Is Santa silly?

So why do so many adults hanker for this "myth" when they know it to be false (not necessarily just NTs)?

Childhood seems to allow some licence with the truth, perhaps an essential formative process, whereby they can live within a mythical world, and learn from the parables or fables within, about right and wrong, good or bad, loyality and betrayal. Because their lives are supported they can explore this unreal world in relative comfort. Adulthood as it approaches imposes more and more responsibilities, so the unreal becomes misleading.

However all this seems to be a product of the last hundred years or so. The period of childhood protection was much shorter, with boys being apprenticed to a trade as early as 11 or 12, or going down the mines at 9, and even from first being able to walk survival meant learning reality not myth.

So with hindsight all this santa stuff is packaged around modern protected childhood.

To understand this better you have to go back to when adults believed all this, which isn't that long ago. The ideas of gift giving, and festivals at the winter solstice is all bound up in adult religious festivals. Elves and fairies were real, there were goblins and other demons around, and you believed your life predetermined by various bening and malignant spirits. Under christianity and other core religions these beliefs, because they were hard to suppress, were adapted into religious festivals.

In most instances, when you look closely, the unreal worlds sold to children are what, as adults, we are not supposed to believe any more because institutional religion says we cannot. So for children its the one and only chance.

Except that film and theatre and TV and books all celebrate similar sorts of things, ostensibly for children but avidly consumed by adults. And Star Wars, to be honest, is not that far removed from the world people lived in in 9th century Britain (OK you had to be good with a real metal sword).

And all this logic stuff (do you really think Data is based on reality?) is just being a bit mean and miserable.

Of course Christmas is not a happy time for everyone, and if you are not well adapted socially, it greatly exacerbates the sense of loneliness and isolation. That's certainly always been my difficulty. Because the social interaction is difficult I cannot get on the same wavelength as everyone around me.

But I wouldn't suppose I was being "logical". Just practical in the face of a difficulty or disability.

So why do so many adults hanker for this "myth" when they know it to be false (not necessarily just NTs)?

Childhood seems to allow some licence with the truth, perhaps an essential formative process, whereby they can live within a mythical world, and learn from the parables or fables within, about right and wrong, good or bad, loyality and betrayal. Because their lives are supported they can explore this unreal world in relative comfort. Adulthood as it approaches imposes more and more responsibilities, so the unreal becomes misleading.

However all this seems to be a product of the last hundred years or so. The period of childhood protection was much shorter, with boys being apprenticed to a trade as early as 11 or 12, or going down the mines at 9, and even from first being able to walk survival meant learning reality not myth.

So with hindsight all this santa stuff is packaged around modern protected childhood.

To understand this better you have to go back to when adults believed all this, which isn't that long ago. The ideas of gift giving, and festivals at the winter solstice is all bound up in adult religious festivals. Elves and fairies were real, there were goblins and other demons around, and you believed your life predetermined by various bening and malignant spirits. Under christianity and other core religions these beliefs, because they were hard to suppress, were adapted into religious festivals.

In most instances, when you look closely, the unreal worlds sold to children are what, as adults, we are not supposed to believe any more because institutional religion says we cannot. So for children its the one and only chance.

Except that film and theatre and TV and books all celebrate similar sorts of things, ostensibly for children but avidly consumed by adults. And Star Wars, to be honest, is not that far removed from the world people lived in in 9th century Britain (OK you had to be good with a real metal sword).

And all this logic stuff (do you really think Data is based on reality?) is just being a bit mean and miserable.

Of course Christmas is not a happy time for everyone, and if you are not well adapted socially, it greatly exacerbates the sense of loneliness and isolation. That's certainly always been my difficulty. Because the social interaction is difficult I cannot get on the same wavelength as everyone around me.

But I wouldn't suppose I was being "logical". Just practical in the face of a difficulty or disability.