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• Perhaps another illustration would be Halloween. I do not believe in ghosts, goblins and all of the stupidity invested in this kind of a holiday. Yet, my whole life is not focused around trying to disprove ghosts and goblins. If somebody wants to believe in ghosts and goblins, what is that to me?
• I do not believe there was ever such a creature as Rudolph the red nose reindeer. Somebody made that up to go along with the Christmas story. I do not think Santa Claus ever existed. Not all the stories I have read about Santa Claus has ever convinced me such a person existed.
• Yet, I do not spend the whole holiday season ranting and raving trying to disprove Rudolph the red nose reindeer and his master St. Nicholas. If somebody wants to believe in Santa Claus and his reindeer and that Rudolph the red nose reindeer saved Christmas one year, what is that to me? I say let people indulge in these marvelous little fantasies.
• I cannot tell you how many years I sat on Santa Claus's lap and to this day, nothing I asked for has ever come my way via Christmas. Yet, this Christmas I will take my grandchildren to the mall and have them sit on Santa Claus's lap and tell him what they want for Christmas.
• Believing in the mall Santa Claus is pure fantasy.
• Yet, I am not going to picket the mall around Christmas time demanding they do away with the mall Santa Claus. After all, Santa Claus in the mall brings customers to the mall.
• Many fantasies I do not put any trust in, but I do not build my life around destroying these fantasies other people enjoy.
• I do not recall how old I was when I found out that Santa Claus was just a fictional character that made Christmas something of a fantasy. Even though I discovered that Santa Claus was not real I found myself as a father telling the Santa Claus story to my children and then later to my grandchildren.
• Some of these people attacking the holiday season, including the Christmas tree, are just indicating that somewhere along the line they have not grown up. If they do not believe in the holiday season, particularly Christmas, then let us who love the holiday season, especially Christmas, enjoy it.
• I advise those who do not enjoy the holiday season to go up to Western Pennsylvania, find Punxsutawney Phil and spend the winter with him. We will be sure to look for you come spring.
• I like how the apostle Paul put it. "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (1 Corinthians 13:10).

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