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Is Santa silly?

Arran

I'm writing this as someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas in either a religious or cultural sense. From a young age I was told that Santa doesn't exist and is just a silly hoax that parents play on their kids. It never affected me in any bad way and neither was I expecting to find wrapped presents mysteriously appear on the morning of the 25th day of December. If anybody in my family received a Christmas gift then it was usually opened on the same day. A downside to this is that even from the age of 4 or 5 I went round telling kids at school "Father Christmas isn't real, it's all made up, your parents buy Christmas presents from the shops" which often resulted in me getting into trouble whenever they got upset. I once had to report to the head teacher after completely reducing a classmate to tears.

Is the concept of Santa a silly nonsense or is it part of the joys of childhood? Do you tell your own children the truth or would you prefer to go along with the cultural norm? Is pleasing one's classmates more important than knowing the truth? What about children at school who follow different religions so do not celebrate Christmas - where do they fit in?

Parents

  • LiquidSunshine said:
    My personal experience has told me not to tell the "truth". I don't really want to make enemies in this life, particularly. I don't want to see someone upset and enraged with me.

    This is now entering the realm of psychology. Everybody who knows the truth basically has a choice of either telling the truth or telling a lie in order to please other people. Some people basically have the attitude of telling the truth at any price and others prefer to say things to pleases particular people or majority even if what they say is an outright lie.

    One of my heroes is Galileo. Every sane person today believes that he was right and the officialdom of the time was wrong, but only a small fraction are aware that at the time very few locals came to his defence. Why? Because the majority of people in society prefer to keep their nose clean and do not want to upset their families, friends, and work colleagues or run the risk of prosecution themselves in the name of the truth.

    Popular opinion and majority consensus are powerful forces. In a school where no children follow religions other than Christianity and every family celebrates Christmas complete with the Santa lie apart from 3 or 4, then children from these families will be viewed as spoilers and malcontents if they decide to tell the truth about Santa in the playground. In a school where half of the children follow a religion other than Christianity and do not celebrate Christmas then most of these people will probably find the Santa lie crazy to say the least. Eventually the truth will come out in the playground until a point is reached where it will become difficult for families who believe in the magic of Santa as a joy of childhood to perpetuate the lie. I know this from first hand experience.

    There are also many British people who have ill feelings towards anybody who follows a religion other than Christianity that does not participate in the Santa lie because they think that they are helping to destroy popular culture and tradition. Schools with high proportions of children following a religion other than Christianity more often than not have abandoned the nativity play and have teachers who feel they are compelled to tell children that Santa delivering Christmas presents is basically a lie.

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  • LiquidSunshine said:
    My personal experience has told me not to tell the "truth". I don't really want to make enemies in this life, particularly. I don't want to see someone upset and enraged with me.

    This is now entering the realm of psychology. Everybody who knows the truth basically has a choice of either telling the truth or telling a lie in order to please other people. Some people basically have the attitude of telling the truth at any price and others prefer to say things to pleases particular people or majority even if what they say is an outright lie.

    One of my heroes is Galileo. Every sane person today believes that he was right and the officialdom of the time was wrong, but only a small fraction are aware that at the time very few locals came to his defence. Why? Because the majority of people in society prefer to keep their nose clean and do not want to upset their families, friends, and work colleagues or run the risk of prosecution themselves in the name of the truth.

    Popular opinion and majority consensus are powerful forces. In a school where no children follow religions other than Christianity and every family celebrates Christmas complete with the Santa lie apart from 3 or 4, then children from these families will be viewed as spoilers and malcontents if they decide to tell the truth about Santa in the playground. In a school where half of the children follow a religion other than Christianity and do not celebrate Christmas then most of these people will probably find the Santa lie crazy to say the least. Eventually the truth will come out in the playground until a point is reached where it will become difficult for families who believe in the magic of Santa as a joy of childhood to perpetuate the lie. I know this from first hand experience.

    There are also many British people who have ill feelings towards anybody who follows a religion other than Christianity that does not participate in the Santa lie because they think that they are helping to destroy popular culture and tradition. Schools with high proportions of children following a religion other than Christianity more often than not have abandoned the nativity play and have teachers who feel they are compelled to tell children that Santa delivering Christmas presents is basically a lie.

Children
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