I don't believe in Santa Claus

So just sign my presents ‘love, Jesus’

TESSA VANDERHART STAFF

I stopped believing in Santa Claus one Christmas Eve, when I expectorantly awoke to my sixth annual glut of presents being delivered not by a fat man in a red suit, but by my dad in his underwear. The perils of being a light sleeper.

But just like I wasn’t the cool kid that year when I broke the news to my friends at school (what kind of parent tells their six-year-old that Santa doesn’t exist? Jeez!), being an atheist at Christmastime is not exactly revolutionary.

Christmas has made great strides toward inclusiveness: I don’t have to believe that Jesus is our saviour to capitalize on presents, time off from school, and — most importantly — holiday-related boozefests.

And, with a little help from Statistics Canada, I’ve discovered that it’s not just me: 2.9 million people who classify themselves as having “no religion” — the second-highest response on the 2001 census! — do not: a) kill themselves; b) self-destruct in order to smash capitalism; or c) steal presents from little children, as a result of the big day.

Probably atheists are less disenfranchised by the whole Christmas thing than firm non- Christian believers — the holiday, like most Canadians, is weak in its convictions at best. (X-mas? Who are you kidding?) Still, in the interest of making my non-beliefs relatable to those who feel strongly about the day that doubles our nation’s GDP, I hope you can consider what a fantastic time of year this is when you don’t have to believe in it, not any of it, not even the basic goodness of people.

As previously alluded to, I actually kind of like Christmas: the lights are kind of pretty, and all of this “is it ‘the holidays?’ Is it ‘Christmas?’ Are we being inclusive?” nonsense makes me laugh every time. (You’re not supposed to be inclusive. To be inclusive, you’d have to forcefully convert every one of us!)

So I hope you’ll excuse me for not being so distracted by a shiny object that I pick up your religion (just because it worked on the pagans doesn’t mean it will work on me! [sorry, pagans]). Plus, it has some glaring contradictions, more glaring even than my willingness to accept Christmas presents when pressed.

(Like did you ever wonder, since God can’t take a physical form, and even Eve had to be reproduced from Adam’s DNA, if Jesus was then by extension Mary’s clone, and the real miracle was that Mary somehow evolved the capacity to self-fertilize, as many plants do?)

Anyway, have a merry Christmas or a happy Hanukkah or whatever. Call me up, we’ll get drunk, exchange presents, and maybe play in the snow after our family dinners.