Is Santa silly?

Arran said:

Nobody has mentioned children who follow other religions and do not celebrate Christmas. Many of them will accept and respect the religious aspects of Christmas to Christians but find the Santa lie to be an absolutely ridiculous innovation and a completely bizarre aspect of British popular culture. What if they start going round saying in the school playground that it's all a load of nonsense and that parents are lying through their teeth? How do handle this one?

There has been criticism levelled at the NAS that it is dominated by white middle class British people from the suburbs and shires, many of which claim to be defenders of multiculturalism but in reality have a weak knowledge of religions other than Christianity and neither do they associate with many people who follow these religions.

Arran, that's a reasonable question to bring up about the matter, but I honestly don't think it's an issue. I have no idea how the NAS functions as an organisation, but I certainly am not "middle class"; I went to a High School in the suburbs of Manchester with about 30 - 35% of pupils being from other religious backgrounds, mainly Muslim. The suburbs I grew up in were definitely not a paradise, I can guarantee you that!!

As I grew up with many Muslim peers, I had to tolerate and respect many Islamic beliefs about "Halal" and "Haram", which of course, goes way beyond dietary requirements and into wider cultural pursuits. If you were to ask me honestly and what my deep down beliefs were, I found those customs to be bizarre and an absolutely ridiculous innovation, but I never stated my opinion during my attendance at High School for obvious reasons and had no problem with those who followed their cultural customs. Tolerance has to cut both ways, and if I have to reserve my judgement and accept other people's observation of certain cultural quirks and customs, then it's only fair and respectful that the same level of tolerance and should apply for our customs, such as Santa.

I'm not making a personal slight against you or anyone else on this forum, so please don't interpret my following remarks as an insult, but I've noticed that some people with AS or autism seem to be hell bent on the "truth", but only when they themselves are the purveyors of such "truths" and when it's in their favour. Whenever anyone else tells them the "truth" to which it doesn't suit them in some way, or when it isn't particularly flattering in nature, they can't handle it at all. I think this is a problem for some people, and I think the simple solution is the following phrase, "if you can't take it, don't dish it out".

There are plenty of people who are non-white who are also Christians.  Without wishing this thread to derail into a religious discussion, in the UK we are very multi-cultural and there are plenty of mosques, temples and other religious buildings for alternative faiths.  I don't see your point and slating the NAS has got nothing to do with Santa.

Nobody has mentioned children who follow other religions and do not celebrate Christmas. Many of them will accept and respect the religious aspects of Christmas to Christians but find the Santa lie to be an absolutely ridiculous innovation and a completely bizarre aspect of British popular culture. What if they start going round saying in the school playground that it's all a load of nonsense and that parents are lying through their teeth? How do handle this one?

There has been criticism levelled at the NAS that it is dominated by white middle class British people from the suburbs and shires, many of which claim to be defenders of multiculturalism but in reality have a weak knowledge of religions other than Christianity and neither do they associate with many people who follow these religions.

Paull said:

Small lies may seem trivial but they are the seeds of bigger lies, therefore filling a child's head with lies is far from harmless fun.

Technically, what you've just said is a logical fallacy known as the "slippery slope" - the idea that one thing leads to another without any actual proof to make that connection.

If people only believed in what could be immediately proven in the here and now, we'd be saying goodbye to many innovations and future inventors of whom pursue their unprovable theories by belief and conviction, and not what can be proven right at this moment in time. There's definitely plenty of lies out there in the big wide world of ours: stock market manipulation and fraud; secret government surveillance programmes which violate age old liberties; state propaganda and tyranny; corruption in the police and military. To spend time getting annoyed over Santa or making out that it somehow leads to those crimes just doesn't hold any water, I'm afraid.

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.

That's a very good point, longman and I definitely agree with that. The modern world has definitely tailored existence in a way to ease children along with life, which I think is a very noble trait of our society in recent years.

IntenseWorld said:

I'd be cracking up laughing at what you said if it wasn't a tad concerning that you really think like that.

In science, there are many things that are true but that cannot be proven.  Can you see gravity?  No.  All you can see is the effects of gravity, so do we all have weakened minds because we believe in it?

Nobody can see gravity but we can have enough evidence from scientists that it exists, thereby we can almost certainly conclude it's existence. Things that may be true but which one cannot physically see can all be judged in such ways such as when several people pick out the same suspect from a line up we can conclude that it's highly likely that the suspect committed the crime and that along with other evidence can solidify the probability and make a concrete judgement, despite not seeing the crime or the suspect it's possible to make an almost certain conclusion.

Truth and lies are the collective consciousness of society, a society that accepts lies becomes dark, a society that does not accept lies becomes bright. Small lies may seem trivial but they are the seeds of bigger lies, therefore filling a child's head with lies is far from harmless fun.

...well that makes it really commercial.  You can get bargains if you shop around.  My children don't have x-boxes or Wii etc. but they have a similar type of games console at an absolute fraction of the price.  It just pays to teach your children not to be slaves to labels and to appreciate that paying for a brand name means you get less overall.  Better to get cheaper versions and then you can afford more presents.

