Speaking of Santa Claus...

[ketida]

I loved believing in Santa long after I suspected the truth.

I loved my parents for promoting the magic by leaving personal notes (to me! from Santa!) along with the cookie plate left empty except for crumbs, and the glass of milk drained.

Never once did I feel let down that they were "lying" to me. It never felt like that. It was more like a shared fantasy.

I was delighted to share the same experience with my own kids, and eventually let them in on how my parents had made Christmas so special for me.

[cowtime]

I loved believing in Santa long after I suspected the truth.

I loved my parents for promoting the magic by leaving personal notes (to me! from Santa!) along with the cookie plate left empty except for crumbs, and the glass of milk drained.

Never once did I feel let down that they were "lying" to me. It never felt like that. It was more like a shared fantasy.

I was delighted to share the same experience with my own kids, and eventually let them in on how my parents had made Christmas so special for me.

There ya go. That's it! Santa rules!!!!!

[Will O'B]

I can't imagine living a life without magic and wonder; that, afterall, was Ebenezer Scrooge's failing. He lost that ember that glowed inside of him as a boy and then his life just became one humdrum of acquiring more money hand-over-fist. I thought that ALL children shared this ember, this innocence of looking at the world with wonder and awe - and seeing those things that are only visible to the heart. But maybe I was mistaken, although I sincerely hope not. God, please, I hope not.

If you listen to this recitation and come away only with "that's a nice sentiment," then you are only about one step ahead of Mister Scrooge in understanding what is important in this life. People like that don't really see the true beauty and magic and mystery that is behind a butterfly, a flower, a star or another human being. And that is sad.

Anyone here willing to give it just one more try?

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=SFxwAsrhJ-A

[brewerpaul]

Thanks for the replies folks. I can see you all turned out just fine, despite the Santa fiction
A board member sent me a private email response to this which was really beautiful, and I invite him to post it here, or give me permission to do it myself. It really caught the spirit of Christmas giving,rather than the wanton receiving...

[Wombat]

I can't for the life of me understand why children are so avidly told this myth. It's a very sweet story and I guess that the "magic of believing" is supposed to be wonderful, but basically parents of these kids are perpetuating a lie, and they go to great lengths to do so even though they know that their children are going to be upset when they learn that good ol' Santa is not real. I hear parents all the time asking their friends "Do your kids still believe?" as if this is such a terrific thing: that they are still pulling the wool over their trusting children's eyes. Wouldn't finding out that their parents are lying about Santa make kids suspicious of other things told to them?

We are told a lot of things and expected to believe them, or act as though we do, which a little reflection would reveal to be false. Engineers are taught, and apply, Newtonian physics rather than quantum mechanics and relativity theory. Since their calculations would be much more prone to mistakes if they used true theories, this seems sensible. Nobody protests about this. In our society, practicality trumps truth every time.

[fyffer]

Our children are much smarter than our adult brains logically allow ourselves to believe they are. Once they start to get to that 'critical thinking' cause-and-effect age, which for my kids is somewhere between 6 and 8, they get it. I think for the most part, they just don't want us to know they get it.

And this "perpetuating a lie" thing is way over the top.
It's not a lie.
It is a story.
It's about believing in something bigger than yourself.
It's about magic.
And love.
And fun.
And joy.
And children.
And puppies.

God help me (yes, I said "God" help me) when I stop believing in the spirit of giving that is really Santa Claus.

Our kids get it. Don't kid yourself.
I've never once heard of a serial killer ending up using the "My Parents lied to me about Santa Claus" defense in a court of law.

Yes, brewerpaul, there is a Santa Claus.

And, though kitschy, and I would never own one, this image always brings a little tear to my eye:

[Doug_Tipple]

I have a newly-acquired sister-in-law that has more money than good taste. I almost dread going to her house for Christmas dinner. It's not about the food, because the food will be tasty and plentiful. It's about her obsession with Santa Claus figures in all sizes. They are literally all over the place throughout the house. They talk, they wink, they move their arms, and they won't shut up. I understand that one of the children's rooms that is no longer occupied is now being used soley to store all of the Christmas gear during the off season. Folks, don't get me started about the outside of the house. Poor hubby sits in his chair in the living room, watches football on the large-screen TV, and keeps his mouth shut. He knows better than to say anything about the Christmas circus in the house. Whenever I enter their door, I long for the simplicity of a few, well-chosen festive items to celebrate the holiday season.

