“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.” — Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. 

I’ve never been much of a fan of Christmas, particularly Santa Claus. Jolly Olde Saint Nicholas actually was a big part of prompting me to question Christianity in my tender young years.

Bah, humbug.

The lyrics of the above popular holiday song made a profound impact on me when I was just about 8 years old. It felt strangely similar to what we young folks were being told about God and Jesus Christ, as far as someone possessing special powers and demanding that we behave or be punished.

I learned the truth about Santa, not from my parents, but when I was in a music class in third grade. I already had suspected it was all made up by grownups to force us to be of good behavior as the season was approaching.

The real problem was that when a music teacher let it slip out that Santa wasn’t the real deal, I began to ask serious questions about just about everything else that seemed to be magical, too fantastic to be true. I began to doubt magical thinking.

Blessed are those who haven’t seen, yet still believe?

So Santa was actually a mythical creature, a lie told to us by our parents and many in the advertising and marketing industry. The dominoes began to fall for me— the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc.

So was it the same for God and Jesus Christ? The other stories that seemed far fetched, but we were told they were true. God and Jesus Christ seemed to possess magical powers, just like Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. So I asked myself if God and Jesus were just as phony.

I tried to reason that there were too many grownups who held on to the magical stories from the Bible and continued to attend church and put money into the collection plate. So God and Jesus had to be the exceptions to this awful realization?

Remember, this is the tortured mind of an 8-year-old who didn’t take kindly to finding out he had been lied to by people he trusted for all of his youngest years.

For me, the seeds of doubt had been sown and it would be a struggle for many years to come.

I am certain that many reading this will dismiss me as a weird kid who represents only a tiny fraction of children all over the world. This is probably true.

However, I continue to question the wisdom of telling our children whimsical lies about things that likely are important to them. I try not to pass along my skepticism and cynicism to others, but I don’t hold with fibbing to kids about mythical creatures with special powers that watch everything they say and do, especially if it isn’t true.

“Now all of you children better be good. Just like all of you children should… ‘Cause Santa Claus is watching you… He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere.” — Ray Stevens