Why Santa Claus Pisses Me Off - Twice!

No one ever tells you Santa Claus has a raven called Hugin and another called Munin, or that he rides a eight-legged horse called Sleipneir. Or that he originates in Scandinavia, not so much as lives at the North Pole, and that at one of his residences, Gladsheim, he has at his beck and call twelve judges called the Diar, who are not in the least bit concerned whether you've been good or bad this year.

Odin Allfather, Wotan, The Wanderer, is just one myth co-opted by, and rolled into, the legend of Santa Claus. The eight-legged horse may have become an eight reindeer sleigh, and Gladsheim may have become Santa's workshop and factory of happiness... but that is neither here nor there.

An economy has grown around this legend, one that slathers the entire world in red and green ever December, and that seems designed to keep retailers merry and their registers a-jingling; but that is not my problem with Santa. I'm happy to ignore the blatant consumerism that has in turn co-opted the Santa legend in modern times. (If they didn't have Santa they'd invent another mascot). No, my problem with Santa is two-fold:

I see Santa Claus as an enemy - The Enemy - of myth. And I see him also as an enemy of Reason. And yes, I do have an explanation...

Santa Claus as The Enemy of Myth

Santa Claus is like the Water Hyacinth of popular culture; an invasive, fast propagating weed that is choking an otherwise rich mythosphere and killing myths world-wide. The myth is a pestilence, a plague, I say! Not even Optimus Prime is immune...

:facepalm:

I get amused with how popular culture celebrates belief in Santa as some sort of a touchstone for 'innocence' and for being a child, when in fact, it becomes the blunt instrument that kills all traces thereof. A lot of kids come away from the experience of learning the truth about Santa as cynics. Worse still, all myth, all fantasy is relegated to a broad category called "kid stuff", thus permanently depriving them of the joys thereof.

Santa wasn't a big deal for me personally, growing up. A scrawny art teacher used to dress up as Santa every Christmas in the Catholic school I attended, and did absolutely nothing to reinforce the legend. Quite the opposite actually... the tradition for us boys was to a) rob him of sweets, and b) punch him hard as we could in the fake gut, just to find his pain threshold. Innocent us!

However, as I traveled to the US later in life, I found another, more sinister theme. Belief in Santa Claus was being equated with naivete and gullibility with a ferocity that took my breath away. "Yeah right! And Santa's coming down the chimney as well" was a feasible response to a patently ludicrous promise or statement.

Santa as a disappointment was deeply personal with quite a few people! Once he is found to be false, a whole range of things go out the window. Science Fiction and Fantasy literature (and other media) is often a victim, as is any interest in learning the original myths behind the myth. All of it is branded as childish, and is immediately discarded. Which is a shame...

As someone that loves mythology, fantasy literature, and science fiction, I cannot stress enough just how valuable they are! This is literature that feeds the imagination, that deals with themes on a grand, grandiose scale that no other genre can. This is literature that can talk about burning social issues - racism, gay rights, genocide, human trafficking, belief, human sexuality, (insert powder-keg topic here) - allegorically and effectively.

Sometimes this genre dares go where conventional literature dare not tread, and often goes there long before 'fringe' politics sees any debate on the topic. To ignore the genre and dismiss it as childish is to stunt not only your imagination, but also your intellect.

And I haven't even begun to expound on the escapist thrill of entering a well imagined alternate reality... or the trivia that can be such a delight to any fan.

Santa Claus as The Enemy of Reason

Most kids instinctively reject Santa Claus as an unreasonable phenomenon. My niece and nephew, for all their googly eyed reactions after we performed an elaborate Santa ruse for them a few years ago gave me the distinct impression that they were humoring us by not questioning it beyond a point. But those are not the kids I'm worried about!

No, the kids I'm worried about are the ones who fall for it, hook, line, and sinker. It is the kids who will eventually grow up to believe that the Earth is about 6000 years old, that evolution is "just a theory", that Hanuman is immortal and still lives somewhere in the Himalayas, that burning ghee and wood and some other offerings to gods in a specific sequence can ward off seven years of evil or rid you of the bad luck inherent to the way Mars was positioned in the sky at the time of your birth...



(that video is well worth watching in its entirety, especially today!)

I'm talking about the 90% of rather unquestioning humanity that believes in the supernatural not as entertainment, - which would be just fine and something I believe can be encouraged - but as ground reality.

Santa Claus (and I hear you groaning there in the back) is the beginning of unquestioning faith. This is not a Christian phenomenon, or a Western one. No, increasingly, this is a secular, global phenomenon where the religious sub-text has been stripped away. It is something that has been distilled into a vessel for blind belief... an initiation into ignorance.

Santa Claus is - on some level - an elaborate bait and switch.

Step One: here, believe in this. Old fat dude looking like Gandalf comes down a chimney while you are asleep and leaves you gifts. Nothing creepy about it!
Step Two: hahaha! Fooled ya! That was just a silly kid's tale!
Step Three: You know what isn't a kid's tale though? Here, read this *unloads religion*. Now go forth and Believe!

So what is to be done?

I see no contradiction between being a huge fan of fantasy fiction and allegorical myth (which is what all religion is, really) and being a rationalist. The former is edifying entertainment that deals in wisdom, mostly ethical. The latter is edification itself, dealing in factual knowledge and the scientific spirit.

How then to deal with the problem of Claus? I don't have a very clear answer, I'm afraid, not being a parent and not having had to deal with the knot with a kid myself as yet.

I will say this though - if you start out by telling any kid up-front that Santa Claus isn't real, you'll be doing them a favor. By all means, deck the halls, play Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, and watch "Miracle on 34th Street" (the old one, or the remake) but clarify that Santa Claus is basically on par with Optimus Prime, Chhota Bheem, and Ben 10. A fun legend to be enjoyed, not believed in.

Dig into it... talk about Sinterklaas and Father Christmas as Henry VIII and Saint Nicholas, and Odin Allfather. Delve into the various jungles of myth, from Mahabharat to the Odyssey, from poetic Eddas to Graeco-Roman legends to the Avengers and Thor vs Loki. Draw "myth-trees" to find correlation, co-option, and derivation! Let the kid go nuts exploring these imagined worlds.

And through it all, make it clear that these things do not hold value for being factual - they hold value for expressly not being factual, and for being such a rich imaginarium!

I think that'll be a good start... do you?