When my siblings and I were little we didn't even give Christmas lists we just got what we were given and we were still excited.  Parents give in to children way to easily these days, if you are brought up correctly you will not bow to pressure for the latest gadgets and brand names, you can still have the magic, fun and excitement on a relative shoestring.  For those who are at poverty's door there are charities that make awards and buy presents for the children.

Sometimes it's the people who aren't right on the poverty-line so don't qualify for assistance who struggle the most.  Children need to be taught that it "doesn't grow on trees" as it were.  My two have never complained about not having the latest gadgets or anything.

Arran said:

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?

Nothing wrong with Santa or the tooth fairy, in theory.  All just a bit of childhood fun.  

However, with the benefit of hindsight and an adults view of the world, I feel sorry for parents on low incomes, who simply cannot afford to buy this or that latest toy or gadget for their children.  And it gets even harder at this time of year, when Toys R Us and others are advertising their goods during children's television!  

(It makes me glad I am single and not a parent!)

Comedian, Ben Elton, once said that perhaps children's TV advertisements should come with a health warning!...

"Warning!  This advert may be offensive to low income families!"

Arran said:

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?

What do you mean by Santa is not real!?

... 

I love Santa. I believed in Santa until I was about 13. It didn't have a massive impact on me when I figured out he wasn't real. I wasn't angry and didn't think people had lied to me. I would say Santa has never affected me in a negative way.

It's precisely because the real world is such a difficult, scary, pressured, exhausting place, that myths and magic are so easy and desirable to escape into, for adults.

For children, it's something else (as stated above).

I have no problem with someone having their beliefs, so long as they don't try to force them on others or criticise others for not thinking like them.

There is much we don't know.  That may sound fantastical to most, but that doesn't mean those things don't exist.  The human mind is used a % of it's capabilities, many things are hidden from us by governments, not all of them mundane, there are dimensions we are incapable of understanding (and I'm talking about physics here) because we cannot see them or process them.  Some would call that magic, certainly those without the capacity to take it on board.

Magic and mythology is a good thing, provided you don't by an appropriate age (which is an individual thing) have delusions about it and are aware what everyday reality itself comprises.

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.

I'd be cracking up laughing at what you said if it wasn't a tad concerning that you really think like that.

In science, there are many things that are true but that cannot be proven.  Can you see gravity?  No.  All you can see is the effects of gravity, so do we all have weakened minds because we believe in it?

Have you never heard of harmless fun, have you no sense of fun, can you really not understand why magical beliefs are important to children?

And just in case you want some real science to back up what I say, I happily knock your personal theories on the head with this:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703344704574610002061841322

Telling children that a fat man in a red suit flies through the air on a sleigh pulled by reindeers and he gives presents to everyone and then coercing them to believe it weakens their mind because logic tells them that it's impossible yet they are being told otherwise and so come to accept a lie, by doing so they lose confidence in logic. It's a minor nail in the coffin along with the tooth fairy and religious miracles, the bogeyman, magic etc... The overall effect is that a vulnerable child with a developing mind has the lines blurred between fact and fiction and can grow up confused and unsure of their own conclusions as opposed to trusting their own judgement based on facts, which help sow the seeds of a wise mind.

Paull said:

That may seem far fetched to the masses but to the wise it's a pure blessing.

I've honestly never met anyone in my life who says they believe in anything other than the "truth" or think contrary to the general gist what you've said...and believe me, I certainly haven't been surrounded by many wise people in my life!

If it's not the truth then it's a lie. To believe something without confirmation through evidence or fact is a trait of the gullible, to coerce others to believe in something without providing evidence or fact means to weaken them. It may seem innocent but the overall effect is that it weakens society from the roots upward. That may seem far fetched to the masses but to the wise it's a pure blessing.

It's not telling lies.  You don't stand there and announce the fable and say "and that's the absolute truth".  You are just allowing a belief, and that's not the same as lying.  Not everything is so black and white.  What's worse:

1) allowing your children the magic they deserve until they are old enough to take the truth on board; or

2) destroying the magic just so you can be sure they know the full truth of the adult world in all its "glory"?

I think it's silly for anyone to tell their children lies.

I believed in Father Christmas,  as I chose to call him, until I was around 14-15 years old. I eventually stopped believing when I put two and two together and realised that the writing on the presents, signed 'Father Christmas', was actually my mum's handwriting! No-one told me the 'truth', I worked it out by myself, but at a very late age!.

Yes, I believe Santa/Father Christmas or whatever you call him to be part of the magic of childhood.

Aye, me too! Crimbo was definitely brought alive by Santa! I remember how my mum disguised her writing on the present tags from Santa! We had an open fire chimney in the living room at our first house, so the concept of Santa crawling down the chimney was VERY authentic! (Now that I look back on it, I've no idea how I could think how such a fat fella was able to do that job :D Or the fact that Santa thought it best to wear red and white clothes as he slung himself down people's chimneys! Jeez!)

It must be very atmospheric for your kids, as they've probably had the mad snow to accompany the mystery of it for the past 4 years. I didn't have the snow to accompany my belief in Santa at the time, but it honestly didn't matter that much. I just loved the whole suspense of it!

I still wish I believed in Santa!