It was a question I knew would come up eventually, but that didn't prevent me from being completely unprepared.

"Uncle Gordon, is Santa Claus real?" she asked. Her little 6-year-old eyes were wide and troubled, pleading with me for truth. Sweat formed on my upper lip and my eyelid started to twitch. I laughed and reached for my cigarettes. (I quit smoking five years ago.)

"Well, um ... Madeleine, I think that we should all celebrate the holiday of the spirit on this most sacred of season's holiday," I said.

I lit the end of a pencil. "Hey, let's count to seven thousand!"

"But there are kids at school saying that there is no Santa Claus," she said.

"Well, those kids are idiots. They'll end up in prison or dead."

"Is he real?"

"Sweetheart, ask your parents," I said.

"They told me to ask you."

"Damn them. OK, well, Santa is real inside our hearts."

"But is he also real in the North Pole?"

"Can't you allow me to speak generally and in platitudes?"

"Just answer me," she begged.

I thought back to my own youth. I was deeply scarred when my father told me Santa had died. Yes, that's what he told me – that Santa was real, but that he had died several years back from an accidental overdose. When I pressed him for details, the overdose morphed into a drug deal gone south. "He was involved in some serious stuff. Colombian [expletive]. I don't have all the details," he said. And with that, I left Santa's magical world.

Did I want to destroy Madeleine's Christmas magic with honesty? But what is the value of Christmas magic based on lies? Wasn't it better to tell her that Santa is a fine tradition of REAL PEOPLE being nice to other real people without requiring credit, and that that is ultimately more magical that any sort of fairy dust or made-up tale?

I put my hot chocolate down on the hearth and took her hand in mine.

"Sweetie, there is no Santa Claus," I said.

She began to cry.

"... At least that is what the terrorists want us to believe," I quickly recovered.

Hear Gordon on "The Ticket" KTCK-AM (1310) weekdays from 5:30 to 10 a.m. Catch him on TV on The Gordon Keith Show, Thursday nights at 12:35 a.m. on Channel 8. E-mail him at gordon@ gordonkeith.com.

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