Google Kiling Santa

How times change! I remember at Christmas time how easy it was to convince kids that Santa was a real fat guy who lived in an undisclosed house with little green and red dressed midgets called elves, who made toys that ....ok you get the idea. Pretending  that Santa was real was a great way to pass on a tradition and to keep the little ones from escaping their imagination in lieu of the grim reality of the real life they soon will have to deal with. After all, Christmas without Santa is like apple pie without apples.

But alas! I just read that Santa's cover may be blown for this generation of small humans. If you ask parents what they consider to be the biggest threat to the magic of Christmas today, it's not the Grinch that they fear will ruin junior's holiday spirit. It's Google (which is a different kind of Grinch, I suspect).  The little ones now have their cell phones and other Internet gadgets and they are quickly adept at finding the answer to the age old question only mom and dad used answer.  "Is Santa Real", they now type. The new Christmas song that might some day replace "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" could be something entitled "I Saw My Sister Googling Santa Claus".

Try googling it yourself.  I promise not to tell Santa you are suspicious that he is real.  If you enter that question into Google you'll get more results than you can handle. It takes only a second for you or junior to see that Santa is just a creation, not of God, but of marketing departments everywhere. Most of the top results do direct curious readers to sites advising parents on how to face up to the question and tell their kids "the truth." But that in itself blows Santa's cover.  Our tech savvy children can  instantaneously dispel all manner of myth about a fat man flying on a sleigh to deliver toys on Christmas night. How is a parent to fight against the God that  most kids worship....God Goggle?  It's a minefield for many parents. 

The beauty of Santa is the not knowing. Technology is all about knowing, and knowing this instant. I swear, Google is the Grinch to the North Pole. Hmmmm See, I told you  cell phones are a menace. How can we let technology destroy the most pervasive fictional character of all time? (I exclude the belief in God as number one in case you are an atheist as well as a Santa unbeliever). Santa is number one in the imagination world.  If Googling kills him we will have to invent a a substitute.

Actually, Google may not be the all time biggest threat to the belief in Santa Claus. Throughout history many truth tellers, the churches, older kids, educators, communists Grinches and that blabbermouth uncle we all had have also have tried to pretend Santa is not real! Forget that kind of talk. Child psychologists today say that a child's belief in Santa is a very positive mindset.  It's a good thing we parents try to see that our kids hold on to the "Santa is real" sentiment as long as possible. We adults may be the last bastion for saving Santa from the Goggle Grinch.

In defense of itself, Goggle says something like,  "What can we do? We want the kids to believe in Santa too. It's just that technology can have undesired consequences."  We can fight this Google assault on Christmas.  And there's more good news for parents, and children. This year Google says that when the little brats search for Santa's whereabouts, they'll encounter "something quite different."  I assume that means camouflage for Santa from the revelation police. Maybe Goggle is starting to believe in Santa too.

Oh, by the way, experts say that kids today are about the same age as kids they were 100 years ago when they first learned about Santa's real or imaginative self- at about age 7. How do I know it?  I Googled it. What else.