Warning: If you're a parent of kids who are old enough to read but young enough to still think Jolly Old St. Nicholas is coming to town, please hide this article. Preferably not in the same place where you're hiding their Christmas presents. The scene: an editorial meeting. The characters: a bunch of staff writers who, occasionally, like to go off the rails. Their task: thinking up feature ideas for that time of year when life seems to slow down and speed up at once, aka the "holidays." The talk somehow turned to the moment when each of us — those whose families observed Christmas, that is — discovered Santa Claus wasn't real. Most of us were in the neighborhood of 5 to 7 years old. One late bloomer was 10. A few were temporarily devastated, while others already had their doubts about the logistics of the whole deal. Flying through the air in a sleigh? Coming down a chimney? Chimneys all over the world in a single night? As if. Thing is, whether or not he's real, the idea of Santa exists, and persists, as evidenced by generation after generation of coconspirators. As fairy tales go, it's not a bad one, after all, offering a fantasy of gifts freely given even as Christmas itself has been commercialized beyond belief. One hundred and 20 years ago, newspaperman Francis Pharcellus Church wrote in the New York Sun, in response to an 8-year-old's inquiring letter, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist ... Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. ... There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence." OK, then. Rather than calling these our recollections of when we became Santa Claus unbelievers, let's see them as the moments when we became coconspirators in the perpetuation of childlike faith in a good and generous world. I had my suspicions by about age 5, but I think I was 6 when I saw presents wrapped and tagged "from Santa," and I recognized my mother's handwriting. I figured the adults would be bummed if I let on that I knew — plus, as an only child, I got lots of gifts and didn't want to jeopardize this bounty. So we all kept up the ruse for…
Warning: If you're a parent of kids who are old enough to read but young enough to still think Jolly Old St. Nicholas is coming to town, please hide this article. Preferably not in the same place where you're hiding their Christmas presents. The scene: an editorial meeting. The characters: a bunch of staff writers who, occasionally, like to go off the rails. Their task: thinking up feature ideas for that time of year when life seems to slow down and speed up at once, aka the "holidays." The talk somehow turned to the moment when each of us — those whose families observed Christmas, that is — discovered Santa Claus wasn't real. Most of us were in the neighborhood of 5 to 7 years old. One late bloomer was 10. A few were temporarily devastated, while others already had their doubts about the logistics of the whole deal. Flying through the air in a sleigh? Coming down a chimney? Chimneys all over the world in a single night? As if. Thing is, whether or not he's real, the idea of Santa exists, and persists, as evidenced by generation after generation of coconspirators. As fairy tales go, it's not a bad one, after all, offering a fantasy of gifts freely given even as Christmas itself has been commercialized beyond belief. One hundred and 20 years ago, newspaperman Francis Pharcellus Church wrote in the New York Sun, in response to an 8-year-old's inquiring letter, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist ... Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. ... There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence." OK, then. Rather than calling these our recollections of when we became Santa Claus unbelievers, let's see them as the moments when we became coconspirators in the perpetuation of childlike faith in a good and generous world. I had my suspicions by about age 5, but I think I was 6 when I saw presents wrapped and tagged "from Santa," and I recognized my mother's handwriting. I figured the adults would be bummed if I let on that I knew — plus, as an only child, I got lots of gifts and didn't want to jeopardize this bounty. So we all kept up the ruse for…