There is no Santa

[CynicalGabe]

I should have known that fucker Karl Rove was behind it!!!

[ShibbOleth]

@ArrMatey!

I was born and raised jewish. When I was in kindergarden, my folks said to me, “A lot of your friends believe in santa. He doesn’t really exist, but there’s no reason to make them feel bad by telling them that, okay?”
And it was okay. I didn’t say anything, I felt a bit smarter, and hey, we all had a good season. We invited our neighbors over for channukah, they invited us over for xmas, and I got a cool color-forms set. Santa wasn’t debunked, but neither was he pushed.

I dunno. I think a lot of this is blown out of proportion. But I still don’t get the lying in the first place.

He he. In our old neighborhood, all of the kids’ playmates were Jewish. So we had to explain why they got Christmas presents and the Jewish kids didn’t. I quelled some evil urgings and went with “that’s not their tradition”. We play along with the Santa gig but let the kids work it out for themselves. They are currently in the stage where logic is struggling with wish fulfillment. It’s sort of fun and sort of wistful, like any part of the growing up process.

I sort of put this incident as akin to “teaching” atheism or agnosticism to Christian kids. My beliefs and what I do at home is immaterial. If a student or child asked me if there was a god, I’d hope to be discreet enough to tell them that’s a question for their parents or clergy, despite my own beliefs. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the teacher is EITHER a hardcore Christian OR Atheist who believes that her truth is the only truth.

[lissener]

Puts me in mind of a client I had once. A Jewish guy. He’d hired a young couple, college kids, as groundskeepers/babysitters, etc. Lots of money; single dad; big house. When it came time for his daughter’s bat mitzvah, she said she didn’t want to go through with it. Her babysitters had been telling her that she would go to hell if she embraced the Jewish faith, rather than accepting Jesus into her heart as her own personal savior.

You gotta admire such champions of truth.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@CynicalGabe

I should have known that fucker Karl Rove was behind it!!!

Do you people read ANYTHINGI post? It’s like I’m sitting here at my computer in my basement, typing away, hitting “submit reply”, and all my carefully chosen words are just sailing off to god knows where…

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

@featherlou

…

Did someone say something? I could almost swear I heard someone talking about… Oh, what was it again?

[tomndebb]

@featherlou

Do you people read ANYTHINGI post? It’s like I’m sitting here at my computer in my basement, typing away, hitting “submit reply”, and all my carefully chosen words are just sailing off to god knows where…

lissener? Is that you?

[Tuckerfan]

@Polycarp

This is very well said. My “son” and his wife, mother, and I are engaged in a conspiracy with regard to his kids, with the best of intentions. We normally give them age-appropriate truths, but every so often will throw in a “zinger,” and they’re aware that we do just that. The game is for them to identify and disprove/debunk the zingers. The idea is to teach them critical thinking and not to depend on the accuracy of “authority.” And they love it; it’s an element of growing up to catch us in one of the “zingers” and challenge it. (Most recently: found and proved that “buffalo wings” are chicken wings with a hot sauce from Buffalo, NY, not vestigial wings grown by plains bison (they clip them off the buffalo in the zoo). his dad and I got a 10-year-old with arms akimbo and a mock-exasperated look on his face with that one.)

Have you tried the one about the world being in black & white until color was invented in 1930s, and that the only reason old paintings are in color is because of Ted Turner? Or that the reason White Castle hamburgers (if there’s no restaurants in your area, you can find them in grocery store freezers) have 5 holes in them is because that’s how many bullets it takes to kill the rats? (Yeah, my brother’s real happy with some of the things I’ve told my nephew. I just remind him it’s payback for all the crap he did to me when I was litte. :D)

[Dubious_Weasle]

@Hamlet

Thanks. Now I have an image of Santa blowing some John for more crack. Ouch.

How do you think he pays for all those presents, hmm? And if a little rock now and then helps the off-season go by then it’s none of our business.

[Martin_Hyde]

I wonder if people like Johnny Angel really exist? I mean, having such insane feelings about Santa Claus.

I’m hoping it’s just internet hyperbole, because if not, I feel sorry for him that he’d have such a pathetic existence.

[tomndebb]

Have you tried the one about the world being in black & white until color was invented in 1930s, . . .

No, but I threw out enough odd claims over the years that when I first described harvesting cranberries my kids refused to believe me until I dug up a picture. (Which, of course, meant that they then had a really hard time telling when I was spinning them a new one.)

[ArrMatey]

I had a chat about this with my folks a little while ago. They told me that they told me of Santa’s nonexistance when I was little because that year hannukah was around the first week of december, and when I heard that ‘good boys and girls’ got presents from santa, they didn’t want me thinking I was somehow… Bad… For not getting something from him.

In retrospect, it makes me wonder… I know a lot of it is keeping kids ‘in-line’ by promising reward for goodness… But how much of it also might have developed from, honestly, a want to spread a faith / idea through gift-giving to the ‘good’?
(I’m not being facetious here- I’m honestly intrigued by the idea.)

[Anaamika]

@EvilGhandi

If your kids break down and sob the first time they found out you lied, you raised pussies.

And you were doing so well until this point.