[djm]

"So ya wantcher hair back, do ya?"


djm

[anniemcu]

I'm lucky, I suppose. I still believe in Santa Claus. Of course, like my belief in G_D, it is quite different from the generally accepted norm. I believe that Santa, as an actual entity, is a conglomeration of actions and attitudes of people who give what they can to others without any need for recognition. The unseen, wish granting, stocking stuffing being of love that arrives without usually leaving even a footprint to trace (though sleigh tracks and hoof prints have been seen, and the evidence of crumbs and empty milk glasses has also been catalogued) So, when my children came to the age to be told the 'truth' about Santa, they were brought into the fold of his robes, so to speak. They got to become Santa. Talk about an eyes wide joyful dawning of an idea... whew! Stand back and let them at the plans!

[anniemcu]

And this "perpetuating a lie" thing is way over the top.
It's not a lie.
It is a story.
It's about believing in something bigger than yourself.
It's about magic.
And love.
And fun.
And joy.
And children.
And puppies.

...

The story is not the lie. The insisting that the story is the truth, is the lie. It may seem a subtle difference, but it is an immensely important one.

Like you, I totally believe in sharing the magic, the miracles of life, love, fun, joy, children, puppies, fudge and grog. I perpetuate the stories. I just like to include the truth in there with them.

I believe in the spirit of Santa Clause. Oh... and by 'spirit' i don't mean a hauntie.

(Edited to note that when I wrote this reply I was fresh from the religious discussion and was thinking more along that line than the Santa one. Still fits, I think, so I won't delete it. And edited a second time to add an important thought...well... important to me, anyway. )

[JordanII]

While we're on the subject:

Santa Claus:An Engineers Perspective

I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18 ) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau).
At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second --- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them--- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance --- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.

The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accellerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.



On a more serious matter. I am a Christain, although I never did believe in Santa, but I don't see anything wrong with it. After all, it's never done any damage and it gives an added... something to this time of year for those who do think the myth to be a reality.

[fyffer]

While we're on the subject:

Santa Claus:An Engineers Perspective

Yes, of course the above is all well and good, but the Santa story is about magic and not Engineering. Some people just can't get that through their skulls.

Leave it to those d**ned Engineers to Scrooge-ify things.
(I'm an Engineer, so I can say that).

[JordanII]

While we're on the subject:

Santa Claus:An Engineers Perspective

Yes, of course the above is all well and good, but the Santa story is about magic and not Engineering. Some people just can't get that through their skulls.

Leave it to those d**ned Engineers to Scrooge-ify things.
(I'm an Engineer, so I can say that).

Scrooge-ify? Did somebody say he existed? lol

[Denny]

don't be such a little dickens...

[Will O'B]

Is Santa really so different from the Sesame Street myth? What do people who don't want children believing in fictional characters such as Santa tell their 2 or 3 year old when she is watching Grover on television? What do they do to curb her innocence and imagination so that she doesn't believe that the cute characters are real? What do they say to the child when they see one of the characters in the mall? Do they tell the child that it's just someone wearing a costume who is trying to fool her and that the character on the tube is only a stuffed animal puppet with a person hiding off camera pretending to be the character's voice? Do they tell them that it's silly and a waste of the adult's time for her to go hug the character in the mall because the character is fictional? I don't believe I could do that for any child, even one I didn't like. But that's just me. I suppose, though, that can be seen as a good thing to do for a child. At least, she can never resent the adult for letting her believe a lie when she was little. (Although a cynical few may consider this last reason to be more for the adult's benefit than the child's. )

I'm not trying to be confontational either. But this myth that adults perpetuate on children is far bigger than the big guy in the red suit. And these characters are nondenominational. (Except for one of the teletubbies who, I've heard, is gay - but that's different.) Truthfully, it never occurred to me that children should never be allowed to believe in such things. I always thought that was part of the beauty of childhood.

Anyway, I'm curious too. How do the "non-santa" people here handle these issues? Thanks.

[Paul, I'm not trying to hijack the thread. It seems like this is the same question you were asking, only broader. If you prefer I can start a new thread.]