Yes, Blackadder, There Is a Santa

Yes, Blackadder, there is a Santa. 

On Christmas morning, go and look at the happy faces of children. Look at the abundant joy. Look at all the presents spread all over floors around the world and tell me there is no Santa. Look at the toys, meticulously put together, and tell me who else did this but Santa’s helpers? Look to the plates of cookies and glasses of milk left out for Santa. Look close, and tell me what you see, and then tell me there is no Santa. Who was it that left only a few crumbs in the plate? Who is it that left nothing but a few drops of milk in the glass? It was and is Santa. The evidence is all around you. What Santa is claimed to do, has been done. How can you look and see all that is around you and deny this very fact? Yes, Blackadder  — there IS a Santa. 

But, someone might say,” I protest! That was not done by Santa – I must insist. I have another explanation, one which meets the facts just as well (without the need for any supernatural agency ever to be invoked). It was not Santa who came in and left such wondrous gifts – it was the parents of children, and no one else, who left the toys, ate the cookies, and drank the milk. Thus, there is no Santa.” 

Only one who has no true sense of poetic diction, no sense of myth, can ever be so reductionistic and claim stories about Santa must be lies. Ever wonder why so many atheists make a case against God by using Santa as an analogy? It’s because they do not understand the difference between a lie and deception with the mythic dimension. How they read Scripture, comparing its stories with the way historians would describe the same events, and using that to say that Scripture is a collection of lies, tells us more about themselves than it does Scripture. 

For those who think myths are lies, there can be no answer – because to answer them would require the use of words, and all words are the products of myth. For those who say Santa is a lie, they must first tell us what it means to lie – and to do so without being hypocritical in their definition (it is impossible). The words we use are representations of truths beyond words; by the very nature of speech, anything which is said will be less than what is actually meant. All speech is false, if one is trapped to the realm of words. All speech could be said to be a lie when put next to reality itself. 

But the one who understands the limitations of words will begin to understand the broad spectrum of their use, and the poetic senses one can create to indicate all kinds of truth which transcend their ordinary use. Santa is indeed true – there is indeed a Santa, for how else can we even talk about Santa without something being pointed by the word? Even if Santa is revealed to be at work in and through adult men and women all around the world, this does not make Santa less real, just as it does not make God less real when God’s presence is made known through the actions of men and women around the world. Santa is real – and he is St Nicholas. Yes, Blackadder, there is a Santa, and you are called to venerate him.