In early December I came to a stop in a dark pre-Christmas wood. Which fork should I take? The path that leads to Scrooge and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas? Or the path that leads to Harassed Christmas List-making and Gift-shopping! ​I chose The Way of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, because Christmas is a snow job … and even the snow is fake. 

Census results show that fewer New Zealanders identify as Christian than ever before, and more of us admit to having no religious belief at all. Growing numbers of us are Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. Rugby and the America’s Cup probably inspire more zealotry in New Zealand than any God. Which means that not many of us believe that a supernatural birth occurred in Bethlehem on the 25th of December 2017 years ago. ​ 

​Santa is the real God of modern Christmas. Images of the baby Jesus in a stable are displayed in shop windows almost interchangeably with images of Santa wreathed in holly and unreasonable, unseasonable snow. I imagine that some kids these days are so confused that they think it’s baby Santa they see napping in the hay. They may well think that the baby, grown paunchy and whiskery with age, has simply moved to cooler climes and swapped his swaddling clothes for red, fur-trimmed long-johns. 

The just-released results of the 2013 census show that fewer New Zealanders identify as Christian than ever before. Growing numbers of us are Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. Many of us confess no religious belief at all. Rugby and the America’s Cup probably inspire more zealotry in New Zealand than any God. Which means that few of us believe that a supernatural birth occurred in Bethlehem on the 25th of December 2013 years ago. 
Santa is the real God of modern Christmas. Images of the baby Jesus in a stable are displayed in shop windows almost interchangeably with images of Santa wreathed in holly and unreasonable, unseasonable snow. 
I imagine that some kids these days are so confused that they think it’s baby Santa they see napping in the hay. They may well think that the baby, grown paunchy and whiskery with age, has simply moved to cooler climes and swapped his swaddling clothes for red, fur-trimmed long-johns. 

Writing this posting has involved a struggle with a ghastly, long-suppressed childhood memory: the obligation to write, on our return to primary school after the Christmas holidays, an essay on "What I Did in the Christmas Holidays". 
All around me my classmates propped sunburned forearms on their desks, licked their Black Beauty pencils, and scribbled happily with effortless Total Holiday Recall, while I sat paralysed by Complete Holiday Amnesia. The little I remembered was too shabby or too shameful to reveal and so I wrote accounts of purely imaginary holidays. 

Holidays which didn't involve boredom, tears, divided loyalties or a father who blundered into stationery objects when he'd had too much to drink. These lying essays were probably my first formal forays into a genre which now has a respectable name: creative non-fiction.

Sitting on the lap of the Kirkcaldie and Stains’ Santa, I was visited by a sudden, deeply disquieting realisation: I was looking into the face of a mask and the eyes of an unknown man were staring at me from behind the fake beard. 

It’s clear that the child who has not been indoctrinated into the Santa cult recoils instinctively from the figure in the red suit. Inspired by the child’s innocent act of repudiation I have come up with a radical solution to the horrors of Christmas.

But, before I share my idea, I need to expose the origins and extent of the malign effects of the Santa myth on our national psyche.