Far be it from me to criticize what parents decide to tell their children about Santa Claus. I am not married and don't have children, but I know I would tell them - if I did have children - straight up, that Santa Claus is real - real, real, as in coming-down-the-chimney-flying-reindeer-eating-the-cookies-and-chugging-the-eggnog real, without addenda about the "truth of his spirit" incarnating every time we give a gift, or any of that.
Is it a very prottie thing to think that this is lying? I don't know, probably. To think it lying is definitely starved logic - sort of like Lewis quipping that myths are lies breathed down silver tubes, to which Tolkien responded that myths are not lies. Especially with the reality of Christ's incarnation, which is something that cannot just be intellectually grasped, there is something about it that involves deep story, in the present. Thus the enactment.
If parents wish to tell their children "the truth" about Santa - that is, that he "isn't real", that's their right, and I have no scruples with it. Worse things happen. What I find weird though - and this is something quite removed from whether or not parents do the Santa thing - is thinking that playing up the Santa Claus story is to risk causing your child disillusionment with the faith of the church, or cause rupture in parent-trust issues, later down the road, as per Mark Shea's line of reasoning.
Let's look at what really happens: there is no "realization" or shattering epiphany that the coming-down-the-chimney Santa is not real, that it was your parents all along putting presents under the tree. There is no realization. What happens is the child grows up. Once he was a child who effortlessly believed; then in growing, belief in the coming-down-the-chimney Santa simply becomes impossible - in practical terms. There is no disappointment, no cheated feelings. As for believing in Santa/St. Nicholas, the wonder-worker, later on, I can only see the Santa "lie" nurturing a child to believe these things later on. I agree with Terry's post on the subject.
What about Irish fathers telling their children some leprechaun tale in the first person to make it sound as though it really happened?
6 comments:
+JMJ+
I am very, very ambivalent about Santa Claus. As much as I'd like my children to have at least one enchanted Christmas in that way . . . I don't think I could pull it off!!! My poor offspring will end up with nothing but coal in their stockings. =P
But I agree with you that it's not a lie any more than a beautiful
Fantasy story is. It can be a very tender make-believe game that parents play with their very young children. The "unveiling" of Santa can even be a Shakespearean thing, in the end!
The only scruple I have with Santa has to do with the way his figure seems to be taking over Christmas. It's as if we all sense that there should be a central figure of goodwill and giving; but since Jesus is far too "divisive," we settle for Santa. I'm working on a Punk Catholic Thought which compares this cultural takeover with Queen Elizabeth I's campaign to replace veneration of the Virgin Mary with loyalty to the Virgin Queen.
Oh yes, it seems to be that Sinter Klaus, or whatever the name was back when, was very much an "aside" deal, while the image, interior and exterior, of the Christ-child in the crib was central by far. This for me would be ideal.
There has been a disproportionate takeover - and, I think the old Santa (the one that looks more like a wizard and more like St Nick. and not the fat red cheeked one) has also been pushed aside by this "jolly" fat guy. I wonder how much that is related to the Christ-child (and all that entails with the wise men, Shepherds, Joseph and Mary) being taken out.
I agree with you. Also, in fact, I was exaggerating somewhat in my opening paragraph, for "effect" as they say. If it came to it, I really don't know what I'd do.
But I definitely would not use Shea's "logic".
And that comparison in the upcoming Punk Cath thought looks very interesting!
Richard P. Feynman, the physicst, wrote of being surprised out of a lingering depression by a plate-thrown-as-frisbee, about which he started writing equations and doing physics, which led him to calculate something *really* nifty about electrons, which eventually got him the Nobel Prize.
He writes this story in one of his memoire collections, and it includes a fairly detectable untrue statement; which may be funny, given his passion for "bending-over backwards to be honest about what might go wrong" in scientific reporting. It makes me wonder how much of the story really happened... But the point of him telling the story, of course, is to get you interested in doing the calculations, and not to trust him.
Thank you for the very interesting comment, Bat.
I can only say exactly!
Now I need to loo into this Richard P. Feynman fellow.
+JMJ+
Feynman was a great storyteller--possibly the reason he's also my favourite physicist.
(Einstein? Who's that?)
Thanks for the link Paul.
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