Once upon a time, when I was but a third grader, still held securely under the impressions which society places on such young and malleable minds, I stumbled upon a realization that would ultimately disassemble, brick by brick, that foundation of blissful ignorance which had kept me so sheltered, so warm and unaware, up to that pivotal moment in time and space. I could beat around the bush for paragraph upon paragraph with flourishes of language, but to do such would be in vain, more so than in vogue. That is to say, to keep with what is current, it would more behoove me to be expedient in my explanation of the aforementioned event, than to drag out, with lofty language and a carefully crafted prose, that tale which I am about to unfold. For this reason alone, I will be sure to get right to the point.

The point is this; that one cannot properly tell a respectable story in a dull line of bare facts, any more than one can paint a respectable picture with only one colour. Rather one must lay down each word, like a brush stroke, with a naturalness, and yet, an exactness, in order to convey the true emotion of the artist. Eventually, what appears is a canvas, with all of the story displayed upon it, in the fashion of something much more ancient than that characteristic modern directness. An artistry that seems lost to the world, only because we lack the patience to craft it. In other words, sorry ladies and gents, I will not be the least bit forthright, as many of you might wish. I will attempt, to the best of my meager abilities, to tell you the story exactly how it happened, down to the minutest emotional truth; down to the very finest brush stroke. But I digress. If you wish simply to know how my world view was dissolve in a three sentence dialogue, have it your way, skip to the last paragraph, for those of you who have the time and patience to hear a story, read on.

Once upon a time, around the age of 9, I sat in my living room at midnight cradling a cup of hot chocolate in my  nervous hands. The trembling liquid was growing luke warm with my patience, and as luke warm as my patience. Why would these people not just go to bed? When the devil was Santa going to come, if all these adults would not dawn their evening attire, and hit the hay? My Cousin, of the same age, and same mindset as myself, sat enveloped in an arm chair right beside my own, fidgeting childishly with the buttons of his coat, and it was clear that we shared the same thought. We had just returned from mass, a traditional catholic service held at one of many local churches in Helena. It seemed almost a shame to me that we should waste our time in the rinky dink little Saint Mary's church, when we could've stood (albeit for twice as long) in the what meager admiration was humanly possible surrounded by the archaic grandeur of the St. Helena's Cathedral. But who was I, with attentiveness comparable to a gold fish, to complain about such things? At any rate, if we had attended the mass at the cathedral, like we used to, we should still have been there, and I would not have had those few paramount moments of genius, which would lead to an unraveling of faith that would overshadow even an archangel's fall from grace. As I mulled over my cup of cocoa, I realized something strange. I had gotten a type of video game (Pokemon gold version, coolest game ever) as a gift from an aunt earlier that evening, but I hadn't the means to play a Gameboy game, seeing as I did not have a Gameboy. What is one who has just returned from church to do in this situation? I prayed. I prayed to as a suppliant to a merciful God, that I may receive a Gameboy from the enigmatic Santa Clause, so that I may play my new game.

And thus was sowed the seed of faith, dropped in the path which was plowed by the fates, in vain, for the seed of reason. Religion is a curious thing, but the fates were not to turn their backs now, and not ever. A new field must simply be plowed, and my face forced into the light.

All that night I had mused over the game. Such a game, for such a boy as myself, was endless entertainment (so far quite literally endless, as I never caught all 150 available Pokemon from this version. as M.C. Escher said, "art (or in this case, Pokemon) is never finished, only abandoned.") I thought, and I thought, and when finally the sweet boon of sleep was shed over my heavy self, I dreamed, and I dreamed, and all these thoughts and dreams were about Pokemon. As was tradition, my cousin Ryan, and I woke up in the middle of the night, between three and four a.m., and we went to the top of the stairs, and we waited. We waited silently, and patiently at the peak of those stairs, and we did it every year, until at long last 7:00 a.m. rolled around, and we could go wake up the parents, and unwrap our gifts. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, much more than wrapping paper would be undone this year. But that thought never crossed our minds as we waited, with a patience that can only be accredited to religion, to a faith that the time would come, when all would be revealed. With each tick, the second hand rode, swift and steady as a horseman, round the clock. Assuring that the dawn would be ushered in, and when the time was right, when all the clock's horsemen rode faithfully into their appointed places, the veil would be lifted. For us, that time was 7:00 a.m. Or so we thought.

