Sedona.Biz – The Voice of Sedona and The Verde ValleySedona.Biz – The Voice of Sedona and The Verde Valley
    Sedona.Biz – The Voice of Sedona and The Verde Valley Sedona.Biz – The Voice of Sedona and The Verde Valley
    • Home
    • Sedona News
      • Arts and Entertainment
      • Bear Howard Chronicles
      • Business Profiles
      • City of Sedona
      • Elections
      • Goodies & Freebies
      • Mind & Body
      • Sedona News
    • Opinion
    • Real Estate
    • The Sedonan
    • Advertise
    • Sedona’s Best
    Sedona.Biz – The Voice of Sedona and The Verde ValleySedona.Biz – The Voice of Sedona and The Verde Valley
    Home»Editorials/Opinion»Bah Humbug!
    Editorials/Opinion

    Bah Humbug!

    December 19, 20219 Comments
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Email Reddit WhatsApp
    stock tommy santa
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email Reddit WhatsApp

    By Tommy Acosta

    Sedona, AZ News: I’ll never forget that day; the day I lost my innocence and faith in humanity.

    I was seven years old and playing with my friend Butchie Hagen in his room. It was a week before Christmas, and I was so excited to know Santa was coming soon with all kinds of presents as he had every year of my life I could remember.

    Butchie looked like something was bothering him. He wasn’t the same happy self as he usually was.

    I asked him what was wrong, and he said, “There is no Santa Clause.” 

    I said “what?”

    “There is no Santa Claus,” he repeated, this time with more conviction in his voice.

    I did not believe him.

    “How do you know,” I asked.

    “My sister told me,” he said.

    His older sister Valerie was twelve. She was a bit of a bully and would always be teasing us, so I still did not believe it.

    “She’s lying,” I said.

    “No,” he said. “My mom told me it was the truth. “There is no Santa Clause.”

    “That’s not true, I countered. “I don’t believe you, and I am going home.”

    I was quite upset and when I got home, I confronted my mom with what Butchie had said.

    “Don’t worry,” she said. “Butchie is wrong. There is a Santa, and in a few days, he will be here with all his presents for you.”

    There was something in her voice though, a concern. Like she knew she was lying and was worried that I might begin to doubt that Santa was real.

    Later that night when my dad got home from work, I asked him how Santa was able to get the toys in the house since we lived in an apartment and had no chimney.

    He said Santa simply shrunk himself and all his toys and slipped in under the door and when inside the house he and the toys would pop back to normal size.

    Sedona Gift Shop

    I asked him where he parked the sled and the reindeer, and he said up on the roof of the building.

    I wasn’t quite convinced but dropped the subject anyway. That night I barely slept fearing that maybe Butchie was right.

    The next day when my mom went to the store, I took the opportunity to search the house for evidence, reasoning that if Santa was not real, my mom and dad would have the toys hidden somewhere in the apartment.

    It did not take long to find them. There they were, hidden in the back of their bedroom closet; every toy that was on the list I had mailed to Santa weeks earlier.

    I was devastated. I had been lied to all along. There was no Santa. And if there was no Santa there was no North Pole, no Rudolph, no elves.

    Maybe there was no Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny either.

    And if I was lied to about all the above, maybe there were no angels, devils or flying dragons. 

    No Mighty Mouse, Superman, Peter Pan. No heaven or hell. No baby Jesus. No manger. No wise men. No star of Bethlehem. Maybe even no God.

    Perhaps everything I was told to believe was rooted in falsehood.

    From that point on I stopped believing.

    In my sophomore year in Catholic high school I doubted the infallibility of the Pope, while in class, a transgression that culminated with my being asked not to return for my junior year and having to go to public school because I would not relent.

    That set the stage for my challenging the integrity of authority itself.

    Thus, the seed of doubt was sewn in me that would one day blossom into a career as a journalist, where exposing lies became my passion.

    Now, that I am much, much older, looking at the Covid-gripped world we now live in, I realize that perhaps it’s better we are blinded to the truth by blizzards of lies. Maybe there is a need to maintain innocence in our children for as long as we can; to fool ourselves into believing the authorities know what they are doing, and all will be well soon, once again.

    It’s better than being the Scrooge I have become.

    Yes, I can get into the Holiday Spirit even when I know Christmas is a ploy by corporations to cash in on the event.

    I will this year. I will get into the spirit.  Grateful for all I have. Grateful I live in Sedona, the best Christmas present anyone could ever have.

    So, Merry Christmas Sedona.biz readers! And a Happy New Year!

    Healing Paws

    This is an advertisement

    9 Comments

    1. Buddy Oakes on December 20, 2021 9:09 am

      I always told my kids that as long as they believed in Santa he would keep coming. They are 29 and 27 now and they still “believe.” 🙂

      • Jeanie Carroll on December 20, 2021 10:06 am

        Me, too!! They are 33&35 now!

    2. carl jackson on December 20, 2021 9:52 am

      Happy Holidays, Tommy.

    3. Andrea on December 20, 2021 10:02 am

      GOD bless you! 🙂

    4. Rudolph on December 20, 2021 11:13 am

      Have a great holiday!
      From Rudolph at the North Pole

    5. Michael Johnson on December 20, 2021 4:55 pm

      I f. you believe in Santa you get toys
      If you don’t you get clothes

      good song. I Wish. by Stevie Wonder

    6. Michael Schroeder on December 20, 2021 9:22 pm

      Thanks for the perspective. Faith is what life is about.

    7. ???? Intbel on December 21, 2021 8:35 pm

      Figuring out that Father Christmas and all that goes with it is a lie is probably the most important things we ever learned . . . not that he, spcifically is a lie but that unless we question what we are told we’ll be deceived all our lives.

      Not many learned that lesson; oh, they don’t believe in Father Christmas but they do, unquestioningly, wear useless masks and queue for untested, experimantal MRNA jabs.

      Seems they understood the lie but never grasped the concept behind the lie.

      Happy Christmas, Tommy and remember, a turkey is not just for Christmas.
      (I was told turkey is also for Easter though I haven’t checked it out yet))
      ????

      • Tommy Acosta on December 23, 2021 2:38 pm

        Many can see. But few observe.

    The Politics of Pain

     

    The Politics of Pain

    If there’s one thing nearly every living organism on this planet shares, it is the ability to feel pain. The pain of hunger. Of loneliness. Of illness. The pain of broken bones and broken bodies, broken hearts and broken homes. The pain of poverty, depression, the death of someone we love—and, eventually, the anticipation of our own death. Pain, in all its shapes and shadows, is the one certainty life gives us all. No one escapes it.

    Read more→

    The Sedonan
    Recent Comments
    • Harold Macey on Don’t Prejudge
    • JB on Do The Math II
    • West Sedona Dave on Don’t Prejudge
    • Cara on Don’t Prejudge
    • Jill Dougherty on Don’t Prejudge
    • Michael Schroeder on Don’t Prejudge
    • Joetta Gayle Winter on Do The Math II
    • What Mike Schroeder really meant to write on Do The Math II
    • Cara on Don’t Prejudge
    • Joetta Winter on Don’t Prejudge
    • Michael Schroeder on Don’t Prejudge
    • West Sedona Dave on LLMs: A Test for Sentience as a Scientific Standard to Measure AI Consciousness
    • Jonathan Weiheater Sr. on Do The Math II
    • Jill Dougherty on Do The Math
    • Jill Dougherty on Don’t Prejudge
    Categories
    © 2025 All rights reserved. Sedona.biz.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.