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

Just say that...

[carpdeus.livejournal.com]

Caption: I am a lie. Very festive of me.

Course, I'm a blunt individiaul.

[wisdomeagle]

There are no fond Santa memories in my past! I agree with you 100%. Which makes for very boring discussion, but, you know. It's gotta happen from time to time.

Meanwhile this poem by Ogden Nash traumatized me so much when I was wee-er that I was turned off of Ogden Nash for life.

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

Just sharing my story...

See, I have no issues with Santa, because I never believed he existed. We put out milk and cookies for years, but I chose Dad's favourite Christmas cookies (the filled Sandbaklse) because I knew he was going to be eating them.

A few years ago I asked my parents whether they thought I'd ever believed in Santa, and they didn't think so, either. Mom said that although she didn't remember ever saying to me "Santa is not real" that I'd just always got it - putting out stockings was one more part of the tradition.

The gifts that go in the stockings are usually signed "Santa" (with the quote marks, btw), and that's still the way we do it now. But the "Santa" gifts are the little stuff - we do our main gift giving on Christmas Eve... my stocking always seems to have new underwear and a Christmas tree decoration. *g*

[hedy.livejournal.com]

Oh, you.

the defense, er, doesn't rest

[lilithchilde.livejournal.com]

I'm going to rant a little here. I'm sure you've heard some of it before. But Lisbet, much as I love you, you're being awfully judgemental, and I've a low tolerance for that lately.

There's a pretty big difference, I think, between lying and telling stories. Children often believe in a lot of things from fairy and folk tales, and many parents don't discourage this. They grow to discover the truth, or what they want to believe, for themselves: this is part of becoming an adult, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It seems to me that people are constantly horrified, second-guessing themselves, lest they traumatise their children. Children are a lot more resilient than we give them credit for. There are going to be changes in belief as one grows up; that's just part of it.

My brother believed in Santa more intensely than anyone I've ever heard of. Wrote him long letters every year. And yet, it didn't hurt him when he discovered it was my parents all along. In fact, he immediately wanted to start sending Santa presents back: everyone would know,of course, but it would still be fun. We both enjoyed the story when we believed it, and still do now that we don't. Of course, your mileage may vary, but there's a righteousness in those icons that really bothers me.

And as for Christmas, well. The Christian holiday, as we all know, absorbed into itself pagan festivals, and more and more I think that it's only appropriate that the larger culture has adapted it in turn into something that many of us can share regardless of religion. Spirituality is something that people connect with in many ways, through family, nature, and tradition/ceremony; God isn't the only way, and I think they're all equally appropriate and valid. I believe in pluralism just about as strongly as I believe in anything (which is very). And while I agree that people go overboard with the commercialization and forget to connect with each other (God, nature, whatever), I don't think there's anything wrong with the gifting tradition when people take a more moderate approach to it.

In Christianity class the other day, Vera was talking about a Syriac Christian who wrote a lot of poetry glorifying God, and also who talked about how it's good that we have festivals that are grounded in the material. As another part of this world (or God's Creation, however you see it), things of this life are also to be celebrated with joy. It's also a good time of year to make warmth and noise in order to protect ourselves from the cold dark of winter (a pretty pagan way of looking at things, but fairly universal nonetheless). That's not just for Christians. I suppose we could change the name, but that's not how culture has adapted itself, and we non-Christians and Christians are so mixed in that we might as well stop arguing semantics and celebrate in our own ways.

I'd as soon call my own holiday Yule or Solstice, but I don't have issues with other atheists or agnostics who call it Christmas.

I figure some of our difference comes from your much dimmer view of the value of ceremony, but I have to say, it puzzles me. Ceremony is a means by which people create meaning. Creating meaning is important and spiritually enriching.

AGREED

[marginaliana]

OMG I was just ranting about this in a discussion group about Anansi Boys! You've covered many of my points. A few others:

--it's okay to lie to your children but not okay for them to lie to you? Do as I say, not as I do? I'm not okay with that.
--isn't a big part of the debate about violent video games a concern that children have trouble distinguishing appropriate action in the game from appropriate action in reality, thus leading to more violence? Similarly, aren't we worried about children thinking that commercials are real and being unduly influenced by them? Isn't this contrary to those concerns?
--don't parents want children to trust them? This seems designed to detroy that trust. I remember wondering what else my parents had lied about.
--I think you can still allow children to have active imaginations while teaching them the difference between fiction and reality. When I was a kid, I had an imaginary idea in which trees had minds and were happy when they got chopped down and made into chairs because they were then serving a purpose. I knew it wasn't objectively real, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying it as a subjective reality. I think the same can be true of something like Santa - children can enjoy it as a story while still helping their parents wrap gifts "from Santa" to poor children or whatever.

[zzrg.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I have always thought of Santa as more of a story or play that we all participate in. I don't know when as a child I started clearly distinguishing between fiction and reality, between real-life and pretend. Obviously there is a point in every child's life when it is important for them to know the difference (and to know about Santa), but I am not so sure that the ability to pretend something is real is not an important life skill. I think that there something inherently valuable in everyone pretending there is a Santa every Christmas. I'm not sure that I would like the world as much if I had to limit myself to the facts and did not have the ability to occasionally pull the wool over my own eyes and believe in things because I choose to. I think being stuck at one end of the spectrum or the other would be a very unhappy place.

One of the reasons I hate the commercialization of Christmas and the commercialization of Santa is that for me it detracts from the fantasy.