Santa Claus

by Gerry Bowler

  In November 2001, lawyers in the employ of the Arizona Attorney General banned from departmental premises to which the public had access any items that had a “religious significance” and specifically included Santa Claus as a forbidden image. Within an employee’s own workspace, it was also forbidden to display a Nativity scene, a cross, a star of David, a Santa Claus or a Santa Claus-related object, and “other items that might be offensive.” Workers immediately mocked this memo by displaying holiday greetings from other imaginary beings such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

  A New Hampshire junior-high student who dressed as Santa Claus was thrown out of a dance at his school in December 2004 by his principal, who ruled that it was a “holiday party,” not a Christmas party, and that this apparel violated the separation of church and state. Said the principal: “We have a lot of students that go to Hampton Academy Junior High that have different religions. We have to be sensitive to that.” The boy’s mother deplored the political correctness, saying, “The last time I checked, Christmas was the celebration of the birth of Christ and not Santa Claus.”*

  In Melbourne, Australia, many daycare centres declined to include Santa Claus in their end-of-year parties, lest his presence offend toddlers from ethnic or religious minorities. Others practised Santa segregation with the gift-bringer visiting only certain children. Minority leaders denounced this action taken in their name. Jewish and Muslim spokesmen said that their desire was to celebrate cultural diversity, not suppress it; in their opinion, Santa Claus was part of the Australian way of life and could not be considered offensive.

  In the holiday season of 2002, drivers on the Pat Bay Highway near Victoria, British Columbia, were treated to the following greeting: in huge black letters on a red background, a billboard spelled out: “Gluttony. Envy. Insincerity. Greed. Enjoy Your Christmas.” This was the festive wish of Valerie Williams, a thirty-two-year-old student of women’s studies at the local university, and her partner, Trevor. Fed up with what they perceived to be the annual hell of a “white, middle-class, heterosexual, patriarchal, Christian Christmas,” they spent $1,200 to alert their neighbours and rank strangers to their pent-up rage and followed it with a massive e-mailing of their manifesto:

  In response to the growing onslaught of manufactured consumeristic Christmas cheer, we have decided to actively reject the capitalist ideology of Christmas. We refuse to spend one cent on buying into the consumer machine this year – no tinsel, no tree, no shiny balls, no Christmas cards, no presents, no wrapping paper, no turkey, no cranberry sauce, no candy canes, and no icicle lights.… Christmas will not be coming to this house.… Join us in our Christmas rebellion!

  As for Santa, Ms. Williams was in no doubt: “He is the mall’s puppet.… Children are taught to worship this white, heterosexual man who overeats. I mean, it’s wrong.”

  It is true that Santa’s heterosexuality and maleness have troubled a number of critics. He has been labelled a “phallocrat” who owed his success to exploited women. (Presumably this is a reference to Mrs. Claus and the female elf-force at the Pole.) Others have called him a “gendered representative of apparently outmoded patriarchy.” A gyno-Briton of the 1980s wondered, “Where are the stories about Mother Christmas …? As a feminist, do I really want another hero, another God-like man for my daughter to worship?” There was speculation that Santa’s full belly called forth images of pregnancy, further marginalizing women – Mrs. Claus herself seemed unable to conceive. The whole story seemed to buttress “a patriarchal social structure, by teaching little girls and boys that the world is normally (and thus properly) a deeply sexist place.”

  The suggestion that Santa Claus had become an object of worship seemed evident to other observers who perceived in him the symbol of a new and toxic religion: global consumer capitalism. This new religion, they said, was clearly anti-Christian, rewarding self-interest instead of self-sacrifice, pitting Santa Claus against the crucified Christ. Santa was the prophet-salesman whose role it was to cunningly induce people to buy things as Christmas gifts and simultaneously disguise the commercial origins of these presents. His success at this has helped to remove Christmas from the realm of Christianity and make it into a mere secular, cultural tradition in which folk of all religions can participate: the only requirement for initiation is to spend money on cards, ornaments, trees, and gifts. Though Santa Claus might appear as a figure of benevolence and grace, his love is actually highly conditional and reveals that this new religion of consumerism has an ancient superstition at its core: that the gods show their favour by material blessings. This ancient credo has now become our culture’s deepest religious affirmation and Santa Claus its embodiment of a trust in success and economic affluence. This does not mean, as some Christian critics have asserted, that Santa is pagan. Paganism is linked to the powers and energies of nature, whereas Santa is far removed from nature: “The city is his home, and the grand high temples of the city are his shrine.” The extent of his triumph as a postmodern deity, we are told, is this: we are not making him up – he is making us. Every year he is reborn and makes us participants in a month-long adventure in consumption.

  European analysts also saw Santa Claus as the centre of a new religion but were less inclined to link him to capitalism or to preach against his new spiritual status. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss claimed that Santa was the god of a particular age group: children who paid homage to him with letters and prayers. There was a social benefit to fostering this belief because Santa Claus served to ration children’s desires, restricting to just the Christmas period the time in which children could rightfully demand gifts. For writer Marie-Christine Mottet, Santa Claus was a religious figure who could operate effectively in the lives of both atheists and believers. To children, he represents the mystery of the incarnation, but he could also be embraced by secularists. Santa is one of those gods who dies only to be reborn – he perishes every time a child pierces his mystery but is resurrected whenever an adult takes up the belief again and participates once more in the mystical communion.

