My mom told me the truth about the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and
Santa Claus all in the same day---the same day she told me about sex.
There were two things wrong here. First, I would have preferred hearing
about sex from my dad---there's just something not right about a mother explaining sex to her son. Second, she left something out. I'm not talking
about sex; she left out a lot about that because she really didn't know
anything about it. What she left out was the fourth member of the
mythological muskateers---the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus
AND the Christ--- Baby Jesus, Son of God, King of Kings, Lord of Lords,
Prince of Lies, and one of the primary reasons there is no peace in the world.

I remember being stunned by the news. Santa Claus, not real? Impossible!
After all, I had the evidence. I had experienced Xmas* morning. I had wonderful memories of the event. I remember waking up in the wee hours of the morning in the small, dark room, seeing our aluminum Xmas tree sparkling in the glow of the light from the little gas heater (the old-fashioned, dangerous kind.) I would just lie in bed (it was too cold to get out from under the covers) and survey the magical, dimly-lit scene, waiting for the house to warm up and my parents to awaken so that I could open all the presents under the tree...presents that Santa had left.

There was further proof of Santa's existence in the half-eaten cookies
and milk which I had placed out the night before; and a hand-written note
to me (always printed) thanking me for the snack. Now my mother was telling me that it had all been a lie, a joke, a charade? I was devastated. I was also furious, but I had been taught well to keep my emotions 'under-control.'
However, inside I was furious because I was so humiliated.
Just last year my mom had encouraged me to take a photograph to my third-grade Xmas party...a photograph of me and the 'real' Santa.

I had always been skeptical about all the different Santas I encountered around Xmas time. Some, in those days, even wore a hard plastic mask with bright rosy cheeks and eye-holes for them to see through, making them look like some strangely jolly Halloween ghoul. Mom always explained those away by telling me that they were Santa's helpers, his elves...he was just to busy to be everywhere. I accepted this.

Then, two years ago, while visiting my sister and her family in Arizona,
I had encountered the 'real' Santa Claus in a department store in Tucson.
I was thrilled. Anyone could see he was the real thing. His face was real, and he even wore little wire-rimmed spectacles just below his kind, blue eyes.
I treasured the 5x7 framed photo of myself, seated on the 'real' Santa's knee.

Now it was suddenly apparant that I had been allowed...no, encouraged to make a complete fool of myself by proudly displaying my Santa photo in front of my teacher and all my friends. I really was humiliated. How could my mom
have done this to me? How could I face my friends and my teacher, knowing what I know now? How many of them must have been laughing at me then?

To make matters worse, my mom was almost taunting me as she continued
the revalations:

"You didn't really think that a big rabbit hopped around the neighborhood, leaving baskets of candy...did you?" she said, only half suppressing a chuckle.

"Hell, yes...I did !", I thought silently. "Why wouldn't I ?" "You've told me all my life that it was true. How was I to know you were lying to me ?"
"How could you have lied to me all these years ? And Why? What else have you told me that has been all lies ?"

At this point a thought occurred to me and I asked, "What about Jesus?"

"What?" she said, her tone suddenly very serious.

"Well, is Jesus just make-believe, too...like the others?" (It seemed even to my young mind that he fit rather neatly into the same category as the rest.)

"No! Of course not!" "Don't ever say a thing like that. People won't like you."

Here was the crux of my mom's philosophy of life, one that she stamped upon my young mind so indelibly that it's taken most of my fifty-two years to get rid of it----"The most important thing in life is for people to like you."

Well, I won't even go into all the problems which that kind of thinking has caused me, except to say that it has made an honest admission of my atheism
a very slow and difficult process. People (the 90% of Americans who believe in God) don't like atheists (the leftover 10%.) So...if you want to be liked,
it follows that you don't tell people that you're an atheist.

Finally, though, you reach a point in life where your priorities change. One day you realize that the most important thing in life is that you like yourself...
to hell with other people! "To thine own self be true." This is the matter of intellectual integrity that I brought up in a previous article. In my youth, however, I not only lied to others where my occasional skeptical thoughts
were concerned---I lied to myself, and very convincingly.
After all, doubting the existence of God was a bad thing, everyone knew that; and I was trying to be a good person so that everyone would like me.

I went through the motions: I went to sunday school and church, though my parents never did. I sang in the church choir. Music was always my main reason for going to church---at least I was always able to admit that much to myself. I spent most of my life going through the motions; but there was always doubt, gnawing away deep down inside my mind.

The day that Santa Claus died, God did too, though it would take me many years to figure it out, years more to accept it as fact, and even longer to admit it publicly. Such is the tremendous hold of the lie of religious indoctrination
on the young mind.

Here's a thought which just now occurred to me while writing this article:
Take the song "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Substitute 'Jesus Christ'
for 'Santa Claus' in the lyrics.
     You'd better watch out. You'd better not cry. Better not pout; I'm tellin' you why...
     Jesus Christ is coming to town.
     He's making a list. Checkin' it twice. Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
     Jesus Christ is coming to town.
     He sees you when you're sleepin'. He knows when you're awake.
     He knows if you've been bad or good; so be good for goodness' sake.
And so on.......

It fits perfectly, doesn't it? Funny, though...he said he was coming so soon; it's been 2000 years and he's still not here. It makes you wonder who's more real...
at least Santa Claus ate his cookies