Fascinatingly, although the modern world feels like it has been stripped of so much of its magic, belief in Santa Claus has remained remarkably consistent. Back in 1978, a study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry found that 85% of four-year-olds said they believed in Santa. More than a quarter of a century later, in 2011, research published in the Journal of Cognition and Development found that a very similar 83% of 5-year-olds claimed to be true believers. And that is despite Google Trends showing that the search term "is Santa real" spikes every December.