Atheists, having nothing better to do this time of year than rankle true believers, have busied themselves erecting billboards saying of Christ’s birth, “You KNOW it’s a Myth — This Season, Celebrate REASON.”

We’re taught in school that myths are something ancient people believed, celestial soap operas recounting the all-too-human failings of sundry divinities.  It’s no wonder that in today’s world myth has come to be equated with irrationality.

Nothing is more mythical than the Christmas season (whether you’re Christian or not).  We’re taught from our first year of life to play a role in it.  We catch on early, and we’re soon participants in a feeding frenzy of wish fulfillment, all encouraged by myth.

Christmas is supposed to be for children (another myth).  Twice I’ve clambered up on our frost-slickened roof to make it more magical for my kids, once to lean a wrapped present against the chimney and another time to imitate Santa’s footsteps.  It was precarious but the excitement that ensued made it worthwhile.

Somewhere along the line children begin to figure it out (I did in first grade).  As we grow to understand how the world really works, stories of Santa, flying reindeer and industrious elves just don’t ring true.

And yet we still have a role to play.  When I asked my father if there really was a Santa he stared off into the distance, finally saying, “No, but don’t you dare tell your little brother.”  At that moment I went from being a believer to being an enabler, and have remained so ever since.

For while it may be a strange collective immersion into irrationality for believers and non-believers alike, at least we get to turn a blind eye to the dog-eat-dog reality of life for a little while.  We justify it all under the pretense that buying unneeded gifts can somehow make up for a year of inattention to those we care about, and again, both the giver and the receiver buy into that myth.

It’s sad perhaps that that’s what it takes to create “the most wonderful time of the year” – buy-in to a myth.  But it is a stark reminder of just how important myth is to the human psyche.  Myth – when properly understood – is as important to humans as reason (big problems arise, of course, when either is mistaken for the other).

People have been renewing themselves in one way or another during this darkest time of the year since deep in prehistoric times.  This is the death of the Year, and one can only imagine the fear ancient people harbored that the days would never get longer, that Light would never return.  So great was this fear that it has shaped who we are today.

Our myths – whether commercial or religious – help us synchronize our lives with the death and rebirth of the length of the day, the end of an old and the beginning of a new year.  We harmonize ourselves with Nature in part by acknowledging what we mean to one another, a ritual that breathes new life into our social relationships.  And by doing this through the giving of store-bought gifts, we renew our economy as well.

It’s no wonder we train our children to participate in Christmas from their first year of life, and reasonable men and women – regardless of their personal beliefs – are wise to leave at least a little room for myth in not only their own lives but in the larger world as well…