Brace yourselves. Sit down and take a deep breath. I'm gonna say it, but I need you to stick with me here and try to get through all of my argument before you wage a holy fucking crusade-jihad-fatwa against me. Do you think you can do that? Okay...here goes...
I believe that our Santa Claus tradition is profoundly wrongheaded and damages children for life.
Whew. There it is. When you're ready to hear the rest, proceed...
First of all, I would simply point to the People's Exhibit A: the abundance of seriously fucked up adults in existence today. I mean, how many perfectly well adjusted grown ups do you know? Be honest. Not many, right? The state of things these days is not so hunky dory that we can afford to rule out any common childhood experiences as possible root causes. But this is an admittedly weak correlational supposition, so let's move on.
We tell our children many stories. Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Where the Wild Things Are, Horton Hears A Who, and so on. We make believe with them, pretending to be people we're not, pretending to talk to people who are not there, imagining things that can never be. These are all wonderful traditions that stimulate a creative and open mind.
What we do not do in the case of any of those activities is insist that they are true and real and possible. They are not. They have elements of real life to which we can relate. They have important lessons about real life to impart. They make real life a little more wonderful than it might be without them. They are not, however, real life. This does not detract from the delightfulness of them.
When our children complain of monsters under their beds, we sensibly tell them that there is no such thing as monsters. We show them that there are no monsters under their bed. When our children tell us that they want to jump off the roof in an effort to fly, we explain that people cannot fly and that if they jump off the roof they are likely to experience a great deal of pain.
In other words, we encourage imagination...not hallucination.
Except when it comes to Santa Claus.
When it comes to Santa Claus, we go to great lengths to deceive our children. We tell them that on the evening of December 24th, a fat man from the North Pole ACTUALLY goes to the home of every child in the world - flown there by reindeer, mind you - slides down their chimneys, eats whatever goodies have been left for him, and leaves presents under the tree.
We engage in elaborate, stealthy tactics to enhance the legitimacy of the charade - taking our children to see Santa in order to deliver their sacred Christmas lists, hiding gifts for weeks or months, signing tags from "SANTA" (all caps to disguise our handwriting), slinking around the house at all hours of the night to plant the evidence, leaving crumbs of cookie and drops of milk on Santa's plate, and feigning surprise at each present that we knew nothing about until the moment our child unwrapped it.
All in all, it is a pretty impressive performance. It has to be...because our children are not stupid. Anything short of absolute dedication to this rigmarole may create an opening for the child to use the brain that we have been otherwise cultivating for the purpose of realizing how absurd the whole thing is. That would be a tragedy. They must not know until...well, until they reach an age at which we might begin to question their intellectual competence if they continued to buy into it.
So it cannot be denied that we perpetrate a massive campaign of deceit against our children every year. You may think "deceit" too strong a word, but we have to begin by calling it what it is. It may be a well-intentioned deceit. It may be a fun family tradition. It is still a deceit. We tell our children that something pretend is, in fact, real. We stage scenes that make it appear to be real.
We embrace books and films that not only corroborate the deceit, but that attempt to induce guilt in anyone who doesn't accept the reality of the falsity. The famous last line of The Polar Express is a perfect example:
At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.So this boy, now a grown man, apparently continues to believe in Santa Claus. The jaded, joyless adults do not. This is the whole point of the story. (One might speculate that the boy is writing this from a mental hospital or convalescent home.) You might be tempted to accuse me of missing the deeper literary meaning - but I challenge you to tell me what that deeper literary meaning is. What is it that the parents have stopped believing in? In the story, it is Santa Claus. A living, breathing Santa Claus. Once they stopped believing, they were unable to experience the joy of the holiday.
Don't get me wrong...I understand why we feel compelled to reenact this bizarre ritual with our own children. Once a year, throughout our childhood, we were spoiled rotten with visits from beloved relatives, music, decorations, chocolates, and gifts! Piles of delicately wrapped boxes of things we had been yearning for. Reality came to a screeching halt for about a week while we gorged ourselves on happiness and egg nog. Gee, I wonder why we feel so attached to the rituals of the season?
But I also wonder what we lost when we realized that it was all a sham. I can't help but think some part of us broke when we found out that it was all a lie. On the surface, we didn't have to deal with it because the gifts kept coming each year. But somewhere deep down, I wonder if it permanently impaired our trust in others. After all, they'd all been lying to us. Sure, they meant well, but how else might they be deceiving us?
We talk about how impressionable children are. We know how much they perceive of what they experience. We know that they internalize the tiniest signals and stimuli. This is not an insignificant part of the childhood experience. I would suggest that the strength of your reaction against the argument I am making is indicative of the strength of the Santa Claus tradition - and that should tell you something about how strong an impact it might have.
As is often the case, Stephen Sondheim said it best in Into the Woods:
Careful the spell you cast
Not just on children
Sometimes the spell may last
Past what you can see
And turn against you
Careful the tale you tell
That is the spell
Children will listen
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