Rex Huppke: Of course Santa Claus is real. Who wouldn’t choose to believe in a universal good?

’Twas the night before Christmas.

Well, depending on when you’re reading this, a more appropriate beginning might be “Twill be the night before Christmas” or “ ’Tis the night before Christmas.”

Let’s dispense with the specific day and just agree it’s some point before Christmas, very close but not necessarily abutting, OK? (Who knew a Christmas column would start out so contentious? Yeesh.)

Anyhoo, for those who celebrate this wonderful holiday (Christmas, that is), I hope your house is devoid of stirring creatures – mice in particular – and your stockings are hung by the chimney, or at least near the thermostat, with care.

I am, like most reasonable 48-year-old newspaper columnists, hoping St. Nicholas soon will be here. I hope you are as well.

I pity those who don’t believe in Santa Claus. Doubt is a terrible thing, and not believing in a global good just because you’ve never seen it with your own eyes seems like a missed opportunity. Besides, Santa has long specialized in not being spotted. It’s kind of his brand.

If the character known for sliding down the chimney with toys was, say, a three-legged hippopotamus with chronic vertigo, there might be merit to the “Well, why haven’t I seen him?” argument. Hard to miss a bearded hippo who has dizzy spells after filling each stocking.

But speed and stealth – along with a bit of Christmas magic – are Santa’s calling cards, so the need for visual confirmation seems foolish.

Besides, do you think someone just came up with a story about a globe-traveling dude in a red coat and fuzzy hat with an army of nonunionized elves and an unregulated toy factory hidden deep in the North Pole? We writers can be creative, but not THAT creative.

No, the story of Santa Claus exists, and has stuck around so long, for a simple reason: People believe.

They believe there’s something truly special in the air on Christmas Eve that makes the particles around us feel charged. It’s what makes the quiet of the night seem not fully quiet. It’s what makes hearts, particularly small ones, flutter. It’s what makes it so mercilessly hard to sleep.

I don’t claim to be well-versed in the behavior of particles, but I know things don’t feel quite that way on any other night. So there has to be a reason, right? It’s not static electricity or a sudden change in the barometric pressure. It’s something different, something inexplicable.

And so we believe, sensibly, that it’s some kind of precursor to the arrival of St. Nick. It has always been there – in our bellies and chests and in the tingle along our arms or legs – and it remains, as long as we don’t stop believing.

What about the smells? Cookies baking, pine needles, maybe a Christmas Eve soup bubbling on the stove. We’ve smelled those things a million times before, but the way they smell at Christmas is … different. Better.

Why? Why would a cookie smell more delicious, more exciting, on this one particular night of the year? Why would a cup of frothy hot cocoa taste better this night than any other?

And as we get older, why do those smells bring back such vivid and joyful memories? It’s not because the cookies are different, my friends. It’s something more.

I credit Santa Claus because, again, he’s the constant. He’s there when we’re little, when we’re old and when we’re in between. If we believe, there is a thread that runs through all our Christmases. It gets woven into our lives, connecting the bubbly feelings of childhood to the new excitement adulthood brings, binding the funny memories of holidays past to the anticipation of memories yet to be formed.

I’m an adult and a father and a (theoretically) responsible grown-up, and I can be cynical about many things. I also, without pause or even a second thought, believe in Santa Claus. And whether you’re a child who has been told otherwise, an older kid questioning the big man’s existence or an adult who has chosen to move on, I encourage you to believe as well.

Because something is supercharging those particles. Something is making everything taste better. Something is making it hard to go to sleep.

And to me, only one thing makes sense: a universally good person, lively and quick, with a beard white as snow, a droll little mouth and the merriest of dimples.

So whether it “ ’tis” or “twill be” the night before Christmas, allow me to recommend the following:

Before you get nestled or snug, before you don your cap or kerchief (whatever the heck those are), before you settle down and listen for shingle-damaging prancing and pawing on the rooftop, before you even consider flying away like a flash or tearing open shutters and casting wandering eyes on objects below, take a moment.

Let yourself believe.

And have a most wonderful, most merry Christmas. With my and my family’s best wishes to you all, each and every one.

Rex Huppke is a Chicago Tribune columnist. His email address is rhuppke@chicagotribune.com.