A news anchor in Chicago told the “truth” about Santa earlier this week and you can imagine the backlash.  Story HERE:  I think you lose that innocent perspective of life the moment you hear the “Santa story.”  I’ll never forget “Santa-Day.”  It was a Tuesday morning in December at about 7:30AM.  The bus would stop in front of my house in ten minutes and I was just about to walk out the front door.  I was seven years old.  Mom asked me to come into my bedroom for a moment and sit down.  My mother got right to the point and said:  “I don’t want you to hear this on the bus but Santa is not real.  Your father and I buy the gifts and he eats the cookies.  I’ll explain the entire thing after school.”  I’m not kidding you.  I got the “Santa Story” like a news anchor was doing a tease for the six o’clock headlines.

I got on the bus stunned.  I looked around at the other snot-nosed kids and wondered how many of them knew.  Could they tell that I had just been told?  Is there a secret sign I need to share with them to illustrate I knew the big lie was over?  Look.  I was seven years old, my mother gives me a cliff-note version of the “Santa story” and throws me on a bus.  My world was a bit shaken and now I questioned EVERYTHING.  In fifteen seconds I had gone from existing in a constant state of Utopia to a psychologists dream.

When I got home from school that day I sat down with Mom and Dad and they explained everything in great detail.  Santa may not wear a red suit and climb down the chimney but he does exist.  There’s a little bit of Santa Claus in all of us and THAT’S what makes him real and makes him exist.  I felt much better.  I trusted the world and my parents once again.  All I could do is hug my mother and say “Well at least we have the Easter Bunny.”  There was a long pause……I think you know the rest of this story.  🙂