My name is Gabrielle, I am 19 years old and I still believe in Santa. I understand that it is not physically possible for a man to fly around the world in one night and reindeer obviously can’t fly. Does this make me believe any less? Absolutely not.
The infamous “Santa isn’t real” experience came to me at 9 years old. I came down stairs to talk to my mom. I had no idea at the time, but I was about to walk into the epitome of childhood disappointment. My mom was putting a brand new ‘Sorry’ board game and a bouncy elastic bungee chair under the tree. To this day I don’t believe I would’ve thought twice about it if she didn’t look at me and scream “GET UPSTAIRS!” Later, she joined me at my bedside to tell me good night. She acted like nothing had happened previously, so I started by asking her why she screamed at me and why Santa had come already. She responded in a sweet, but urgent plea for me to keep believing. She claimed that I had seen nothing, that it was all in my imagination, something I conjured up in my blossoming young mind. When I awoke I went downstairs after getting everyone up, only to see that brand new ‘Sorry’ boardgame and that bouncy elastic bungee chair sitting under our very realistic synthetic tree… I was crushed. I knew my mom had lied to me and I did in fact see everything I had the night before. I realized that in every argument I had at school with kids my age about Santa, I was the one in the wrong… but was I?
Years had gone by and my belief in Santa rapidly declined. I still tried to hang on to the idea that I had seen nothing and it was all in my imagination, however it didn’t last. In my head santa wasn’t real and I just couldn’t change that. I began to think that Santa and along with Christmas as a whole was ‘Just for kids’ and how did all of these adults celebrate so joyously when the magic of Christmas was all just a hoax. I failed to understand that just because people may say Santa doesn’t exist or you may find ‘proof’ that he doesn’t. It does not mean that he isn’t real.
There are roughly 62.1 million children in America right now that believe in the ruler of the North Pole. How can so much of the population believe in something that isn’t real? I think that once so many people believe in something it becomes true. If he isn’t real how can you meet him in the mall? Why are there so many movies about him? How is he the icon of the most famous holiday if he isnt… real? That’s because he is. When you get to a certain age you fail to see the point. We don’t have to see him or have proof of his existence to believe in him, yet when the clock hits December 1st he is everywhere. The magic of Christmas dies without your belief. If you have none it is not there, and if you do? No matter how old you are, it will always be there. We may not be able to see his elaborate workshop at the North Pole or see those reindeer fly, but they do. They always do… if we believe.
Gabrielle Holzmiller is a 19-year-old film student and screenwriter from Newton County, Georgia.