The hours dragged on, each time we went to check the clock, it became more and more apparent that the horse must be riding with a broken leg. only 13 minutes had passed? But it felt like an hour! only 5 minutes? surely you must mean 25! But nothing speeds the flow of time. And soon enough, we grew weary, and fell asleep once more, there at the top of the stairs.

It was not until some years later that I learned to appreciate the cleverness of our parents. Somehow they managed, without waking us (and I am the epitome of a light sleeper) to bring all of the presents out in the short periods of time during which we slept, which were never more than 20 minutes a piece. And they apparently accomplished this in utter silence.

The morning approached, and well before dawn we were up making cups of hot chocolate, and all the while I had my game at hand. My poor, homeless game. 6:59 could not have been a longer minute. The agony of pulling teeth would have been preferred at that point, but finally 7 o'clock arrived! In a dash, we sprung upon our sleeping parents, and woke them with such a clatter as to be sure that our sisters in adjacent rooms had all woken up as well. We all filed into the living room, and proceeded with what has become the vain shell of a previously enchanting ritual. We began to open presents. Presents that had been flown on a flying sleigh from remote reaches of the Arctic Circle. Presents fashioned by mythical creatures under the haunting glow of the northern lights. Presents placed with love from an enigma which every child loves as though he is God himself, under a tree which overshadows all religious symbols in a child's mind. This was true religion. The passion, the fervor that enveloped the room; the palpable aura of mystified gratitude. Which is easier for a child to love: a faceless God he is taught to love through fear, a God who has drown the earth on a whim long ago; or a gentle old man in a quaint timeless cottage at the north pole, who has a taciturn compassion for all things great and small, and who brings gifts to people he's never met, simply out of kindness? Make no mistake, Santa Clause is the true God in the eyes of most young Americans. It is Santa who is born, and revived each Christmas season, to take away our sins, and replace them with gifts, and a sense of childish wonder. As I said before, religion is a curious thing. The bible says an eye for an eye, but how can one blind religion to the extent that it blinds us? My IQ is well above average, my skills of reasoning are anything but lacking, at this age of 9 I was already petitioning our school for better pizza! And yet the wonder of a God, of Santa Clause, had blinded me to all evidence of impossibility. But perhaps religion is doing us a favor, perhaps ignorance truly is bliss. And so, with all of these thought as far from my mind as ever, the presents were unwrapped, and sure enough, there it was. At the bottom of my stocking, hidden beneath two scratch lottery tickets, and caramel filled chocolate Santas was the Gameboy.

Needless to say, I was grateful beyond measure to my God, and I spent almost the entire day, lost in my fantastical odyssey. For the first time, invested entirely in the character, in the game, I was master of my own destiny! I played, and played until the real world began to look as pixilated a my fantasy world, and then it was time for dinner.

On the dining room table, a lovely solid oak table, with a history of family feast that nearly predates me, a feast was lain. Ryan and I looked at each other with eyes the size of dinner rolls, and we were lost. As all the family made merry round the family table, I had a small question, a a seemingly insignificant thought, which I asked on a careless whim. The fates were again overturning the fertile soil of my young mind. And this time, the seeds of reason would be sown. "Mom," I said, "where did you get my Gameboy from?" And as soon as I had asked it, I recalled the answer for myself, but it was too late.
 "Oh, just from WalMart." she replied, and all religion was undone.
"Oh, I thought Santa had brought it for me..." the clock struck 7:00, and even as the sun sunk further out of sight behind the jagged mountains, the veil was lifted, and the horsemen rode in, and the light was thrust upon my face. Sight, unhappy sight.