"Santa, some people are saying they don't believe in you," she told him shyly.

"Well, what do you say to them?"

"I tell them they haven't met you."

Case closed, for now.

In the poll, 8 was the average age for a child's Santa reality check. Fifteen percent hung on to their belief over age 10. The telephone poll of 1,000 adults was taken Dec. 12-14 by Ipsos, an international polling firm. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Kimberly Schiller, 25, of Levittown, N.Y., believed in Santa until she was 13. He was a comfort to her after her dad left home when she was 12. "So I was kind of holding on to that last bit of childhood," she said.

"I teach 13-year-olds now," she went on. "They are just so jaded. They always want stuff. It's kind of sad that they don't believe anymore."

Wendy Ross, 50, from Kings City, Calif., said she gave up her Santa belief when she was about 5, but that didn't spoil Christmas for her. "The only thing that spoiled the holidays for me was me. I threw a fit if I didn't get what I wanted."

Now the mother of three grown children, Ross said she brought her kids up to focus on Jesus, at the expense of Santa. Now she sees Santa as a symbol of giving, but also one of superheated commercialism.

In Louisville, Ky., Ron Montgomery agrees with that downside. "Now if you are using Santa Claus to push a $100 robotic dinosaur, then that's a problem," he said. But the 64-year-old grandfather counts himself as a Santa believer to this day.

"It's the whole atmosphere," he said. "Santa Claus is the spirit. The trees, the church, the whole works. You actually see more of your neighbors.

"It's a feeling. It's not like a ghost. It's an attitude."

Reaching deep into memory, Margaret Klumpp, 88, of Windsor, N.Y., recalled hiding her Santa doubts from her parents. "I think probably I pretended I believed so my parents would keep doing it," she said. "I don't know if I was that smart at 5, but I did later."

Now she sees Santa through the eyes of five great-grandchildren, the oldest 6, and considers him a complement to the Christian celebration.

"When you are a little child you go to Santa and after that you move over to Jesus," she said. "I think it kind of goes together."

Anderson shared his historical expertise with an elite group this summer in Missouri, addressing the international convention of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas.

At the Dallas mall, he knows the faces looking up at him will be clouded by questions before long. But for many kids, the letdown also comes with an upside.

"They see themselves as more grown up," he said through that beard. "They're on the other side now."

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