Alert the atheist hordes: The alleged “War on Christmas” is over, and Christmas won.

For now that The Nativity Story is a movie, the matter is settled. We know now the story is true, because it’s up there staring back at us from the big screen, like so many other true stories: To Hell and Back, The Alamo, JFK, and even the Passion of the Christ.

There’s the star. There’s the manger. There’s even the three wise men -- the Bible doesn’t give their number (it says three gifts, not the number of their bearers), but now we know for certain not only the number of magi, but their names. A quick web search shows that while they didn’t sign a guestbook, the names of the Three Kings were recorded as far back as the sixth century. Since we’re only going on about 500 years of oral tradition, who knows how close to the mark we are? But now it’s a no-brainer, just read the movie credits.

As much as we’ve prided ourselves on being peoples of enlightenment and logic in all the years since the Renaissance, we still live on stories and legends. We take great pains to preserve them in books, on stage, and with audio and video recordings. And with every page written and frame shot, they become more real.

Because they are real. We have seen them, been moved by them, so they must be real.

I find that being a science-fiction/fantasy fan, it’s easy to be a man of faith. After accepting interstellar drives and dragon-riders, the parting of the Red Sea is no big deal. Water into wine? Just another Jedi mind trick. Or a flip of the switch on a Starfleet replicator.

But it would seem I’m confusing reality and fiction. I have to remind myself that the Apostles were real while the Jedi were not. Still, while I would be considered a scholar and intellectual if I were to get into a debate over whether the four gospels were truly authored by four of the Original Twelve, I’m just engaging in empty-minded geekery if I get into discussions of how Expanded Universe Jedi fit in with those in the “canon” of the six films -- yet I’d be having the latter debate with people just as rational, most with college degrees and otherwise sane lives, as the former.

But the more I think about it, this goes beyond Captain Kirk and Obi-Wan Kenobi, or a bunch of radical Jews from 2,000 years ago. I’ve only been around a few decades, seen only so much history firsthand, and most of that has been through the distorting lens of the television screen. What can I truly believe?

As I’ve noted to anyone who gets worked up about the Biblical creation story, the author didn’t see it firsthand either. (I think legend has it that Moses wrote Genesis, quite some time after the events took place. Personally, I suspect the guy was a very imaginative fantasy writer, engaging in some entertaining allegory to help teach his wayward Isrealites.) So I can’t say for certain about anything that happened then, or since, up to around Watergate.

To cite a non-Biblical, non-sci fi example, consider King Arthur. He was real, and we know so much about him, most of it factually wrong. We have accurate knowledge of Ceasars and Pharaohs but very little about England’s greatest ruler. Yet, for all intents and purposes, Camelot as we have come to understand it was real.

So, let me see if I’ve got this straight: Teddy Roosevelt, real; Sherlock Holmes, not real; Mark Twain, real (but not his real name); Huckleberry Finn (by any name), not real; Thomas Edison, real; Phileas Fogg, not real; Admiral Peary, real; Allan Quartermain, not real; Benjamin Franklin, real; Natty Bumppo, not real; Charles Darwin, real; Tarzan, not real; William Shakespeare, real -- wait, there’s some debate regarding that or that if he was real he may not have written the plays; Dracula the vampire, not real; Dracula the man, real; Robin Hood, not -- no wait, he was likely real, but the stories are a mixture of legend and conjecture and exaggeration and… this drawing the reality/fiction line is getting difficult.

And then there’s Santa Claus. We spend our childhoods being told he’s real, believing he’s real to the point that not believing is considered a bad thing. We sing hymns of praise to him, in awe of his power to know when we are sleeping or awake, and if we’ve been bad or good (for goodness sake). Then, suddenly, a sign of adulthood is to not believe. We are expected to only regard him as fiction. Yet the man is everywhere. Everywhere! And some of those beards are real.

If we look at history, we find that Saint Nicholas actually was a real person. Yes, that was centuries ago, but Methuselah lived 900 years, and who knows what powers of longevity a man may have when he can bend space and time to make that Christmas Eve sleigh ride?

Ah, now we’re back to Christmas. Virgin and manger, shepherds and angels, wise guys with non-baby-safe gifts, peace and good will toward all. Do I believe all this? Quick answer: Yes. Am I being hopelessly naive? Maybe, but I don’t feel hopeless.

I recently heard an unconventional biblical scholar note that getting bogged down in details, such as whether Mary was a virgin or if a star appeared and seemed to move to guide shepherds and magi, misses the point. Don’t look for a true story; look for the truth of the story. We celebrate the myth or miracle of the birth of a man who was as close to the Divine as any will ever get, whose teachings changed the world. Sure, it’s not his actual birthday -- the exact date is unknown, and Dec. 25 is as good a day as any -- the point is that we celebrate and accept the opportunity to try to be better people than we normally are.

And that’s the true meaning of Christmas, Charlie Brown.