Two Quotes:

"Susah," sai Twyla, from somewhere under the blankets.
"Yes?"
"You know last week we wrote letters to the Hogfather?"
"Yes?"
"Only . . . in the park Rachel says he doesn't exist and it's your
father really. And everyone else said she was right."
There was a rustle from the other bed. Twyla's brother had turned over and was listening surreptitiously.
Oh dear, thought Susan. She had hoped she could avoid this. It was going to be like that business with the Soul Cake Duck all over again.
"Does it matter if you get the presents anyway?" she said, making a driect appeal to greed.
" 'es."
Oh dear, oh dear. Susan sat down on the bed, wondering hot the hell to get through this. She patted the one visible hand.
"Look at it this way, then," she said, and took a deep mental breath. "Whereever people are obtuse and absurd . . . and wherever they have, by even the most generous standards, the attention span of a small chicken in a hurricane and the investigative ability of a one legged cockroach . . . and whereever people are inanely credulous, pathetically attached to the certainities of the nursery, and, in general, have as much grasp of the realities of the physical universe as an oyster has of mountaineering . . . yes, Twyla; there IS a Hogfather."
There was silence from under the bedclothes, but she sensed that the tone of voice had wored. The words had meant nothing. That--as her grandfather might have said, was humanity all over.

==Terry Prachett, "Hogfather"