Committee against Santa Claus.

I believed in Santa for probably too long as a kid. I remember the whole shebang: leaving out the cookies, cutting carrots into sticks for the reindeer, and writing Santa a letter he took the time to respond to between his deliveries. I felt like this warm figure kept an eye out for me all year long, and that brought me some comfort. Santa embodied the persona of a big, burly uncle that gave bear hugs and made funny old-man jokes.

On one hand, I really liked the guy. On the other, I feared him. After all, he was still a stranger, and I’d never actually met him. The idea of a grown man breaking into our house every Christmas while we slept vulnerably never sat totally right with me. Nevertheless, everyone apparently seemed okay with it so I just concluded I was being too sensitive.

As the baby of the family, I really didn’t stand a chance in picking up on the absurdity of the whole lie. I fell victim to older siblings who wanted to keep the holiday magic alive for me and for their own entertainment. They drove home the idea that Santa was absolutely real and they all fully believed in him. I had no reason to doubt these people, and if my older siblings thought something, I of course took it as fact. So I bought in. Deep.

I had just turned 8 the year that the whole sham was exposed. Christmas Eve, I slipped out of bed. I don’t remember why, but I climbed the stairs from the basement floor where my sister and I slept. I peeked into the hallway, terrified to run into the big guy on the job. I didn’t know what I would do or say.

Is it bad luck to see him in action? What were the consequences?

I didn’t know and that paralyzed me with fear. I took a deep breath and made a b-line for my parent’s bedroom door.

I knocked. Nothing.

Did Santa hear me knock? Hurry up and open the door somebody! I pictured him hearing and walking down the hallway to investigate.

I knocked again. This time a little more frantically. After a second, my mom cracked open her door carefully. She saw the panic in my eyes and opened the door wider, letting me in. I barged into the room to find stockings spread across their floor, my mom and dad filling them with pre-wrapped trinkets, toothbrushes, and candy for me and my siblings to find in the morning.

I was confused and asked what was going on.

With a sigh, my mom broke the news. It had been them all along.

I was heartbroken and at the time I didn’t have words for just why.

It wasn’t that I felt attached to this idea of a jolly giant of a man. It wasn’t that I was a Santa fanatic. It wasn’t that the holiday magic dissipated in one fell swoop.

It was that I felt duped. I felt deceived by the people I was closest to. I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I was the only one who wasn’t in-the-know.

My parents led me back to bed and I was crying, completely disappointed and blindsided by all I’d just learned.

I climbed into my sister’s bed, where I would typically sneak my way into most nights and she was awake. She turned over to look at me lying on her side. She likes to reenact how I asked: “Did you know?” through streaming tears, not even explaining what I was referring to on Christmas Eve night.

She replied, “Yeah…" softly.

I vividly remember this night and as an adult, I’ve only begun to wonder why I took it as hard as I did. No shade on my family, but I believe it was because I felt totally betrayed by those I love. It made me angry because I started to question what else they were lying to me about.

For this reason, I’m deeply against selling kids on the idea of Santa Claus. Honestly, it’s a dating deal-breaker for me if someone is insistent on peddling the Santa Claus scam to our potential children as ridiculous as that sounds.

But in remembering this traumatic realization I had as an eight-year-old, I seek what can be learned from the obvious impression it left on me. In reflection, I would conclude that as kids, I believe we all responded with fewer filters. We were often brutally honest in the face of life. Slowly, we learned to adapt, cope, and fib our way through discomfort to get by, adding layers that aren’t true to who we really are. Understanding the reactions we had as children, I believe, reveals who we are at our core and what we uniquely need.

For me, the Santa story shows that deception—even when it’s done for lighthearted reasons—hits me hard and the shame of ignorance is a difficult hurdle for me. These realities are helpful for me to keep in mind as I evolve as a person, move in and out of relationships, and work to understand myself more deeply.