Merry Christmas

I used to believe that I came to faith through a rational experience, a process of wrestling with the evidence; the written revelation and the creation, ending with being grateful that my brain had a tiny gift to comprehend a small idea of God. I learned recently that many people skip that step and just know He is by direct experience.

That shouldn’t have been a surprise to me since that is how I came to know Santa. Of course, Santa brought me gifts every year, many of which were the same ones that I had wished for in the Sears catalogue, that full color tome over which my sisters and I spent many hours refining our taste in clothes, toys and home accessories. How did he know? There were other indications that Santa was for real. Santa never did just a drive-by gift drop. He spent time in our home once he found a magical way into it - we had been unable to provide a chimney for his portal. He always ate the milk and cookies that we left out for him. Some years he even left us letters and told me I should eat more. He knew everything, just like the song: He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake. You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town.

One year I kept a long watch on the sky looking for his sled and team of reindeer, but finally fell asleep. Later, half aroused, I saw him tiptoe into our room to see if we were sleeping. His red suit looked a lot like my mom’s red pants. My grandmother had a book about him with photos of the North Pole. The streets there were lined with candy. Hosts of elves served him, making and testing every sort of toy. One boy and girl were already there and I longed to make the trip to that secret paradise in the snow myself.

I not only believed in Santa, I was not ashamed of him. We were out by the swing set at the edge of the woods by the horse barn when Tommy Little, Kenny Heck and Jimmy Doyle told my friend Lorraine and I that Santa did not exist. We insisted that he did. And if they would not take our word for it they could just ask Lorraine’s older sister.

That same week I was with my mom at the Blackwood Drugstore picking out a gift for our third grade exchange. I chose a gift-boxed assortment of lifesavers – five whole rolls with assorted flavors. As we were checking out, my mom told me that Santa did not exist; presents were provided by parents. My heart was as holey as those lifesavers. In spite of what Virginia had been told, there was no Santa; no North Pole. I began to set my sights on Florida.

And I began to doubt people and things of which I had been assured. I wondered if I had been involved in a bad cosmic accident. I forgot that the heavens had already spoken to me. I discovered teleological and other big-word arguments for the existence of God. I became a rational believer.