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| Jolly Old Saint Nick sleeping off a bender? |
The newest insult to the jolly fat gent is that some in the new generation of parents have decided they don't want to "lie" to their children about where their gifts really come from. They figure that kids will say, "Well, if you were lying about Santa, what else isn't true?"
In the religion section of the paper this week, a reverend recounted the story of a woman trying to console her young grandson who had experienced the death of his friend. She told him what Christians believe about death, and he asked if that was a just a make-believe story, like Santa Claus.
The author's take was that grown-ups would not be seen as "trustworthy" to children when they talked about Jesus, "if we have hyped a belief in mythical figures."
Uh huh.
I can understand how the idea that Jesus isn't mythical might be confusing, what with all the raising from the dead, walking on water, and mass-replicating foodstuffs, but there was plenty of room in my childhood for Jesus and Santa Claus.
Jesus was the one born in a manger, visited by wise men; who grew up to die for our sins and lives in our hearts. Santa flies around the world in one night, has a naughty/nice list like some metaphysical hall monitor, and lives at the North Pole with his wife in a house that smells like gingerbread 24/7.
My daughter is still on the fence. She figures she's still got time before Charlotte figures it all out. She's feeling a little squeamish about the lying part, too. Frankly, I think it's impossible to be 100% honest with children— hell, with anyone.
There are lies we tell to grease the skids of civilization: for example, how do you really feel about the new partner of your friend and/or family member or the bratty children of your acquaintances? And then there's the infamous "does this outfit make me look fat?" If you answer that with unflinching, withering honesty, you're just evil, a fool or barking mad.
I guess what I'm saying is that I have no compunction about telling the Santa Claus story. I made a Santa Claus video for Charlotte at the Portable North Pole website and any Christmas Eve she's with me, we're totally tracking Santa with NORAD. The video message is free, but you can buy a download. I regret not buying the video I did last year, because Santa has apparently been feeling the results of the recession.
Last year, Santa's office was opulently decorated. This year, there's a tree, but otherwise, the background is a little bare. Guess he had to lay off the art director.
You can send a Santa Claus message of your own by going here. It's free and very fun.
In the December issue of Vogue, there's an article about a food event held in Lapland. Master chefs and yuppie food writers preparing and eating reindeer and other Lappish delicacies are not very interesting to me, but the part where the author's wife gets two Amanita muscaria mushrooms confiscated because they are psychotropic made me pay attention.
Apparently, Santa Claus in the Arctic is an aboriginal shaman-like being, and the idea for his flying reindeer came from hallucinogenic visions seen under the influence of amanita muscaria, those red mushrooms with the white spots you see in fairy tales. Man, I'm a product of the 60s, and this is the first I've heard of Santa doing shrooms.
I guess I never really thought too much about Santa when my kids were growing up. I was too busy coaching them to ask for something I could afford, that the grandparents hadn't already bought. All I know is that after I found out that Santa wasn't real, some of the magic went of the holiday for me, and things were never the same again.
A decade later, and she was still disturbed by it. So maybe the mommy-bloggers have a point. I just hope that incident continues to be the worst thing that's ever happened to her.
I've never been on the fence about whether or not to do Santa, just HOW to go about it. I'm actually going to be writing a post about this in the next few days.
ReplyDeleteI think maybe where some parents go wrong is by perpetuating it after their kids know the truth. When you swear to them that they are mistaken, that he is real, and then go to greater lengths to keep the magic alive, when your kids are basically asking you to be straight with them, you might lose some trust. I say do it as long as they enjoy it and WANT to believe. When they're over it, you should be, too.
My mom says if you don't believe in Santa in her house, you won't get the presents. I don't push my luck. :) Also, I remember the day I found out (found the letters!) and it was only mildly disappointing. Kids talk, and I'd had suspicions for years...
ReplyDeleteWhen I was pregnant, I told Paul I thought the whole Santa thing was really deceptive. "Yeah, it's totally fu**ed up," he agreed. So do you think we should tell our kids about Santa? I asked him. "Oh yeah, of course," he said. That was four years ago, but I've been thinking about that conversation. For the past couple weeks, I've been constantly grilled with questions about Santa -- where does he live, what's he doing "right now," can his reindeer really fly, etc. Trying to come up with plausible explanations was starting to stress me out a little, until some friends assured me that I don't need to try so hard. "You can just say you don't know," one of them said. Why didn't I think of that?
ReplyDeleteYeah, Shawna, that question-asking phase can be a pain. Of course you don't want to say that the reindeer have been eating magic mushrooms and that's why they fly. That would be bad....
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