It's the night before christmas and I can't help feeling a little jaded by the way our society has turned this holy holiday into a commercial enterprise. I am staying at my parents' house along with my sister and 11 year old niece. My niece still believes in santa claus. Yes, she's convinced that all of the children at school are liars and the christmas shows on TV are irrefutible proof of his existence. Tonight the traditional cookies, milk, letter, and vegetable tray (for the reindeer) were left out when she went to bed. Before bed, my father and I took turns munching on the cookies, veggies, and milk. After that, I wrote a carefully composed response to her letter, especially from santa himself.
As our children are growing up, they're supposed to trust us, right? So why do we spend years reinforcing this outright lie and then pull it out from under them? I caught on to the gig when I was 7 and my parents were relieved to finally give up the hoax.
So now I'm a 26 year old man that lies to and manipulates children. I'm not sure I really feel very good about that. There are some very grown-up things that children don't really need to know the whole story about and I am comfortable throwing around a white-lie or vague response now and again, but an out-and-out useless and manipulating lie kind of bothers me. So when they're 15 and we tell them that smoking is bad for them, why should they believe us? Perhaps once they hit 30 we unveil the truth about that too; it actually tastes great and makes you live longer, gotcha! We're so clever.
Would christmas be such a large holiday in the US if we discontinued the lies to children? I believe that parents would still get presents for the children, that stockings would still be filled, and candy canes and carols would overwhelm and sicken everyone for the entire month of December.
On the more joyous side of things, today I spent time with an old friend that had drifted considerably, a mutual drifting really. We were both friends during an awkward and often confusing and unhappy time in our lives. Now he is incredibly happy and fortunate in his life and I am very glad for him. I hadn't realized how much I missed him and his friendship, it meant more than I had remembered, as relatively brief as it was.
Tomorrow after opening gifts and being lazy and eating an early dinner I have to drive back to Corvallis. I'm not especially fond of the traffic I'm likely to encounter. My typical 1.5 hour drive is probably going to turn into at least 3. I'm definitely going to have to stop so Gus can sretch his legs and take a potty break.
Everyone else has finally gone to bed and here I am, the last up, which has been typical for about 15 years. I am still excited and have trouble getting to sleep, even though I'm fully aware that santa will not be visiting our house tonight. That damned childhood programming, I've been brainwashed.
Monday, December 25, 2006
christmas: joy and lies?
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4 comments:
My parents had a similar logic: if we lie to her about Santa, then how will she ever believe all that crap about Jesus? I distinctly remember the year when I went around telling all the kids Santa wasn't real. One girl's parents came over to our house and chewed out my parents and from then on I was told that it was okay to keep that bit about Santa being fake to myself. Unfortunately, it also turns out that Jesus and heaven are a little bit fake, but my parents tried. My husband thinks I missed out on the "magic" and intends to play Santa with our imaginary future kids. He loved believing in Santa. I'm still not sure how I feel about this.
I guess how we handle it is that we make sure that our children know the true meaning of Christms (ie Jesus's birth) and that Santa Claus is a fun thing. My 11 year old son says he still believes but I think that he does more for my daughter's sake than anything else. I remember when I found out that Santa wasn't real and I didn't feel like I was lied to, I still enjoy getting gifts from "Santa" at my age even now. I guess I put Santa Claus in the same catagory as the Tooth Fairy and other make believe creatures.
I've wrestled with that one for a number of years. If I follow Obi-Wan as my ethical guru, then I can say "Santa exists" is true "from a certain point of view," that is, because the idea of Santa is real and makes a real difference in the actions of people (i.e. parents and children). Santa is an idea, like democracy and luck and hope (each of which are also frequently personified, usually as gentlewomen rather than a fat guy in red).
Winter talks of imagination, and there's truth in that (even if, like fiction, imagination shows a true lie!) The fundamentalists who bash fantasy miss the point. The magic isn't the magic in the stories. It's the magic of the stories. I've never met anyone who believed that there was a real spell for throwing fireballs, but I know several who marvel at imagining worlds where it is possible. Chesterton said that we marvel at the giant at the door, and that may shock us to marvel that there's a door at all (or that there's anyone at the door... my copy of Orthodoxy is not at hand). The magic of imagination and fantasy is to awaken our sleeping sense of wonder, so that maybe, just maybe, we can catch a little glimpse of it in our own world.
Or maybe not. Maybe we're all caught in a tradition of dishonesty and greed, created by toy makers of old and marketed now with the hurricane force of Madison Avenue.
Apparently there are great opinions on this subject. I'll do a summary reply. :-)
april: I love the logic of your parents! I agree a bit with your husband, the "magic" of santa is pretty fun...even after I found out the truth there were still santa-like gifts and full stockings each christmas which I still love.
winter: The kicker for the argument for me is when my niece asks myself or my parents or my sister, point-blank "is santa real?" and then we all awkardly continue the lie "Why yes, he is! and he's coming to visit soon!" What the hell?! I can understand pulling the wool over childrens eyes while they're younger, but when they get to the point where they come to their "truth source" and we flat-out lie ... I don't know. Grr.
dodo: that's nice of your son to keep up the game for his little sister. I just think the line to be drawn is between having a fun tradition and a conspiracy. My poor niece is very impressionable and will believe whatever we "honestly" tell her, even if the kids at school say otherwise.
slacker: wow, a treatise on imagination! I love it! I like your point of santa as idea, rather than biological lifeform. It's catchy. I'm a huge fan of fantasy and I have to admit that a few times I've thought to myself "hmm I wish santa would bring me that xbox 360.." though in the back of my mind I know "he" won't.
Perhaps Santa is the alter-ego of every adult? A sort of genetic gift-giving coping mechanism. How's that for christmas spirit? ;-) Santa did provide very well for me this year, so I suppose I ought to quit bashing him or trying to "out" him or whatever it is I'm doing.
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