But does Santa believe in you?

NORTH POLE (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript)-- With just three days remaining until his annual goodwill mission, Santa Claus admitted Wednesday that for almost two hundred years he's harbored growing doubts about the existence of children. St. Nick opened this morning's global press briefing on a surprisingly somber note, offering reporters a rare glimpse into the philosophical and spiritual conflicts that have troubled his soul since the end of the 1950s, when he first recognized his budding crisis of faith. Kris Kringle said: "I've been reluctant to talk about this, but I feel the time is right. A lot of dubious claims have been made, creating myths that just can't be justified in my mind. I've tried to rationalize them for years, but I can't continue living in a delusion." He then revealed that, among other things, no postal agency has ever delivered a single piece of mail to the North Pole.

"Well, for starters, I've never received a child's letter," Santa told stunned members of the international press. "So a few years ago I set up an email account, but all I got were advertisements for penis length enhancers, desperate pleas from the GOP for campaign contributions, and the occasional letter asking me to send money to a prince in Nigeria. I've been to Nigeria; I don't think that man is really a prince."

Santa said that two years ago he began using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, which convinced him that adults were intentionally intercepting the correspondence: "I was astounded to learn how many children claimed to have sent me letters. If it wasn't for their status updates, I would never have known what they wanted. Then I did a little digging and discovered that the U.S. Postal Service, as one example, never delivered any of the letters. They just hired a bunch of stupid temps to respond to the children's mail on my behalf. What the [expletive deleted], people?!"

But Santa said this incident inspired him to keep researching.

"After that, I just figured the adults were trying to keep the children from bothering me while I worked. Okay, fair enough. But things just didn't add up when I really started looking at them. How could I have been so naive?"

And then Santa shocked attendees at the press conference by admitting that he's never actually seen a real child.

"Nope, never met one," Santa confessed in a matter-of-fact but dejected tone. "I get to a house and there's not a child around anywhere. But I've run across adults setting out cookies and milk for me. Even worse, I've entered properties and found grown-ups eating my cookies and milk. I find stockings already stuffed. Last year, I had begun putting gifts under one family's tree when a 'parent' stopped me. He said, 'Oh that's real nice, Santa, but little Susie doesn't want a doll. She wants an iPhone, and we've already taken care of it.' And that's when I figured it out -- that's when I knew. 'Cause what kid would pass up a hand-carved statuette of a pony standing on a wheeled platform? What child yearns for a phone over a toy? Seriously, how stupid do they think I am? A [expletive deleted] phone?! Yeah, right. That's what grown-ups want."

Mr. Claus cut the conference short, visibly overwhelmed and saddened by his revelations. He had this to say before withdrawing into his office with a half empty bottle of Pernod: "I don't know why they did this to me...why they lied about children being real for all these centuries. I question everything now. Like where people come from. Hatched from eggs, I suppose, like dinosaurs. I mean, I was never a child. I have no recollection of being young. Why should others be any different? But I find this charade a bit cruel, you know? Maybe they were trying to create a pleasant holiday experience for me -- giving me something to believe in. Perhaps this old fool needs to accept that it's more important to embrace the spirit of what children are meant to represent, even though they don't physically exist. But I truly feel this fiction got completely out of hand, and someone owes me a big, fat, freaking apology."

When asked if he would ever trust people again, Santa just pressed the bottle to his lips, wiped away a tear and left the room, plaintively whistling "Blue Christmas" as the heavy oak door closed behind him.

(c) 2011. See disclaimers.