Down with Santa

My understanding of Santa Claus radically changed when I was 8. I heard the truth about the fat man in red from my older brothers. They teamed-up to unload the bombshell during one of those dreaded fits of boredom that so often drive older brothers to acts of mean mischief. As the youngest in a family of Catholics, I was, by consequence, the last true believers in Santa Claus. This belief, this jolly yet delusional bubble, was burst by my brothers on a random night, months before Christmas, when I was beckoned from the love-seat to the couch to receive an important message.


“Hey. When we get presents for Christmas, you know how you think they come from Santa Claus?”

I paused and almost quibbled that not all of our presents came courtesy of Santa Claus, that grandma and grandpa and even mom and dad chipped in a little bit, but in the end I simply said, “Yeah.”

“Well, that's nothing but bull-crap! For Christmas, mom and dad are the ones who buy us presents. Then they just scribble 'From Santa' on the tags! It's a trick. A lie! And you fell for it. Santa's not even real.”

My aloof expression drew taut and troubled. This felt cataclysmic.

“No! It can't be true.”

They snickered and goaded me to ask mom if I didn't believe them, and when she somberly confirmed what my brothers had told me, their snickering gave way to howls of celebration. I didn't handle this grave revelation with poise. I wept and whimpered, and that typically has the effect of a Fourth of July fireworks show for older brothers.

My imagination was hit by a terrorist attack. I'd been duped. Taken for a fool. I connected the dots to other figures of dubious existence and in no time flying reindeer, the Tooth Fairy, and Johnny Appleseed fell like dominoes. My faith in God teetered; I put the man upstairs on notice. Adults lost a great deal of credibility the moment I learned the truth about Santa. By sixth grade, with the same grudging, Santa-is-for-suckers mindset of my brothers, I partook in the heckling of the only kid in class who still filled out a wish-list to that phony from the North Pole. I still can't stand Santa. This Christmas I'm sure to groan when I watch a weatherman put the nightly forecast on the back-burner so that he can speculate the whereabouts of a make-believe character.

“You bumbling jerk,” I'm likely to gripe at him. “Santa's fake and you know it.”

Ideas don't get much worse than the Santa-Tracker. On Christmas Eve, the transition from bad news—the downers about bombings in Israel and muggers posing as carolers—to a full-grown weatherman babbling about Santa is always a shaky one. It goes something like this:

“To recap tonight's top story, there were no survivors in the attack as war in the Middle East rages on with no end in sight...” The anchorwoman shuffles papers anxiously. “And now here's meteorologist Kenny Cumberland with an update on how local fog could be a real test for Rudolph's bright red nose. Kenny?”

Kenny forces a smile. “Hey! It's almost eleven and most kids are in bed by now, but I'm here to give you the scoop on Santa, anyway. See this graphic of a man in a sled led by flying deer? That's him, all right—making his way through Winnebago County!”

What ever money was put into Santa-Tracker technology would've been better served to fund anything else. Seriously, financing millions of dollars into wacky things like a Bigfoot Finder or a Loch Ness Monster Caller would still be more practical than the damn Santa-Tracker.

We learn about the nature of Santa (and the bogus doodads that track him) in a variety of ways. My sister, for instance, found out by means of a Family Feud home game. The category was “Fictional Characters.” The third-most popular answer was “Santa Claus.” The board-game was supposed to be safe for ages 5 and up. Shame on you, Parker Brothers.

A more common debunking of Santa occurs when kids walk in on their unsuspecting parents spreading presents around the tree. This can be a painful memory, and it becomes a doomsday scenario when they're also role-playing as horny Mr. Claus and drunk Mrs. Claus.

How ever you discovered Santa was a fraud, the basic origin of the mythology is the same: Kids believe in Santa because adults conjured up a story about him. And since that story pretty much ruined my outlook on life, I'd like to suggest three ways he can be phased out.

1.Parents who dig sci-fi movies are advised to offer their kids a blue or a red Flinstone vitamin. Tell them that the blue pill, unlike the Santa-colored one, will allow them to see life and reality as it really is. If they choose the blue pill, go Morpheus on them and reveal the truth about the Santa Matrix. If they choose the red pill, consider disowning them.

More Stories, and Additional Stories is the name of that eBook.