Comparing God to Santa is ludicrous. There’s more types of evidence backing the God of the Bible than many things taught in school or reported in the news. I put a quick summary here:

https://www.gethisword.com/evidence.html

With that, the Bible should be taken at least as seriously as any godless work with lots of evidence behind it. If you don’t do that, it means you’ve closed your heart off to God for reasons having nothing to do with evidence. Also, much evidence for the Bible strengthens the claim that Jesus is God in the flesh, died for our sins, rose again, and will give eternal life and renewed life to those who commit to Him.

I could get behind that but people that believe in god tend to think of it as a real, physical (or at least metaphysical) thing.

For my own sanity I try to think of those who believe in literal god as simply confusing it with the universe itself. The universe created us, it nurtures us, it’s sort of timeless and immortal. If only they could just leave it at that.