Wicked Uncle has surveyed 1,000 UK parents with children aged 3-17 to find out the statistics surrounding children and their belief in Father Christmas. They also asked parents how old they were when they found out for comparison.

Firstly, they asked parents if their children still believe, the results saw an even split of 42% believing and 42% not, whilst the remainder were unsure.

Looking at the age data, the percentage of children who believe in Father Christmas dropped below half by age 8. Only 58% of parents with an eldest child aged 7 stated that they believe.

When the parents were asked how old they were when the festive magic faded the average response was 9.1. Overall, 29% of parents stated they were aged 7-9, strangely, 13% shared that they have never believed in Father Christmas.

So, why do these children stop believing at such a young age? Our survey quizzed parents to find out the main aspects driving this. The top three responses were:

Friends/schoolmates told their child that Father Christmas does not exist: 25%

Parents told their child that Father Christmas does not exist: 19%

Siblings revealed the truth about Father Christmas: 17%

Other reasons included social media, parents cited Facebook (14%), Instagram (13%), TikTok (12%) and YouTube (12%) as ways their children found out that Father Christmas isn’t real.

Wicked Uncle also aimed to find out whether some children pretend that they still believe in order to get better or more presents come Christmas day.

The results highlighted that a whopping 56% of parents believe their child simply pretends to get better gifts.

Interestingly, 5% stated that their child doesn’t get extra presents from Father Christmas, meaning the 95% that do are giving their child a good incentive to keep pretending!

Lastly, parents were surveyed on how they maintain the impression that Father Christmas exists, from feeding Rudolph to tracking Father Christmas online, there are several ways parents enhance their children’s Christmas experience