  Toward the end of the twentieth century, resentment against American cultural imperialism grew stronger and there were calls for anti-globalization and revivals of local customs, a process the French termed “patrimonialisation.” Traditional foods, festivals, and gift-bringers were increasingly emphasized while the intrusion of Santa Claus into European Christmas celebrations was resisted in many quarters as an unwanted North American novelty. In Austria, the Pro-Christkind Organization (motto: “Wir glauben ans Christkind” – “We Believe in the Christ Child”) was started in the 1990s to prevent Santa from displacing the traditional gift-bringer. Signs with a slashed circle over Santa’s image appeared in “no-Santa zones,” signalling resentment over the globalized and commercialized Christmas. Merchants were asked to replace displays of Santa and his reindeer with depictions of the Christ child and his angels. The organization posted images of Santa impaled by an airplane, riddled with bullets, and urinating on a roof on its Web site, but these were removed and an apology made to offended Americans. In 1972, Peru banned Santa Claus from the nation’s radio and television programs alleging he was an anti-Christian myth and part of a merchants’ conspiracy that reflected Peru’s shameful cultural dependency on foreign customs. In some Dutch towns that wish to preserve the supremacy of the native Sinterklaas, police are under orders to arrest and expel anyone wearing a Santa Claus suit (at least until after December 6 when Saint Nicholas has finished his rounds). A harsher solution in Bosnia was proposed for those similarly clad. In 1996, a Muslim gang with connections to the ruling party beat up a man dressed as Santa Claus in Sarajevo. President Izetbegovic had condemned Santa Claus as something alien to Bosnians and linked him to “European vices” such as pornography, alcohol, and drugs. He urged radio and television operators “not to impose on us a certain Santa Claus, and other symbols unfamiliar to our people. Let everybody keep those symbols to themselves, in their home, if they wish to do so
. Television is a public institution, and our people are not stupid enough to be deceived any longer.” In 1997, a mob shouting ethnic slurs and “Kill! Kill!” chased away ten men who had dressed as Santa Claus for a Sarajevo children’s festival.

  Several European nations, each with an eye on cultural prestige and tourist dollars, have made competing claims that the true Father Christmas resides on their territory and not, as Americans think, at the North Pole. The Swedish Travel and Tourism Council maintains that he inhabits Tomteland (Santaworld), Mount Gesunda, north of Stockholm; Norwegians claim Santa hangs out in Drøbak, south of Oslo; while the Danish Tourist board asserts that he lives in Greenland (a dependency of Denmark). Rovaniemi in Finland has been the most successful at convincing foreigners that it houses the genuine article, but its rivals have not abandoned the fight. (This has resulted in nasty tensions at the annual World Santa Congress where Joulupukki, the Finnish gift-bringer, refuses to consort with lesser Santas whom he considers mere imitators.) Even Islamic Turkey wants a piece of the action, touting itself as the true home of the original Saint Nicholas.

  This was a formidable set of attacks on the venerable gift-bringer. Decried as overweight, pagan, secular, frightening, a danger to mental health, a promoter of greed, a tool of capitalism and the Devil, sexist, socially divisive, alcoholic, and (shudder) American, Santa Claus had every right to feel as if his very reason for existing was being questioned – especially as some of these accusations contained an element of truth. Had he lost his old magic? Would there be a future for Santa Claus? At the heart of these criticisms was the most painful accusation possible: that Santa was harmful to children. If this were shown to be true, there could be little defence for prolonging a custom that had not only outlived its usefulness but was actually counterproductive. Fortunately, there has been no lack of research about children’s involvement with Christmas and the gift-bringer and, in these studies, the value of Santa Claus in the lives of children can be fairly assessed.

  The earliest academic survey on this topic was conducted in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1896 by a thirty-year-old university student named Frances E. Duncombe, who was enrolled in a psychology seminar in what was then known as “child study” and who was required as part of this course to undertake some original research of her own. She surveyed more than fifteen hundred schoolchildren in Lincoln enrolled in grades four to eight, asking them about their attitudes to Santa Claus in four questions:

  When you were little, what did you think about Santa Claus? Tell all you can remember about your ideas of him.

  How did you find out afterwards who he really is? How old were you, and how did you feel when you first learned of this?

  How do you think your former belief in Santa Claus has influenced you?

  Do you think young children should be taught to believe in Santa Claus? Give your reasons.

