Graphic by Anjali Rao ’22
BY GWYNETH SPINCKEN ’21
I have a distinct memory of waiting for Santa Claus in the middle of the night. I tossed and turned in my bed. I imagined presents, the tree, the nativity scene, glimmering slightly as if they were breathing in the soft glow of Christmas lights. The morning was wonderful, as usual. A year later, there was doubt.
“If Santa makes all of his gifts, how did he make an exact copy of Pokémon Emerald? Did he buy it?”
“He writes our names on the presents. Do you think we can get his handwriting analyzed?”
“Do you think he left DNA samples on the cookies?”
As a kid, no adults directly told me the truth. Other kids called me stupid or even flat out denied his existence, but no authority figure shattered my belief. The truth was slowly shown to me through media and burgeoning elementary school cynicism.
A child’s belief in Santa Claus is not a delusion which inflates dangerous fantasies. Do we disrespect children by lying to them?
“I feel as though Santa is used as an excuse to be emotionally manipulative ... to scare children into being good, which is such a subjective term. The use of Santa as an omniscient entity that children are meant to fear ... is a little messed up,” Meaghan Ging ’22 said. Of course, like all complicated choices, there are so many ways to approach Santa Claus. The power-hungry and abusive way, which involves giving coal — burning empty boxes or using Christmas to surveil or discipline — can have serious impacts on a child’s life. Christmas can also be a time reserved for family and affection and a reminder of the virtues of thoughtful- ness and sensitivity. Though Christmas can easily be twisted, it has the potential to be a formative day of happiness in a child’s life.
However, Santa is more than a lie. Believing that some fabrications are more justified than others is a dangerous way of thinking. As a kid, I wanted to believe in something beyond mundane life: something light and simple. We should not crush imagination so early.
Santa Claus and other figures in children’s folktales are accepted as ideas, allegories and metaphors. The Dickensian concept of “Christmas Spirit” lives with or without the literal existence of a bearded man bearing an inconceivable number of gifts on an impossible sleigh. Children should be allowed to believe in this spirit.
“My grandma always said the best thing. ‘Santa is real if you want Santa to be,’” Mae Morten-Dutton ’22 said. “It allows children to interpret what magic and holidays mean to them.”
This is the respect that allows imagination to thrive.