Now is probably not the best time to break the story of the century. With only a couple of days to go before Christmas, attention levels are running at such a deficit Osama bin Laden could walk naked into HMV to top up his Whitney Houston collection and no-one would notice. This, however, is something you need to hear.
There's a vast conspiracy in our midst by the name of The Santa Code. It's a bit like The Da Vinci Code, but without a terrible book in tow. The Santa Code involves the postal service, the entertainment industry, retailers, parents and the new secretary-general of the UN.
For most of the year, this disparate bunch seem not to care about Father Christmas, but as the calendar edges towards December they come together to defend the faith and recruit others. The proselytising methods of the Priory of Santa are various and bewildering. Parents who spend their lives telling children not to speak to strangers will suddenly shove their offspring in the direction of a fat bloke in a red suit.
Shops and the media reproduce his image everywhere, while Post Office staff answer the 750,000 letters sent to him at the North Pole. Ban Ki-moon, who takes over at the UN on January 1, has his own ideas about winning friends for Santa and influencing people. Shortly after taking the oath of office, he serenaded reporters with a version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town that substituted his own name for Father Christmas's.
It is rumoured that one woman from the BBC was so dazzled she promptly sold her house and moved to Lapland. Apart from recruitment, the aim of this cult is to protect the code from those who would try to crack it. Chief among the heretics until recently was a church minister who told children that if Santa really tried to deliver all the presents in the world in one night he would be travelling at such a speed he, and the reindeer, would explode in a bloody mess of antlers and limbs.
The hapless reverend has now been replaced by a headteacher. Jackie Jackson of Ladysmith Junior School in Exeter did not commit the act herself, it should be said. It was one of her teachers, a woman who, for her own safety, can only be identified as Miss.
Browsing the internet one day, Miss stumbled across a site that appeared to blow the lid clean off the Post Office's letters to Santa scheme. She downloaded the material, distributed it to the class, samizdat-style, and the jig appeared to be up. Instead of thanking Miss for teaching their nine-year-olds to challenge assumptions, parents were outraged.
The letters of complaint included comments such as: "Kids grow up too quickly these days. Children should have the right to stay innocent for as long as possible." From a Mrs C Blair came this: "Next you'll be telling children the stuff about 45-minutes to doom was made up as well.
" Mention of WMD that never were is a reminder that it is not only children who are exposed to tall tales. Civilisation depends on the routine suspension of scepticism. Tax is paid on the assumption it will be spent wisely, travellers buy air tickets thinking they will be home for Christmas and not stuck in the tenth circle of hell that is Heathrow.
Santa is just another blip on the radar of believability. Some parents take it more seriously than that, mulling over the options as the years fly by. Should they level with children from the beginning?
Should the knowledge be allowed to filter through gently? If they don't tell, will their son or daughter find out in the playground? Relating the facts of life is a doddle compared to settling the Santa question.
There's no point turning to officialdom. As the Ladysmith Junior School story broke, one newspaper contacted the Department for Education and Skills in England for a ruling on Santa. The press officer, and he'll never make a better decision in his career, declined to comment.
Parents can be forgiven for doing the same and hoping the problem takes care of itself. While presenting the evidence about The Santa Code, younger readers should note that this column has not come down one way or the other on his, or His, existence. Although this is due in part to ye olde journalistic tradition of trying to have it all ways, there is another reason not to blot the copybook.
Some of us have written letters of our own this Christmas. With an eye to the New Year's honours list, they've gone not to the North Pole but to various political parties, and in place of whining letters about walking the dog and tidying our room, these missives have cheques attached. Children and the UN secretary-general can keep the small beer they get from upholding The Santa Code.
For the ultimate in Christmas gifts, there is really nothing like a damehood. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without is prohibited.
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