What shall we do with Santa Claus?
Victorians knew how to build houses, and how to raise
children. Will they help us answer the question: --How do
we tell Emily, Jacob, and Michael about Santa Claus?
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What shall we do with Santa Claus?
Victorians knew how to build houses, and how to raise
children. Will they help us answer the question: --How do
we tell Emily, Jacob, and Michael about Santa Claus?
The myths surrounding our beautiful Christian holiday are
legion. In Spain, the children set shoes outside windows
and doors on Christmas Eve, because of a legend that wise
men going to Bethlehem may drop gifts into little shoes they
find along the way. Austrian children set lighted candles
in the windows that the Christ-Child in passing may find
his way well lit. But the dearest to the child-heart, and
the most universal, are the Greek and Russian St. Nicholas,
the French Noel, the German Kriss Kringle--the world-wide
Santa Claus, whose name in some form is heard in childhood’s
silvery babble almost everywhere.
What shall we do with Santa Claus? Parents, teachers,
mother-clubs, are discussing the question pro and con, more
openly and abundantly than ever before. On the one hand, it
is considered a pity to destroy a pretty myth and gift-name
that has given, and continues to give, much wholesome fun to
young generations; on the other the position is well taken
that truth is too precious to be sacrificed even to so
beautiful and beneficent a fantasy.
Parents could explain to the child that the story of Santa
is a legend--a pretty fancy, which will become clearer to
them as they grow older. It is not necessary to the
enjoyment of the little folks that they should be led into
the error of supposing that it is any thing more than a
fairy tale; the gifts they hope to receive will be none the
less appreciated if they come through that mysterious
channel whose tender love and sacrifice the child will learn
all about by and by. Let the source of the gifts,
meanwhile, be a mystery, if you will, but let it be an
innocent mystery, so that when the disclosure does come--as
come it will to every child in time--it may not come with
the shock of a revelation of falsehood and duplicity, but
rather as the divulgement of an innocent piece of
pleasantry.
The fault, says one writer, lies not in Santa Claus but in
ourselves. We put too little fun and fantasy into our
telling of the story. We must not seek to make reasonable
or to prove what was never intended to be so treated. In
telling about Santa Claus, you and the children are enjoying
a play of fancy together; and if you make it truly a play of
fancy for them, they will understand readily enough the
difference between that and an earnest talk. Beware of
dangerous asseverations. Don’t tell any lies. Don’t say
that Santa Claus really does live. Don’t say that the story
is true. Don’t try to ensure that the children shall
believe the story. The impress of truth, which is so
scrupulously not to be given in the telling of the Santa
Claus myth, should be put upon the true Christmas tale as
lovingly and deeply as possible. --Heaven, Home, and
Happiness, circa 1900
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