Who do you believe in?

Do you believe in Sherlock Holmes?

Do you believe in Stephen Colbert?

Do you believe in Santa Claus?

If you were looking for three wise men this season, you could make worse choices. The only thing is . . . there are those who consider each of those fellows fictional creations. Yet there are others in the world who find reason to believe in each of them.

Stephen Colbert's last episode of The Colbert Report was tonight, which on the surface would seem to have little to do with Sherlock Holmes. But the character he created was interacting with reality in some bizarre ways over the last nine years. The things he did weren't fictions on a movie screen. No, they took place in the real world, and seemed to cross that line that Sherlock Holmes has been dancing on for a whole lot longer.

Along his goofy, self-promoting, uber-conservative way as Stephen Colbert, Stephen Colbert should us a lot of truth about ourselves and our world, despite certain fictional threads in his nature. Just like Mr. Sherlock Holmes. And guys like that . . . well, they require you to make a choice. They make you choose whether or not to believe in them.

Which brings us to the last guy on that list -- the one most Americans truly believe in for a while. But then they decide not to. And some of them later decide to believe in one of those other guys, but never get back to their first flying leap into belief in a person who is something beyond what most call reality.

So if you find a reason to believe in our old friend Sherlock Holmes. maybe it's time to give that non-Mycroft fat guy another chance for a little while. 'Tis the season, after all.

And why not?