Santa and God

Ho-ho-holy night.

Well, it's that time of year once again. The celebration of Christ's birth and a mysterious fat man in a red suit who flies through the sky in a magic sled distributing presents.

Consider that an introduction to ...

The Theology of Santa.

Santaology, for short.

Now, Santa as folklore, cool. Santa as an insidious mind-bending delusion imposed on ignorant childish minds? Not cool.

Evidently there are mailing services that will (for a fee) mail your kid a personalized letter from Santa postmarked from the North Pole, Alaska. Seriously.

Ho-ho-ho TIMMY, 
You've been a naughty boy.
I notice you've been masturbating.
No presents for you, TIMMY.
your omniscient pal,
—SANTA

No, I kid, I kid. Pseudo Santa's personalized letters are uniformly positive. But that begs a question ...

Is Timmy an idiot?

Indeed, a valid question. But I was thinking of ...

Why go to all this trouble to delude Timmy into thinking Santa exists?

Which conspiracy kinda sorta brings God into the picture.

Now, checking my own theology at the door, here. Just saying ...

I recall my own parents introducing me to the iconography of Santa. The reindeer hooves on the roof. The fatman sliding down the chimney. Since we lived in Florida, the flue to our furnace was approximately 3" in diameter. Thus, straining plausibility. But no matter ...

I was a logical little child. I thought the damn thing through.

Santa clearly had magic powers. He could be in several places at once. Either that, or he had super-speed powers, like The Flash. Not to mention his sees-you-when-you're-sleeping vision. Only one conclusion could be reached. Santa worked for God! Jesus had given him miraculous eternal life and set him up with a toy factory in the North Pole, complete with a staff of elves and magic, flying reindeer.

Said theological hypothesis made my Mother nervous. She didn't want to say Santa worked for God. But Santa's real, right? Uh...right. So? What other possible explanation could there be? My Mother let the subject drop, but implied consent with silence.

So, shortly thereafter, I recall urinating in the boy's bathroom at Alta Vista Elementary. I asked my fellow urinators, "What's Santa getting you for Christmas?" This earned laughter and scorn. Haw-haw-haw! You still believe in Santa Claus? No. I was just kidding. No you weren't. Yeah, I was! Bullshit. I'm joking, OK? There's no such thing as !@$# Santa! Hot tears fell down my cheeks. Outside, a rooster crowed. Three times.

There was no such thing as Santa Claus.

Right then, I knew.

The little bastards were right.

And the next thought that hit me ...

Shit. They lied to me about Santa.

What about God?