Weird transition, I know, but go with me on this one. I was talking about explaining the unexplainable and believing in strange things. Surely, an entire mythology centered around a man who enjoys breaking into people's homes to leave them presents is a little odd, don't you think?
Most of us believe(d) in Santa Claus at one point in our lives. Before...
"Santa didn't eat his cookies! Daddy says that's because Santa is on a diet... just like him... and the reindeer had full bellies from all the carrots and apples so they didn't eat the moss I left them... but you would THINK that reindeer would love to eat moss since that's what they eat every other night, wouldn't you? The reindeer were really quiet on the roof last night. I know because I stayed up all night and I NEVER HEARD them! ...Daddy says they are extra special because they can fly and they have to be extra quiet so they don't wake all the boys and girls of the world... but not all 9 billion of them have roofs and that's okay because Santa knows exactly where to put the presents if they don't... and Santa only comes to give kids presents if they're REALLY good... but I pulled my sister's hair and Mommy says I made a scene in the store and I didn't go to bed on time a single night this week and I still got presents for Christmas. Daddy says that Santa will know if we're good or not because the Elf on the Shelf who moves around every night tells him if I should go on the Bad List or the Good List. The Elf is only around in December, though, so how does he know what I'm doing the rest of the year? Oh one time, on accident, I SAW one of my presents before Christmas and Daddy said that could only have happened because one of Santa's Elves took his work home with him and was finishing up making some last minute toys but I never saw any parts lying around and it was in a box inside of a Toy Store bag nowhere NEAR the Elf on the Shelf!...! Daddy also says that Santa went to burgling school so he can get inside people's houses when there is no chimney to climb down... but Daddy told me he won't do that unless it's Christmas Eve because he respects our privacy and doesn't want to scare us and I should never open the door for strangers because even I think it's Santa, it probably isn't because he doesn't come unless we are asleep but guess what? ...last year I stayed awake ALL night WITHOUT TELLING and I STILL got presents under the tree, so Santa doesn't really know when I'm asleep and I guess Daddy doesn't know everything, either!...but I still Love him. Even though I know he's lying to me - or he is very, very silly (that's the word we say when we think someone is s**pid, but s***** is not a very nice word)."
Santa Claus teaches us an important lesson in life. Doubt. If we believed everything everyone ever told us, we wouldn't learn to think on our own. I admit, one of my classmates "ruined Christmas" for me. I didn't get there on my own, but I asked "Daddy" how it was possible for Santa to visit all the Children in the world when there were almost 100,000 people just in my town alone. After a botched attempt to convince me to believe for one more year, he settled on making me promise not to spoil it for my brother. I'm pretty sure I went through the stages of grief after that.
After my Denial of the truth was shattered, I was Angry with my parents for LYING to me my whole life. How dare they? They said they would never lie to me, but of course, they were LYING (Duh)! I went through "Bargaining" with my parents, trying to convince them that lying to me, even if it seemed okay at the time, was NEVER, ever okay to do EVER again. Then, I might say that I got Depressed. Not that Santa wasn't real, but that my innocent view of my parents was shattered. I never looked at them the same way again; I DOUBTED them. I think I'm still struggling on the Acceptance part. I accept that my parents lied to me for years, and I realize that it taught me to doubt the world and think for myself. Yet, after realizing that they lied to me for YEARS and that the entire country/world gets away with knowingly lying to their young about so many things got me wondering whether I would have naturally learned to doubt my parents if I hadn't caught them in a bold-faced lie. I doubted them about little things before then, but never the big stuff.
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| Seriously, Wikipedia isn't always right, but you should check this out! |
Finally, I suppose I Accepted that people lie. People lie on purpose, and they tell lies purely by accident. For example, how do you know who is lying to whom when I tell you that the Earth is flat and you tell me that it is round? Now, here in 2015, we can laugh about it, but over 2,000 years ago (because Jesus could have learned the Earth was round thanks to a man named Eratosthenes - look him up if you've been spreading lies about Columbus yourself), we now know that parents were spreading lies to their children about the Earth being flat. One of those children decided for himself to reject the lie and prove an observable truth to the rest of the world. Think for yourself, people! You may just learn something...
Message of the day: Doubt is a powerful, useful tool. Use it.
...Or don't. It won't change my reality. Cheers!
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