Santa vs. Jesus

As most people who grew up celebrating Christmas, I once believed in Santa. Also as someone who grew up celebrating Christmas, I was taught all about Jesus. For a lot of people questioning the existence of either is usually a moment you remember quite well.

As quite the atheist I have realized something terribly funny to me. It was much more disappointing and more surprising to me when I realized Santa wasn't real than when I came to the same conclusion about all the stuff in the Bible. (Now, to be fair, I was much younger with the Santa thing than the God thing.)

Like a lot of people, I grew up getting dragged to church on Sundays, celebrating Easter and Christmas, and even participating in all the fun church events. When I was really little we actually succeeded at making it to church more than once every two or three months. For awhile my mom even taught Sunday school. By all means I should have had a successful brain washing. Problem was the Bible, much like the ungodly amounts of fairy tales I read as kid, never had any proof that they were true. Santa on the other hand had a lot of evidence in his favor even if it was entirely circumstancial.

I never even thought about religion until I hit middle school. I was neither questioning it or accepting it as true. Church was just the place we went to hear stories and play with other kids so long as our fancy clothes weren't injured in anyway (which usually wasn't a success in my case). Looking back, I remember liking Sunday school because we got to color, make things, and read stories. When I discovered that adult services offered little plastic cups with grape juice and bread, I wanted to go to adult services because snacks. I went to vacation Bible school, in fourth grade, because it was jungle themed and meant hanging out with my friends. I joined the youth choir in sixth grade because it meant I got to hang out with one of my best friends. And in seventh grade I joined the church band because I wanted to play the drums. Never once in my entire childhood of growing up in a religious family did I ever do anything church related for my love of God or Jesus. I did it solely for the purpose that whatever I was doing seemed fun or interesting. Which is still to this day exactly how I decide what to do.

I don't think I ever really believed the Bible. It was just a giant book full of fun stories that sat on the shelf next to my giant book of fairy tales. My favorite fairy tale was Little Red Riding Hood and my favorite Bible story was the one about Ester. (The one about Sarah, which I was forced to read multiple times because it's what I'm named after was boring and I never liked it.) I never questioned that fairy tales weren't real because I never thought about it. The same goes for the Bible. I didn't care. It was just fun. Church was a once a week club dedicated to reading and discussing fairy tales.

My mom tells me that when I was little I didn't ask a lot of questions like my sisters did. That's probably because I have always liked to figure things out on my own. I had questions, but instead of asking adults, who I was never entirely convinced knew what they were talking about, I just did research. (Boy was I naturally inclined to be a nerd.) Research in my case meant actually investigating rather than asking people questions. I actually used to solve "mysteries" on my own in my backyard as a kid and for awhile wanted to be a crime scene investigator or forensic scientist. (This was probably where my obsession with the way blood moves and looks began. Which is quite useful knowledge in film school and actually came in handy tonight while painting a T-shirt to look like it was covered in drying blood.)

When my older sister, being a professional bubble burster at a young age, told me Santa wasn't real I refused to take her word for it and started my investigation. It was sort of difficult because I had to actually wait for Christmas. My older sister's evidence was that Santa's handwriting matched Mom's. I had a plan to investigate this as well as the cookies for santa and the carrots for his raindeer. I was planning to stay up all night and slip downstairs to hide under the dining room table once my parents went to bed. This didn't end up happening though because my parents had become lazy Santas and on Christmas Eve we did our annual opening of one present each. I, while digging for a present my mom could open, found a Santa present addressed to my mom.

Mystery solved my parents were Santa. It was really upsetting. Yes, because I had been told a lie, but mostly because it meant my older sister was right and I couldn't prove her wrong and also she figured it out first. That was what upset me the most. Those are still things that irritate me quite a bit. I like being ahead of people and figuring things out first. And I really hate having to prove people right when it comes to something I was slow on the uptake of. In fact, when I first figured out I was gay, I the most upset about the fact it meant that everyone was right all along I was the last to figure it out, and now I had to own up to it.

In seventh grade, my Atheist Epiphany was, brought on by my being the auxiliary percussionist in the middle school church rock band. Two things you should know are: 1) middle school church rock bands suck and 2) the auxiliary percussionist is the person that plays all the other instruments that aren't drums and plays the drums when the actual drummer is sick. In short, I was the tambourine player.

That year I learned some very important things. The main one being cowbell sucks! I may be the only percussionist to ever say it, but there never has been or ever will anything cool or exciting about the fucking Cowbell. It is an obnoxious loud hollow chunk of metal that should be left for the purpose of hearing a cow approaching. Thanks to the actual drummer, a kid a year older than me, who actually happens to be the older brother of my younger sister's boyfriend, I heard that obnoxious hunk of metal played in my ear constantly while waiting for tambourine cues because he liked to use it as a cymbal. The Cowbell sucks! Fact!

The other thing I learned was that there is very little meaning in Christian music and that anytime anyone ever says the phrase "awesome God" I will for the rest of my life have terribly annoying song with just a few lines on repeat for about three minutes stuck in my head.

I'm not saying Christian music sucks. I'm saying simplistic Christian rock that middle schoolers can play sucks. It was that terrible music on a tambourine that gave me time to think. Any idiot can play a tambourine on cue and anyone that's not an idiot can do so whike thinking about lots of other things. Since I heard the phrase, "our God is an awesome God" on repeat and paraphrased by other phrases for three hours every Wednesday night for a school year I started thinking about God and decided that I wasn't so interested in worshiping him. My conclusion was I didn't care if he existed, I was going to do what I was going to do anyways and that if I was ever going to worship him there had to be a more creative way than repeating the same basic concept over and over again to music.

My realizations that Santa didn't exist was far more devastating than thinking about God ever has been for me. Sure the God thing has drawn more arguments and lectures, but it had the same effect as church rock band did on me. Basically, I've heard what has to be said so many times and in the few ways possible so many times that my head just zones out. The same goes for the lectures I get on not liking the Cowbell which can't actually be diversified past, "what's wrong with you?! How can you not like Cowbell?"