Santa Rant 2015

I can remember exactly where I was standing when Bonnie Gang convinced me that there was no Santa Claus. 

Bonnie is someone I had known since my first day of kindergarten and had been a trusted peer for about four years. One day, around Christmastime, she seemed to have a message of deliverance that she wanted to share with me in private.

 We were standing in the West Elementary library, where the top of the stairway meets the long wavy wall that divides the upper and lower library. Bonnie had always been smart, and that gave her message credibility. No one else seemed to be there as I pondered the evidence and came to conclusion that she was telling the truth and that Santa is a Big Fat Lie. 

Time stood still as a deluge of emotion washed over me. Initially, I was embarrassed that I had so faithfully believed the lie, but most of all, I couldn't understand why the lie in the first place? 

The lie was elaborate too, and everyone was in on it; parents teachers, siblings. I remember lying in bed on Christmas Eve, listening to the Santa's sleigh update on KCPX AM radio, that supposedly tracked the magickal giftsman on radar. Even the media was in on the deception.

Is it good for children to be deceived on such a grand scale?