My twins, Grace Virginia and Michael Lane, turned 10 on Wednesday. And, much to my surprise, they still believe in Santa Claus.

Michael asked questions last year when we were on or way to visit Santa. "I wonder what would happen if you didn't believe in Santa?" he said. I used the tried and true mom method " what do YOU think would happen?" "Well," he said, "I don't think you'd get as many presents."

I thought I knew where this was going. I was sure he was testing the waters to see if it was okay to say he didn't believe. "Oh, I don't know, I think you'd still get just as many presents, just not from Santa," I said.

That was it. End of discussion, and it hasn't been brought up since. I figured he was afraid to take a chance so close to Christmas, and it would come back up later. Nope. This year I asked them, "do you want to go see Santa?"  Both did, and both worried and fretted all the way there about what they were going to ask him for.

I was quite surprised to learn that many of their peers still believe, too. One mom told me that her son recently told her that the Easter Bunny was not real but if Santa wasn't real "it would be the biggest lie ever!"  So, I wondered about kids elsewhere. Are our kids more sheltered somehow? We live in an upper middle class neighborhood but the kids' school is fairly diverse.

So, what do you say? Do your kids still believe, or when did they stop believing?