1. No, Santa Claus is not harmful in the least. Most kids figure it out on your own.
2. You have got to be kidding me if you seriously believe that lying to your kids about **important ** things is not damaging. When they find out, they lose a lot of trust and faith in you.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Tuckerfan

Have you tried the one about the world being in black & white until color was invented in 1930s, and that the only reason old paintings are in color is because of Ted Turner? Or that the reason White Castle hamburgers (if there’s no restaurants in your area, you can find them in grocery store freezers) have 5 holes in them is because that’s how many bullets it takes to kill the rats? (Yeah, my brother’s real happy with some of the things I’ve told my nephew. I just remind him it’s payback for all the crap he did to me when I was litte. :D)

Ooh, those are good. Maybe people are upset here because the real way you’re supposed to find out Santa Claus isn’t real is from your older siblings, anyway.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@EddyTeddyFreddy

Did someone say something? I could almost swear I heard someone talking about… Oh, what was it again?

You and tomndebb are so…what’s that word again? Funny? No, that’s not it…

[D_Odds]

Bah! In the d_odds household, Santa still brings presents. I’m only his emissary, doing his bidding. Bad mouth Santa, you get nothing. I even make sure to quiz my kids in front of their friends to ensure their belief is solid, and that they dont’ believe the lies their peers and people like Johnny Angel and SeVen tell about there being no Santa…

My kids are 16 and 13.

This myth is far, far more important to me than the one about someone creating the universe in seven days or about a virgin mother giving birth to a deity’s offspring.

[CaveMike]

In this story, Santa Claus is a MacGuffin. Any comment from a teacher that sends multiple 6 and 7 year olds home crying is inappropriate. There may be exceptions to this rule (e.g. Aliens attack!), but not many. And it is not that making a bunch of little kids cry is the worst crime imaginable – the kids will certainly get over it and be fine. However, an adult should think twice before pulling such a lever. Of course, one would expect that kids from the town of Lickdale might need to be a little thicker-skinned.

[Dr.Love]

@tomndebb

Well, if you were raised the way you now portray your youth, that would explain your inability to distinguish between lies and stories, today.

I’m curious, tomndebb, what is the criterion for distinguishing between stories and lies? I would say that a story becomes a lie if one claims that there is empirical evidence that proves the story to be historical fact, e.g. that if you were to travel to the north pole, you would find a tangible Santa’s Workshop, or if you were to stay up all night you would see Santa come down the chimney and place the presents under the tree. Some parents even go as far as fabricating false evidence to make the story appear to be factually true. You, however, appear to have rejected this criterion. If falsely claiming the existence of empirical evidence or even planting evidence do not change a story into a lie, what does?

[Seven]

@D_Odds

Bah! In the d_odds household, Santa still brings presents. I’m only his emissary, doing his bidding. Bad mouth Santa, you get nothing. I even make sure to quiz my kids in front of their friends to ensure their belief is solid, and that they dont’ believe the lies their peers and people like Johnny Angel and SeVen tell about there being no Santa…

My kids are 16 and 13.

This myth is far, far more important to me than the one about someone creating the universe in seven days or about a virgin mother giving birth to a deity’s offspring.

I see. So in your household Santa is a control thing. You continue the lie and get your children to “agree” and kiss your ass in front of their friends or they get no presents.
Sick.

[Wolfian]

@Seven

I see. So in your household Santa is a control thing. You continue the lie and get your children to “agree” and kiss your ass in front of their friends or they get no presents.
Sick.

Don’t you have a puppy to kick somewhere?

Pathetic.

[tomndebb]

@Dr. Love

I would say that a story becomes a lie if one claims that there is empirical evidence that proves the story to be historical fact, e.g. that if you were to travel to the north pole, you would find a tangible Santa’s Workshop, or if you were to stay up all night you would see Santa come down the chimney and place the presents under the tree. Some parents even go as far as fabricating false evidence to make the story appear to be factually true. You, however, appear to have rejected this criterion. If falsely claiming the existence of empirical evidence or even planting evidence do not change a story into a lie, what does?

I have not supported the claiming of false evidence or the planting of false evidence. In fact, I explicitly noted

Now, I would agree that parents who go all out to present Santa as real, long after the kids should have been growing out of that, or who make belief in Santa some sort of test of the child, (If you don’t believe in Santa, he won’t bring you gifts.), is behaving stupidly.

The Story is out in the culture. Kids get it from books (I hope), TV, movies, songs, Uncle Bertie and Aunt Matilda, neighbor kids, etc. I do not support going to extraordinary lengths to prop up the story. With my kids, I used the method my parents used when I asked, responding: “Well, do YOU think Santa is real?” At first, I and my kids averred that, of course, Santa was real. As I grappled with the fact that we had a gas furnace and no fireplace, that there was a Santa in every department store (I grew up before malls), and the whole story became increasingly less plausible, I figured out that it was not factual. My kids did the same thing.

I have no doubt that there are parents who mess it up and take it to extremely stupid lengths. However, that does not mean that the mere repetition of the story is a lie or that the repetition of the story throughout our culture is some vast conspiracy against children.

(I did the same thing with the tooth fairy: when the kids asked what the tooth fairy looked like, I told them he was about six feet tall with dark hair and a mustache. When they insisted that that could not be true, I simply told them it was true in our house and left it at that.)