Today, I'm going to rant about Santa Claus. If you have any small children in the room, you are encouraged to send them into another room in order to protect them from what I am about to say.

Are they gone? No? Okay, I'll give you a few more minutes....

Dum de dum de dum dum dum.....

Ho, hum.....

*Whistling an innocent tune*

Are they gone yet? Yes? Good... Now, prepare yourselves. I am bringing you earth-shattering news: There is no Santa Claus. He is simply a figment of a marketing engineer's imagination. Your parents know that Santa Claus isn't real. Your Grandparents know that Santa Claus doesn't exist. Everyone knows it but you. Now, don't you feel stupid? Everyone knew you were believing a lie, yet they went along with it because they didn't want to "hurt" you.

Now, the reason I tell you this is because it seems as though the world seems to forget that they don't believe in fairy tales when Christmas rolls around. I think it's odd that the world passes the Bible off as a fairy tale, yet they embrace Santa Claus; even to the point of making many movies about a Jolly Old Man that doesn't exist. The world would rather embrace and romanticize the thought of some weird old guy that lives in the un-inhabitable North Pole with a bunch of vertically challenged individuals and with a wife that doesn't mind having an overweight husband who works only one day a year and who goes out to the homes of people he doesn't know, breaking into their homes (using a combination of "magic" and a fireplace that sometimes doesn't exist) and, instead of taking things, he puts wonderfully wrapped presents around a Christmas tree. The world would rather believe that a fat man can shimmy down a fireplace, than believe that God loves us, to the point of dying for us.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about all of this is that people put so much trust and belief in something that they know is fake, yet they say that God doesn't exist because they can't see Him... Have you EVER seen Santa Claus?? If the guys in the mall are just Santa's "helpers", where is Santa? Man has made it to the North Pole, but they never did see Santa Claus, nor did they see any evidence of a workshop (read: "Santa's Sweatshop") full of magical elves that were happily whistling and working on your toys for next Christmas. Please excuse me for yelling here, but: SANTA IS NOT REAL!! We teach our children from the time that they are young that there is some mysterious man in the North Pole that knows everything about them and brings them toys if they are good children and a lump of coal if they are bad. Have we as a people gotten to the point of believing that God and Santa are one in the same?

Maybe that's it. Maybe, as a society, we want to believe that all we have to do to gain acceptance from God is to simply be good people. After all, it works with Santa. That might be it... We are taught that Santa Claus is real and at some point in our life, the truth is revealed to us, so we then question the validity of everything we were told as children. Either that or we apply the character of Santa to the character of God. We can do whatever we want to throughout the year, but as long as we go to church one or two times a year, we'll make it into heaven. After all, we are good people. I haven't murdered anyone, and I haven't robbed a bank or anything, so I should be in good standing with God. How many people have been rudely awakened when they died and saw that the idea of "Santa-God" was false?

December is an interesting time to watch the History Channel and the Discovery Channel. They have a BUNCH of special shows trying to discover the truth behind the story of Jesus, and the complete story of Jesus, and even taking the scripture and applying it to real world Israel at the recorded time in the Bible. They are desperately trying to disprove Christ's death and resurrection and eventual ascension. They can prove that the timeline of the Bible is correct, and they can prove that the names mentioned in the Bible (rulers and such) are correct for the time and the area, and they even have the burial shroud and a part of the sign that hung above Jesus proclaiming Him to be the King of the Jews (even written in the script of the era) and yet they STILL don't believe!!

It absolutely amazes me that people can look at all of the evidence available and still dismiss Christ's death and resurrection as pure myth and then put on a Santa suit and tell children to readily accept what the world knows is a fallacy. Could it be that we simply can't admit that we need help in this life? If we acknowledge Christ's existence, we acknowledge our basic inability to lead our own life, and we as people can't handle that. It's like being stuck in the desert and wandering down a deserted road for days, then finding a brand new car and a skateboard side by side. Common sense would tell you to get into the car and start driving toward the nearest town on the vehicle's onboard GPS system. But the world would rather grab the skateboard and start down the road on their own power. They may die, but at least they didn't have to give up their control.

Okay, I went off on a tangent a bit, but that subject greatly irks me.

As Christmas rolls around, who are you teaching your children to follow? Are they looking to some old man to give them presents, or are they looking to a Savior who gave them the Ultimate present?

Just something to think about...