in which I have Santa issues

[hermionesviolin]

Quote from Thursday's episode of Without a Trace.  Santa images from vintage advertisements.  I prefer the second icon because the point is not that Santa is a God stand-in who is accusing you of being on the Bad List (which is what I feel like the first icon is implying) but rather that Santa is a lie. And really, neither of these icons gets that across sufficiently, but I haven't figured out a way to get across what I want in icon format.

[For those of you just tuning in: I have serious issues with lying to your children and hate the commercialization/secularization of Xmas anyhow.] And yes I know, spirit of giving and all that, lots of people have fond magical memories of Santa, etc. etc. I am restraining myself from demanding that everyone drop the Santa thing and have an appropriately spiritual observance (or observe Consumalata instead) and people are welcome to discuss in the comments or in personal e-mail, though I'm not likely to change my mind on the issue.

If you wish to raise your children with the story of St. Nicholas and do Christmas stockings and participate in things like Toys for Tots and Angel Tree, explaining all the while that we do these things in the spirit of St. Nicholas/Jesus Christ/the 3 Wise Men/whomever, then I am full of encouragement -- though okay, upon consideration, it still bugs me a little bit, because the idea of setting aside specific dates for gift-giving bothers me; but I am so all about intentionality, so if you are being thoughtful about what you're doing I'll probably be okay. But handing your children presents with tags saying "from Santa" and encouraging them to leave out cookies and milk for a red-suited man . . . that makes me homicidal.

[A post more receptive to fond Santa memories is here.]

1:50am -- Edited a whole bunch of times and now I'm going to bed.

Sunday at 12:42pm: Edited to add my personal Santa background:

My parents absolutely hate lying to their children, so they were always wishy-washy around the issue of Santa Claus. All of our presents had the giver's name on them, and we knew Mommy filled our stockings (since the bulk of it was baked goods we'd been watching her make for the past month). Once my grandma gave us placemats with a "from Santa" tag on the wrapping, but basically as soon as we opened them she said they were from her. I really wanted there to be a Santa Claus for the kids whose parents couldn't afford to buy them presents but saw no need for Santa Claus to come to my house. I don't remember any specific moment of knowing Santa wasn't real, but I suspected quite early.

I know most people grow out of the Santa belief non-traumatically, but it feels to me like you're setting yourself/your kid up for such potential trauma and why do that? Especially because I grew up with consistency being one of my dad's biggest things (credible threat and all that) so I feel like, "Well if you lied to your kid about this thing, why do they have any reason to believe you're not lying about other things?"

Comments

Re: the defense, er, doesn't rest

[lilithchilde.livejournal.com]

(cont)

As far as "This Is What We Do and What We Have Always Done," I think that the very repetition of tradition, far from being meaningless, is part of what can give it meaning: memories are built, and we take meaning and depth from that. Certainly repetition alone is not enough to lend meaning to celebration, but I believe it's important. That's why I like the special day part, as opposed to random times . . . it makes it special. It gives people a focal point for their spiritual and earthly love and joy. I think that if we gave random presents all the time, it would make present-giving less meaningful, less significant, more every-day. For one thing, present-giving on Christmas is something people do together.

I think I know what you mean by "ceremony," but do you wanna elaborate and/or give me specific examples so I can better attempt to explain why I hold such a "dim view"?
I was referring to our several previous discussions of Catholicism vs. Protestantism, in which we often used "ceremony" as a convenient example of one of the major differences between the two. I believe you used to say that you didn't see as much value in it; I believe this had something to do with the possibility of it being a rote act rather than an intentional one, while I did not believe it was so.

As for examples, "ceremony" includes everything from taking the eucharist and singing certain songs during certain times at church, to decorating Christmas trees and handing out presents. These are symbolic acts that incorporate history, familial bonds, and even more visceral tools such as light, warmth, and melody, which evoke spiritual feelings in the participants. Etc.

Re: the defense, er, doesn't rest

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Certainly repetition alone is not enough to lend meaning to celebration, but I believe it's important. That's why I like the special day part, as opposed to random times . . . it makes it special. It gives people a focal point for their spiritual and earthly love and joy. I think that if we gave random presents all the time, it would make present-giving less meaningful, less significant, more every-day. For one thing, present-giving on Christmas is something people do together.

See above reply re: grandmother. When you have to give people things, you don't necessarily end up giving them things they actually/want need (or you spend lots of time and worry trying to find them things they do want). My experience with my grandmother -- plus the fact that I so rarely know what to get people -- means that institutionalized gift-giving bothers me a lot. While random gift-giving all the time would admittedly feel more plebian, I get far more joy from someone saying, "I saw this and thought of you" at some random time than getting a pile of stuff at Christmas. And in the interest of actually getting stuff we want, my family all does specific wishlists -- which are great because it means you're guaranteed to actually get stuff you want/need, but to me there's far more magic in "I remember you were really lusting after this scarf but you couldn't afford it, and you've been having a bad week and I can afford it so I bought it for you" than in "Hey, it's your birthday/Christmas, here are x number of items from your wishlist." The fandom wishlists/secret santas have a lot of that spontaneous magic for me because you only have some idea of what you're going to get (though of course there is the risk factor that you'll get shite).

As for the "something people do together"? As we well know, I adore my parents and get along with my family, but you are so much more family-oriented than I am. The togetherness of events like that is usually a neutral and occasionally negative aspect from my point of view.

Yeah, when you said "ceremony" my brain immediately jumped to Catholicism, but since that covers a lot of ground and I wasn't actually griping about Christmas church services (I do tend to actually find Midnight Mass beautiful and powerful) I wanted to clarify.

The fact that so many people participate in traditional things, be they hymn-singing or what you have for Christmas dinner, without thinking about them in an intentional fashion bothers me no end in all sorts of contexts. I feel like I used "ceremony" in reference to Catholicism more for the High Church aspects in particular as I prefer words to symbols (I thought I talked about this somewhere else in the replies to this thread, but I can't find it, so I must be conflating it with another thread). I do see how traditional things can be meaningful with their connection to history and all that entails, plus of course their actual susbtance.