Why are people so weird about Santa?

[ysobel]

...I swear it seems like the only two options are "believe/participate" and "be an ass about it not being real". (And ... cookies are fat-shaming now?

Dear Amy: I live in a country that celebrates a tradition that I am, at best, uneasy with. It involves a bizarre ritual by which parents of small children routinely lie to them about the existence of an elderly domestic intruder who supposedly brings small chocolate statues of himself along with toys and gifts once a year (spoiler alert: the parents buy this stuff).

These are otherwise reasonable people who do their best to teach honesty, good communication, integrity and good values to their children. I’ve assimilated well to the point that I, too, am complicit in this charade, along with almost all my neighbors, friends, colleagues and all their relatives.

I want to teach my kids about the shamanic origins of this intriguing but overly caricatured figure, instead of fat-shaming him with cookies and milk (seriously).

It’s important for me to keep (or at least regain) my kids’ trust despite this betrayal. How do I come clean to my kids, who are 7 and 4 and have grown to embrace this tradition?

— No Gaslight


Gaslight: You seem to be saying that in addition to everything else that’s wrong about the Santa story, offering cookies and milk to a fat man who doesn’t exist is part of the problem. Sigh.

And the “shamanic origins” of the Santa story? An internet search that I can now never erase from my brain offers up this idea: That early shamans tripping on hallucinogenic mushrooms imagined flying reindeer racing across the night sky.

You are aware that many children and families in Western cultures do not celebrate Christmas? And that other children from families that celebrate Christmas leave Santa out of it? And that some who don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday do the Santa Thing anyway? My point is that no one is zip-tying you to Santa.

But one aspect of parenting that you might not understand is that lying is baked into the deal. We tell our children, “I loved your recorder solo!” “Tired? I’m not tired; I just need to rest my eyes.” “Sure, I’d love to play another round of Candyland!”

The Santa story is a benign part of childhood that children quickly outgrow. Your older child will decode the Santa story first and might choose to maintain the mystery for the younger child’s enjoyment. That’s what my elder siblings did, anyway — and I’m grateful.

If you want to walk away from the Santa story, tell your children that this is a “Once upon a time” story that many children enjoy, but that you’ve decided to go ahead and celebrate the winter holiday without it, and it will still contain magic and fun surprises for all of you.

For a still-fresh take on the magic of the “giving season” without Santa, read Charles Dickens’ 1843 classic, “A Christmas Carol” aloud to your children.

Comments

[hashiveinu]

But one aspect of parenting that you might not understand is that lying is baked into the deal. We tell our children, “I loved your recorder solo!” “Tired? I’m not tired; I just need to rest my eyes.” “Sure, I’d love to play another round of Candyland!”

I don't think any of these are necessary.

"I loved your recorder solo" could be "You've been practicing a lot and you've made a lot of progress on this piece, and I'm really proud of you for that." If they ask whether you like the piece and you don't, you can be honest about that.

I see no reason not just to admit to being tired.

"I'd love to play another round of Candyland" could be "I'm tired. I'm willing to play one more round, but no more than that."

Modeling honesty and having boundaries is actually very important.

[mildred_of_midgard]

This, exactly this. I wrote a tumblr post about this a few years ago (thankyoufinnick is me).

[movingfinger]

"Shamanic origins"????????

[oursin]

Woowoo folklore, I think - vague memories of a book in the 70s ? The Mushroom and the Cross - about the basis of All Religions in Hallucigenic Mushroom Rituals

[ethelmay]

Oh, God, I had forgotten about that. Googling Santa Claus and shaman brings up a bunch of recentish stupid clickbait articles on the topic (also this sensible-looking debunking: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/panmankey/2018/12/santa-was-not-a-shaman/).

[oursin]

A probably very tired Ronald Hutton, author of Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination (this is probably like me and That Victorian Myth, multiplied): 'theory of a mushroom-Santa connection is flawed'. (Silently screaming.)

[conuly]

This person also wrote in to Care and Feeding, or maybe Dear Prudence - one of those.

That columnist called them out for trolling, whoever it was!

[conuly]

It's not the question, it's the way it's asked.

[ethelmay]

At seven and four, with at least one parent who isn't that big on Santa anyway, it seems to me their remaining days of "believing in Santa" are likely to be pretty limited anyway. If nothing else, as the kids move up in school and learn to read better, they're going to encounter (if they haven't already) at least one of the many, many books that say Santa is just a story. It's not actually true that everyone else's kids (even if you're only counting those who celebrate Christmas) are full-on believers until ten or something. But I think going on and on about Santa's "shamanic origins" (probably misusing shamanic, I'm guessing) is not a great idea anyway.

[lilysea]

I see no problem with parents telling their kids

"Santa Claus, like the Easter Bunny and the Tooth fairy, are fun pretend-games stories that make people happy. You can't see them or touch them and the presents are from your parents, but the stories make people happy."

[ethelmay]

That's pretty much what we did. Santa was a person in a story, just like many other people in stories. It was only much later that people said to us, "Well, at least you told them not to tell other kids Santa wasn't real, didn't you?" and we said, well, honestly? no, we didn't, it never occurred to us that it was a big deal by the time the kids were in school together. I have no idea whether our kids spilled the beans, but I don't feel that there's some societal obligation to necessarily not spill the beans, given how many people in the world don't do Santa at all. (I think it would be downright offensive to tell Jewish kids they had some special responsibility in that regard, for instance.)

But in this case I think they already haven't gone that route explicitly, so they will have something of a transition period. Martha Brockenbrough's book Love, Santa might be helpful (I haven't read it myself, but AIUI this is the sort of situation it's for, and Brockenbrough is a good author generally in my experience).

[lilysea]

One of the problems with santa, is that if all/most presents come from santa

and the story is that good kids get presents and bad kids don't

then kids whose parents are poor

and therefore get no presents/small presents/poor quality presents

might believe that they are not "good" kids.

Some people suggest that to work around this, have a small present (like chocolate/candy) be said to be from santa, and any big/expensive presents are clearly said to be from the parents.

[tielan]

...I swear it seems like the only two options are "believe/participate" and "be an ass about it not being real"

Y'know, I think this applies to far more things than believing in Santa Claus...

[minoanmiss]

*cracks up laughing* LW put EFFORT into that piece of defamiliarization. I am almost impressed.