Is Santa real?
SPOILER ALERT: He's not.
And I'm going to tell you about what happened when I found out the truth.
Welcome back to CapOhTV, the channel where we know school is a joke and you don't want
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Now I know some of you are asking, “CapOhTV, why are you doing a video about Santa Claus?!”
Here's why: I want you all to question what you're being told and I want you all to think
for yourself.
The old cliché is that great minds think alike.
That's not true.
Great minds think for themselves.
So let me tell you about how I found out Santa Claus was a lie.
I was 9 years old, the year was 1996.
I know that because that's the year Power Rangers Zeo came out.
My mom was very into the whole Santa Claus idea.
In fact, she was into the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, all of those mythical creatures.
Around Christmas time, my mom would go out shopping with some of her friends, usually
for an entire day.
When she came back she would go put what she bought into the closet of my grandmother's
spare bedroom.
My sister and I figured this out when were, like, six or seven years old.
We would always try to snoop in that bedroom closet to see what my mom bought.
Our little missions were usually unsuccessful.
Our mind would either cover the stuff in blankets or wrap up the bags and we were afraid to
move that stuff because we thought she might find out that we're looking in the closet.
But one day, around Christmas 1996, we went on a final mission.
We waited for our grandma to be outside in the garden or in the basement doing the clothes
and we snuck into that room one more time.
We opened the door and, as usual, at first glance we couldn't see a thing.
But then I noticed something.
There was a bag that had a little hole in it and inside I could see a Power Rangers
Zeo Megazord!
You've got to understand, I grew up in the 90s with the original Mighty Morphin' Power
Rangers.
That was my show!
I had Power Ranger toys for days and Power Rangers Zeo was the current season.
I was ecstatic that I was going to be getting that Megazord in just a few short weeks!
So time went on, Christmas came around, and we're opening the gifts on Christmas morning.
I pick up the rectangular box and I know this is the Megazord, this is it!
Then I noticed the tag.
The tag said: “To Ryan.
From Santa.”
This can't be the Megazord then, I thought, because that was in the closet and my mom
bought that.
I opened it up, lo and behold, it was the Power Rangers Zeo Megazord.
Now in that moment I didn't say anything to my parents or to my sister.
I just kept it to myself.
Over the next couple of days I felt pretty betrayed.
Eventually, I had to confront my parents with it and ask them if Santa was really just a
lie.
They admitted, yes, it was.
From there it led to a series of other questions: the Tooth fairy was a lie, the Easter Bunny
was a lie, and, at that time, we weren't exactly church-going Christians, but we had gone at
some points in the past and I knew the basic tenents of Christianity.
But now all of that was in question.
Is God real?
Is Heaven real?
Is Hell real?
What is real?
If my parents, the people that I trust, are going to lie to me about so many things for
nine years, what else are they lying about?
And I don't want to make it sound like you can't trust your parents, but the point is
you've got to be aware of the things that you believe in.
If you had asked me as a kid why do I believe in Santa Claus, I would have said: “Well,
my parents said Santa Claus is real and I believe in Santa Claus.”
So essentially what I was saying is I believe in Santa Claus because I believe in Santa
Claus.
That's not exactly good evidence to believe in something.
And what is it that I want you take away from this traumatic experience in my childhood?
Go snooping.
Be skeptical.
Question authority in a rational way.
Examine your beliefs.
And I'm not just talking about your religious beliefs.
I mean your beliefs about everything.
Don't just believe in things because you believe in them.
Be able to explain to why you believe in something and be able to accept criticism of your beliefs
without getting offended.
If you have a good, strong belief with sold evidence to back it up, you shouldn't get
offended when people challenge you.
If anything, their challenges should give you an opportunity to prove to them why your
beliefs are valid and true.
I think that if my parents would have just come out and told me, you know, Santa Claus
isn't real, I think it probably would have had a different effect than me finding out
for myself through objective evidence that he was not real.
So, again, examine your beliefs, go snooping, question authority, be skeptical.
You shouldn't believe something just because you believe it.
What's one belief you had that you thought was true that turned out to be a lie?
Leave a comment down below, let's talk about that.
And if this was your first time here to CapOhTV and you want to help spread the message that
school is a joke, hit that subscribe button now.
Thanks for watching, see you later, bye!