  Duncombe reported that Question 3 seemed to have been poorly understood by the students and few gave cogent replies, but her other questions did yield a wealth of knowledge about children’s thoughts regarding Santa and Christmas gift-giving. Not only did she gather useful statistics, but her open-ended queries produced a number of well-thought-out replies whose level of grammar and composition would put that of contemporary youth to shame. A twelve-year-old boy, for example, wrote: “On Christmas Eve I would hang up my stocking and expect the respected personage would come down the chimney and fill my stockings to the brim. I remember how I would write down a list of things on a paper of what I wished to get and throw it in the stove, where it would be consumed, and expect it to go up the chimney to Santa Claus.” A thirteen-year-old girl stated: “Indeed I do think that young children should be taught to believe in Santa Claus. In the first place it is a pretty myth and will give them pleasure and will never do any harm, unless it is used to frighten them into being good, and even then I think it won’t hurt them to amount to anything. I believe in giving little children all the harmless pleasure they can have. Let them believe in fairy tales and myths; it won’t do them any harm and little children find out soon enough that things are not as they are represented to be, without having it drummed into them from early childhood.”

  Duncombe’s groundbreaking research was published in the North Western Journal of Education, an obscure repository of learning that ceased publication five years later, and where it disappeared from mortal sight for decades, until the 1970s when American psychologists attempted to replicate Duncombe’s study by looking at attitudes to Santa Claus among a new generation of Nebraska students. In 1977, nine hundred public-school kids in Lincoln were given a comparable survey, enabling researchers to chart any changes in the beliefs surrounding Santa Claus and, indeed, there were some fascinating differences.

  Children in 1896 were much more inclined to view Santa Claus as a supernatural figure than their great-grandchildren’s generation (89 per cent to 39 per cent). They had discovered the truth about Santa Claus’s existence from different sources. Twenty-seven per cent of the kids in 1896 learned from others of their own generation, while in 1977 only 16 per cent learned this way; 25 per cent of those surveyed in 1896 learned from their parents and in 1977 this number was 40 per cent – the remainder reported being able to figure matters out on their own. It may be surprising to learn that the children of the 1970s were slower on the uptake than their Victorian predecessors – the average age of discovery for children in 1896 was 6.35, almost six months younger than the television-fed students of 1977. Fewer nineteenth-century children expressed disappointment at learning the truth than those of the disco age (20.3 per cent versus 39.4 per cent), but more kids of the 1970s insisted that others should be taught about Santa Claus (69.5 per cent to 56.6 per cent). These latter-day believers were much more likely to say that the Santa story made little ones happy and less likely to say that it made them behave. Of the minority of children in both eras who would not advise teaching the Santa Claus story, motives again differed. Those in 1896 were more concerned that the tale was untrue, while those of 1977 were troubled by the prospect of it being a disappointment.

  Santa Claus must have been encouraged by both surveys – despite some shifts of opinion over the eighty-one years separating the two generations, children still wanted his story to be told. In fact, they were anxious that this be done and for reasons that had more to do with tenderness of heart than social discipline. Moreover, as other research was to discover, any initial disappointment at discovering the truth of the Santa story at age seven or eight often turned into a desire to become part of the conspiracy and to continue the legacy.* When Maurice Timothy Reidy was in the seventh grade, officially still a believer but troubled by many doubts, he was approached on Christmas Eve by his parents, who asked for his help in arranging the family’s presents under the tree. He realized that not only were his suspicions being confirmed, but he was being “initiated into the vast conspiracy that keeps the truth hidden from the young” and flung himself into the project with enthusiasm, delighted to be perpetrating a fraud on his brothers and sisters.

  Many children (up to two-thirds in one survey) not only reported no disappointment on learning of the nature of Santa’s reality, they expressed pride at having deduced the truth themselves. One study of the early memories of scientists recorded this reaction, said to be typical of a budding physicist:

  At Christmas [aged five], I remember reasoning that:

  1. Santa Claus couldn’t get to all those houses in one night, even if the reindeer were very, very fast.

  2. No matter how fast they were, he couldn’t be at more than one house at midnight.

  3. Since people were lying to me about how Santa operated, everything they said about him might well be lies – ditto for the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy (I never saw any of them, and “Santa’s Helpers” seemed pretty unmagical).

  When I expressed these sentiments to my parents they said I should watch out, that Santa Claus wouldn’t give me presents if I didn’t believe in him. I didn’t belie
ve, and got the presents anyway, which made me figure they were trying to put one over on me.

  Research then seems to suggest that children are not damaged by the disappointment they experience when they have reached the next stage in knowledge about Santa Claus.

  But is there actually any positive benefit in telling children the traditional stories? Studies point to the importance of stories in the development of a child’s ability to advance cognitively. Rather than being opposed to rationality, myths, by stimulating the imagination, may actually be the first step in logical thinking. Believing, say others, is simply a different way of knowing important things that society wishes to preserve and pass on. Though they are not subject to the kind of verification or measurement we use to test scientific assertions, such beliefs can teach much about what our cultures view as true, beautiful, or conducive to human happiness. Researchers see the Santa Claus story as the vehicle through which children can be taught a host of important social lessons. For example, one small part of the myth, the practice of leaving out a snack for Santa Claus and his reindeer, conveys the importance of generosity, tradition, and hospitality. Overall, educators expect the Santa story to give children a sense of mystery and wonder, an altered view of the passage of time, a taste of magical thinking, an exercise in imagination, and a chance to practise kindness. It is further believed that even when the child has rejected the material reality of Santa Claus, the deeper truths and moral lessons the myth has conveyed will remain powerful and active.