SANTA: THE FINAL CONFLICT. I’ve gotten a surprising amount of mail on this. Let me first state the position I’ve come to so far, and then I’ll print some mail, and conclude with an email from Lynn Gazis-Sax with which I basically agree.

First, parenting is in large part a matter of intuition–an art, not a science. Since Santa Claus is the kind of practice that can be performed and read in lots of different ways, some good, some bad, I see no point in laying down a hard-and-fast rule, such as, “No Santa depictions!” or “No pretending presents came from Santa!” (Or the converse, “Come on, nobody misreads Santa.”)

Second, there are a lot of instances of fantasy, fiction, masquerade, and “let’s pretend” in childhood, often with parents’ enthusiastic consent. Halloween is only the most obvious example. Since I don’t take an “all art is lies!” stance, I have no problem with this stuff. Put a tooth under the pillow for the Tooth Fairy. Dress up in costumes on Halloween. Pretend Mommy is an alligator or Daddy is a horsie. This is all to the good, and children generally are comfortable with the ways in which storytelling and costumery are different from lying. (But see point one: If your kid has a hard time with the story/lie distinction, you should be crystal-clear in how you present costumery and fantasy fun.) In many families, this is how Santa Claus works, and I have no problem with that. Like I said before, I love ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and that sort of thing.

But Santa poses some unique problems for Christian families. First, our culture has inflated his role considerably, and we treat him differently, so that lots of children place him on the wrong side of the story/lie dichotomy. They cry when they learn that Santa “isn’t real.” They experience disillusion and anger at either their deceptive parents, or their disillusioning friends/siblings. These are not the emotions we associate with storytelling or Halloweenery. I think Zorak put this point best, from her own experience, so go there if you don’t believe me. This is pretty clearly a sign that something is out of whack in the importance and “real”-ness we give Santa Claus.

Second, Santa Claus is often used as a public substitute for the more “sectarian” Christ Child. Santa’s role as gift-giver is inflated and the role of God, giving us the gift of His Son, is correspondingly reduced. Christmas becomes Santa’s holiday. The Old Oligarch and I were talking about this, and he mentioned the “meta-Santas” that have arisen in response to this trend–for example, you can buy a “kneeling Santa,” Santa kneeling with jolly red cap in hand, ready to be placed before the creche. Now obviously Santa doesn’t fit in a traditional manger scene. Kneeling Santa is a way to incorporate Santa, subordinate him to Christ, and comment on mainstream society’s elevation of Santa over Christ. (The Oligarch joked that the next step would be a militant Christ with a foot on Santa’s neck!)

Third, Santa is based on St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, a real guy and a real saint. To the extent that he’s blurred into generic chubby gift-lugger, we lose a saint’s example, a saint’s distinctiveness, and a saint’s ability to inspire our kids. Oh–and a saint’s reality, too.

And finally, the Catholic faith offers lots of other ways to engage in almost liturgical “re-enactments,” plays, and costumery for Christmas: Las Posadas, Advent calendars, creches, caroling. If you want to bring Santa in too, okay, although he might be kind of distracting (where does he fit? He’s an outlier). But why not seek out more direct, equally exciting and childlike ways of expressing faith?

So those are reasons that I prefer to keep Santa as a character in a poem.

Now, the mail:

Polly Edington: Read your comments on Santa and just thought I’d tell you my experience–when my husband and I were first married we decided Christmas was too commercial and not Jesus’ real birth date and seeing we hadn’t had any kids yet, we would have a “Christmas free environment” at home. For a while we kept Christmas with our relatives…then I chose a religion that also didn’t celebrate Christmas and we moved to MN from MI and didn’t do Christmas at all. When our girls were young we explained Santa was make believe but warned them not to tell the kids at school…told them the same about sex…didn’t have any parents calling us but they admitted years later they told their friends about how babies were really made–probably the kids never told their parents and maybe it was the same with Santa…Anyway, when the girls got older they told me they were glad they knew the truth, but got picked on for not getting “Christmas” presents…

Well, I’m very very pro-Christmas, pro-Christmas presents and celebration and holly and tree and such. I don’t think a Santa-free or Santa-light Christmas is less Christmassy; in fact, I think it can be much more Christmassy.

Josiah Neely: My parents never lied to me about Santa Claus, and I thank them for it. They told me that he was like Superman; he wasn’t real, but that it was fun to pretend like he was. I don’t think my Christmas experience was lessened as a result.

They also told me not to tell other kids that Santa wasn’t real. I disobeyed, and told one of my classmates. And you know what happened? She didn’t believe me. In fact, she told the teacher, who sided with her w/r/t the whole Santa existence question, and I ended up getting in trouble. So I doubt very much that individual parents letting their children in on the truth will ruin the lie for everyone else.

Honestly, I can’t fathom why parents are so insistent on the whole charade. Christmas is a magical time for a child, but it would be so anyway, and it seems to me that a lie, to be justified, needs something more than that.

Justin Katz: I just had to pipe up with a question about, given the thorough coverage you’re giving to the question of the benefit of lying about Santa on the open Web, how long the issue will even be valid. As a computer

teacher, I know that the kids can get around on the Internet. It’s only a matter of time until they begin researching once the first whispers about Santa’s non-existence slither through the school.

Personally, my largest objection is, to consolidate, to the sentiment offered in some Santa films that sometimes we just have to take things on faith. Regarding Kairos’s justification of explaining complex theological issues through the Claus, this particular lesson seems to me more detrimental. Santa is demonstrably false, and continuing to believe in him would be foolish; God is not demonstrably false, and it would be a mistake to extrapolate the Santa lesson to Him.

And like I said, I think this email from Lynn Gazis-Sax hits the nail on the head: I have mixed feelings about the whole Santa myth debate. You see, my parents brought me up with Santa, but I can never remember actually believing that he was a real person; I always remember knowing that he (and the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, who also both visited our house) were stories, a kind of pretend in which my parents and I collaborated. I suppose I probably did actually believe in Santa at some age (the earliest I clearly remember my thoughts about him was when I was maybe six or seven, and I know that four-year-olds have a magical enough view of the world that Santa would likely seem real, even if not actually being presented by adults as literal fact).

But — and this is important to my view of Santa — my parents *never*, ever lied to me about him, never told me that he was real if asked whether he was or not, never tried to preserve my belief in Santa as if it were some great loss for children to reach the age of losing belief in him. And I kept getting presents “from Santa” regardless of whether I expressed any belief in him or not (my mother even got a present “from Santa” one year).

Now, occasionally, on the net, I’ve run into really vehement anti-Santa sentiment — more strongly expressed than your or Cacciaguida’s posts — and some of that strikes me as humorless, and overly serious. By which I mean that it sounds as if everything I tell a child has to be literally true, as if games and pretend and fairy tales are not OK — sort of a Gradgrind approach to life. I think Santa as fiction, and even Santa as pretend, are fine, and I’ve done Santa pretend (as I see it) with one of my nieces when she was young (“What’s that? I think I hear the sound of reindeer.”).

But I draw the line at actually trying to convince children that Santa is real, treating belief in him as something to be preserved as long as possible, not giving children a truthful answer about Santa when they ask. And it bothers me that some adults are so very serious about wanting to preserve the illusion of Santa.