A Calendar of Characters

December 2, 1998

A friend from Chicago was passing through town on October 31st. Over dinner, he said, Halloween is the only time you can safely ask a San Franciscan: Hey, what are you, anyway?

That's a good joke in San Francisco, where being weird is a matter of civic pride.

But the calendar has characters that are even stranger. Consider the colorful cast that accompanies us through each year.

The year starts when Old Father Time yields to an un-named orphan baby on New Years Eve.

Cupid is featured in February. Leprechauns appear on St. Patricks Day. The Easter Bunny hops in the spring. Uncle Sam marches in July. Jack Frost paints the trees in the fall.

Halloween brings more creatures, from the benign Great Pumpkin to deadly ghosts, witches and walking skeletons.

In December, the crescendo of crazy characters reaches its climax. There are tiny elves, talking toys, flying reindeer, sexless singing angels, and Santa Claus, who a well-known San Francisco Atheist calls God with training wheels. The only near-humans are impossible creatures -- a contradictory virgin mother and another famous fatherless son with a magical god-career.

After a full years parade of foolishness, it's no wonder the tired old man is so eager to turn the whole mess over to an unsuspecting kid.

Is it any wonder that our children are confused? Dishonest adults even encourage the foolishness in the name of fun. We owe our children honesty, but we give them characters, all year long, at a dizzying speed. Is George Washington's birthday about a real guy or another calendar guy? Is Veterans Day about real soldiers, toy soldiers, or elves? Young minds struggle to sort fakes from realities.

Many grow to adulthood without ever figuring it out. Most adults still believe in Calendar Characters to some degree.

Believers even rank their beliefs in a kind of Hierarchy of Credibility that increases with the calendar. It goes something like this: Cupid is just a fable, the Easter Bunny is pretty much made up, ghosts would be really dangerous, angels are on TV all the time, Santa is pretty darn real, the Virgin Mary and especially Baby Jesus are Really Real, By God!

As evidence for this scale of beliefs, consider how we treat those who believe in the different Calendar Critters. Someone who occasionally talks to fairies will be confined to a hospital. But someone who talks to a baby god every day is allowed to walk around loose, and may even get paid to do so. The best god-talkers win their very own real tax-free city-state to play king in, and make pronouncements at the United Nations.

Bah! Compared to the Calendar Characters and their believers, we San Francisco folk are normal.

Gentleman Jim Heldberg is National Affiliation Director for American Atheists, and lives in his favorite city, by the bay.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by American Atheists.