Ever since people have discovered the crushing nonexistence of Santa Claus, they feel that they must take it upon themselves to personally and unequivocally kill the notion of an obese senior citizen slipping down chimneys to deliver presents to billions of children the world over in the span of roughly eight hours.

As an atheist who was raised in a Jewish household whose patriarch is a professor of psychology, I feel that this behavior is a petty form of self validation and schadenfreude in order to compensate for the crushing sadness that engulfed these newly converted infidels when they were children. There had to be some way to justify the sheer idiocy of sitting next to a fire pit with milk and cookies, waiting for a knick knack bearing home invader to appear. Ergo, many self proclaimed hilariously ingenious people both young and old have done a 180 and now mock the lunacy of the idea of Santa Claus in order to save face and scrounge a few laughs.

These arguments start out logically enough. How is it even possible, assuming that one manages to amass a team of flying reindeer, to fly all over the world and deliver presents in less than 24 hours? Of course, that's simply ridiculous. Even further, the idea that one man alone could do it is insane, it would require a team of at least 600! Oh absolutely, a veritable army of Santas. And then to think that a person of such girth could conceivably squeeze himself down the standard dimensions of a chimney, and the fact that millions of people don't have chimneys! Yes, the global housing spectrum is quite wide. Plus how would there be enough room in the sled for billions of presents, varying in size and shape? It does seem inconsistent with the laws of physics.

All of these assertions creep into yule time conversations, and what's remarkable is that each person who makes these arguments believes himself to be the first. It's painful really, seeing the bright eyed and expectant looks that appear on the visages of these would be comedians, anxiously waiting for a laugh, a congratulatory "I've never heard that one before! That's brilliant!" Of course I begrudgingly oblige, giving them an amused chuckle so as to let them save face but at the same time convey my impatience and annoyance with their banal holiday tidbits. It's astonishing that people view these supposedly comical tirades as necessary. Convincing people that Santa Claus is a figment of our imagination reinforced by scheming holiday card companies is much like trying to convince the public that Meryl Streep is a phenomenal actress. Yes, we know.

Therefore, I am instituting a reflexive moratorium on denunciations of Santa Claus. No longer shall I be subjected to unfunny and cliched rants from people desperate for an admiring audience. Instead, let's encourage people to put their persuasive skills to good use and convince people of the nonexistence of more important things, like Creationism. Not only is the idea of a world less than 6,000 years old laughable, but efforts put towards converting the philistines who profess such bullshit are far more appreciated this holiday season than denouncing Kris Kringle.