“I DON’T believe in Santa Claus,” he said emphatically, as if testing fate. “And I’m going to see if I’m right.”
“How is that?” I asked, wanting to understand just how far he’d breached the security cover-story.
“I don’t believe in him, and I've said so,” he explained, “so on Christmas, if I don’t get any presents I will be wrong and he did exist.”
“I see,” I said. “Go on.”
“But if I DO get presents, then I will know I’m right and there is no Santa Claus!”
“How do you infer from getting presents that there is no Santa Claus?” I asked. “It would seem to argue the other point.”
“It says clearly that if you don’t believe you don’t get presents,” he explained, “so if I do get presents they couldn’t be from Santa. They had to come from someone else.”
“Like whom?”
“Hmmm. I wouldn’t be L, cause she still believes in Santa. And Mommy couldn’t do it because she sleeps in too late in the morning. It could be you, Daddy, but you work too much. So I don’t know. It’s probably you though. And anyway, he can’t be real because he is in all places at one time. No one can be in all places, only God can, and he isn’t God, he’s only a saint. Did you know his name is Saint Nicholas? – but really he’s just a myth.”
“Hmmm. OK." I decided to test his dedication to his science. "Now, is this an experiment you are really prepared to make? You could end up with no presents.”
“I could,” he admitted, “but I think that is highly unlikely.”
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