster. I just remember being shocked that adults could lie so systematically to a young child, seemingly for their own amusement.

That said, at that age, my parents still believed in Marx, so YMMV.

I learned about the tooth fairy first when I began to suspect something was amiss and asked my mom if tooth fairy was my old babysitter that my dad used to screw and my mom was like *beat of angry silence* "No. It's me. I'm the tooth fairy."

I clung to Santa another year or so but it was pretty halfhearted.

Anyway not because of that, which was probably awful for my mom at the time but cracks me up now, but we're not going to do Santa with Ivy. Neither of us are big Christmas celebrants to begin with so we're keeping the whole thing low key in the home.

Santa comes to her daycare and you bet your jolly red butt I'm getting a picture of her on his lap, but we'll just tell her he's a made up Christmas character that people like to cosplay as for the holidays.

My boyfriend works in a group home for developmentally delayed adults and one of the guys there, in his 50s, still believes in Santa. He also believes that if anyone in the house is awake at midnight on Christmas, Santa won't visit.

Tooth fairy --- Easter bunny -- for me were nbd to find out they weren't real
santa is really a lot like god though, an omniscient, jolly, caring, guy who delivers covetable goods!
more relatable than god, probably, as you can make cartoons about him and it isn't blasphemous iconography

having to accept him not being real at the time it kinda felt like idk, the difference between technicolor Oz and sepia-toned Kansas

like

ok now christmas is just THIS
i can't have THAT anymore?
why?

luckily I had younger siblings so at least at home I got to play along with them for another few years, and that made it a bit easier to swallow. It wasn't like grouchy teenagers who just get money in the morning & bolt as soon as christmas dinner is done with (which is how a lot of my friends were at the time and I didn't want that)

idk

that makes me sound like a horribly deluded child but it was just a nicer feeling that a jolly magic fellow delivered your presents rather than mum hiding them in the crawlspace and staying up til 4am putting dollhouses together and whatnot

now i kind of feel like the opposite is kind of touching in its own weird way

I don't remember when or how I found out Santa wasn't real, and it wasn't a huge deal for me. What was a huge deal was when mum and dad said they wouldn't be doing a Christmas stocking any more, for either me or my younger brother. I was a proper teenager, I think! - around 15 - but it took all the fun out of Christmas for me, and I remember being really sorry for my brother who was around 11. The 'big presents' were nice and all, but the stocking was full of tiny, inexpensive, carefully chosen, unpredictable wrapped gifts (in a chopped up pair of mum's tights left on the foot of the bed in the small hours - I can still remember how the presents felt through the tights!) That was the most exciting thing ever, even when I knew it was mum and dad.

Christmas stocking is the best part! Our compromise with our Christmas-enthusiast parents is that Ivy will have a Christmas stocking and they can buy her whatever will fit in it.

It's hardly a compromise for me because yay Christmas stocking!

My mom made my stocking for my first Christmas and I still have it! I just found it tonight, actually.

http://i57.tinypic.com/vder07.jpg

My mom told me the Easter Bunny wasn't real when I was maybe 9 and I immediately asked about Santa to which she replied, "I'm not ready to talk about Santa yet" so I basically knew. I also kind of suspected before then because we always opened our presents on Christmas Eve like it's customary to do in Germany. We had Christmas dinner every year with my parents' friends and then went to mass. The dads would stay behind a little and put out all the presents so they'd be there when we got home from church. At some point I started wondering why I was the only kid who Santa came to a day early.

I know I've posted in this thread before about my mom and her practical gift-giving -- but let me tell you, Santa probably would've had a more magical, heart-warming aura, if "he and Mrs. Claus" didn't give me things like mechanical pencil lead, a toothbrush, file folders, a mini-stapler, and white cotton underwear. There's only a certain amount of suspension of disbelief possible, even at a young age, when your mom will exclaim, "Wow, Santa is amazing! He somehow knew that I was out of scouring pads!"

loool wow

haha that's incredible

Ha!
I still get a stocking if I stay at my parents' on xmas eve, which I have most of my adult life.

this is not on topic but i just wanted to report that i had three girlfriend hangouts in one week and they were all extremely enjoyable!! in hangout 1 we drank tea and gossiped, in hangout 2 we ate dinner, listened to records, and did our nails and in hangout 3 we went to a giant grocery store, made foods for our friends while listening to records, and then delivered the foods. it was really pleasant and satisfying to have multiple conversations with irl people who i feel totally comfortable around and there was no typing required.

thank you, friends

That all sounds so nice. I have a new girlfriend at work and she's awesome. :)

it's just really nice to relax and lol and talk about girl stuff

:D

goddamn yogurt
i want to hurl curdled yogurt at someone i just don't know who yet

http://i.imgur.com/1xsq5Ew.jpg

SO mad that fb is showing me this shit. Into that dress though.

ads suck in general, but i still blame the yogurt industry
like i don't know and don't care what jennifer hudson did that was so shocking but i doubt it had anything to do with yogurt

ugh

anyway
other than this i feel pretty great!

Oh, feelings, why are you complicated?

For the first time in... well, forever, really. Someone I have ~feelings~ for has confessed that the feelings, complicated and impossible though they might be, are, well, mutual.

There are so many Big Important Reasons we shouldn't pursue this. (The usual: age, gender, location.)

I feel kinda sick, and nervous, and terrified, and I have that 'OMG I'm going to throw up' feeling that is generally a pretty good indication that I'm falling in love (or something like it). But also giddy and excited and ????

Um, help?

! it sounds like you are doing well on your own!

My advice: throw Big Important Reasons to the wind! And allow yourself to enjoy yourself.

also relevant to the interests of some in this thread ie me and erica

http://31.media.tumblr.com/7d97218b07730fbf4314f60f544bb645/tumblr_mibhbqKoZc1qb2yp3o1_r1_500.gif

LOL!

In the "pop stars vs real boys" I think pop stars always win.

(In this case, I fear it's two deeply insecure people, and I'm trying to say to the other person "you're allowed to want this; you can have this if you really want this" as much as I'm trying to convince myself. But I'm quite convinced that they don't really want this as much as I do; and know almost certainly they think that I feel the same way.)

((I'm just waiting for the moment where they pull the rug out from under me and go "OMG, no, I was just kidding, I didn't mean any of that!"))

OK, I'll shut up now. Life is great otherwise, and I'm looking for things to beat myself up over.

branwell this may be a weird q but is there some way i could contact you privately (i feel like theres no way to ask this that doesnt sounds GRAVELY SERIOUS which this is def not)

my email btw is emilysue @ gmail

Sorry, work is so busy I check ILX like once a week these days. Just sent you an email.

responded!

hey, some of you responded to my FB thing about writing irl letters. im getting rolling on that.

if anyone else wants to be penpals, email me. i have so much stationery. so many stamps.

I was recently back at my parents' house and found the boxes where I kept all my old letters and I found a few from someone I barely remember. Found a bunch I never sent too -- that was embarrassing. I'm hungry for more irl human interaction tbrr.

OH HAI I have too many fountain pens/ink/stationery and need to put them to use.

will e-mail

I have lots of stationery, postcards, stickers, and rubber stamps. I want pen pals!

^^^does your ilx webmail work? Mine does not.

I love all of you! But I am not a good pen pal so I'll just offer emotional support and let you get on with it.

no way IO you should send me your address so I can send you random postcard! No response expected!