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actually had nothing to do with that overweight
old man named Santa. Rather, it had everything
to do with the birth of a baby named Jesus.
As a child growing up in a Christian family,
Jesus was not a stranger to me. I’d been hearing
stories about him forever. But suddenly things
were seriously out of order. The conversation
with my Sunday School teacher went pretty
simply like this:
It was from the age of about eight that I seriously
left Christmas behind and started to ignore
churches as much as I could. I wanted nothing
to do with either of them. I knew that there
was no Santa, and that the Christmas events
my parents had promoted were just a game
to keep the family in line and reasonably jolly
together. They now owned an eight-year-old boy
who had learned how to secretly sneer, how to
THE SIXPENCE
15
Review copy only—not for distribution.
“Are you seriously telling me that
Christmas is really all about Jesus and his
being born somewhere, and has never
really had anything to do with Santa
Claus? Why? Why? WHY?”
12/09/2016 1:02 PM