The Tuesday Diversion: The Death of Mr. Claus

Let me say this up front: I love Christmas. I do. It's my favorite secular holiday.

In 4th grade Sunday School in the mid-60s I didn't get satisfactory answers to certain questions (like "Just how did that Red Sea part again?") and so became a non-believer at an early age. But I still loved Christmas. Sure, the presents were great and all, but I liked the twinkle of lights through frosty windows, and sleigh rides in the park, and the ceremony: buying a tree, my dad tying it to the top of the station wagon, decorating it in the living room while listening to Johnny Mathis. All that stuff.

That's also the year I found out there was no Santa Claus. Maybe, for me, discovering the truth about the falsity of Santa Claus liberated Christmas from the falsity of Christianity, and enabled me to enjoy the holiday for what it was itself, lights and sounds and magic, unencumbered by forced belief.

But there's another reason I love Christmas. Each Christmas I get younger. I didn't always used to get younger. As time went on and Christmas became more and more commercialized and commoditized, I slowly became more cynical and bitter, and with each year's hardening became that much older. And then I had kids. And they discovered Christmas. And each year we went out and bought a tree and tied it to the top of the car and decorated it in the living room while listening to Johnny Mathis. And I saw Christmas reflected in their eyes, saw their unalloyed joy at the lights and the sounds and the twinkle of lights in cold air.

And each year I saw that I became less cynical and less bitter and less hard, and each year I became younger. My youngest is five years old now and I'm so looking forward to becoming younger in the next 5 to 10 years.

So, anyway, for those of you who grew up with Christmas, how old were you when you found out about Santa Claus, and how did it affect you?