As children enter their second decade, they enter a yuletide game of cat and mouse with their parents who are trying to stretch out their belief in Santa Claus. As they grow wiser in the ways of the world, learn how to search order history on Amazon and find their parents’ secret hiding place, it is only a matter of time before the ruse is up. Or, at least, a ruse is what it feels like. Parents must grow increasingly clever and deceptive as their child’s hunger for the truth of Santa Claus grows. Labeling the whole thing a lie, many parents opt to forgo the visit from Father Christmas in order to remain truthful with their children. Others argue that it is no lie, only a myth meant to convey the deep meaning of Christmas to children. Just in time to make or break Christmas, we will enter the debate.
A word first about myths. In an age where we are besieged by facts, there is a tendency to equate facts with truth. Truth, while it may include facts, transcends mere facts. It is the conformity of thought with reality. Reality, in order to be explained and understood, often requires more than mere facts. This is where myth comes in.
Because of our fascination with facts, we see myths, because they are “made up”, as lies. They may be, as CS Lewis once said, “lies breathed through silver,” but lies nonetheless. But myths are not fabricated prevarications but word-sacraments that act as signs pointing to some aspect of reality that would otherwise remain obscure. The best myths are like flashlights focusing their beams on truth. But myths can also be false. In fact, those myths that act as clear signs pointing to something obscure in reality we would call true myths. Those whose signs point away from the truth or remain so obscure themselves we would call false myths.
The Myth of Santa Claus
Santa Claus then, just because he is made up, is not necessarily a lie. He may be a myth. But if he is a myth then the question really is whether the myth is a true or a false one. More to the point, what does Santa Claus as a sign point to?
To answer this we must begin with a little history of the myth itself. His association with the real St. Nicholas of Myra is well known. But in truth he is only remotely associated with the cult of the 3rd Century saint. The real St. Nicholas was known for his generous gift giving especially bestowing upon poor families dowries for their girls to get married. The cult around him emerged as Christians sought his intercession for large purchases and when getting married, some even choosing his feast day, December 6th, as the day to exchange their nuptial vows. Other than the obvious fact that he is a Christian, there is nothing in his history nor in his cult specifically that would associate him with Santa Claus.
The connection with Christmas came when the Episcopal Minister Clement Moore wrote a poem in 1822 entitled “An Account of a Visit with St. Nicholas” or, as we know it today, “The Night Before Christmas.” Sentimentality aside, when one reads the poem you get the sense that the children who had hung their stockings in anticipation of St. Nicholas’ arrival (perhaps related to the saint himself filling shoes with gifts in his lifetime) got more than they bargained for when Santa Claus appeared as “chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf” with a sleigh full of toys, eight reindeer and magical powers that allow him to travel up and down the chimney. Advertisers loved Moore’s Santa Claus because thanks to other literary giants of the day like Washington Irving, gift giving became an important part of Christmas. By the 1840s stores were already using his image to advertise Christmas sales. Stores began to have men dress up like Santa Claus so that children could visit and tell him what gifts they would like while their parents shopped for said gifts.
Treating Santa Claus as a myth leaves us with the conclusion that he is not a mythical representation of St. Nicholas of Myra. It seems that his creation myth repudiates the simple and holy saint, rejecting him as simply not enough. He obscures rather than makes us better understand the great saint and the intercessory power of saints in general. Saints do intercede for us and get us things that we ask for, but they are not supply chain experts who manufacture the things themselves nor do they employ little elves as their helpers. They distribute God’s manifold gifts. Rather than determining whether we have been naughty or nice to bestow gifts upon us, they give according to whether the gifts themselves will make us naughty or nice. In fact the True Gift of Christmas came to save the naughty and not the nice who had no need of Him. Rather than using magic to travel up and down chimneys or ride in a sleigh of magical reindeer, they are “like the angels” and share in the powers of Christ’s resurrected body. Rather than residing in the North Pole, they look upon the face of God in heaven.
In short, a child looking upon Santa Claus would conclude very little about St. Nicholas or saints in general. But perhaps the myth is not really about St. Nicholas but about Christmas itself. After all, St. Nicholas is really a sign himself pointing to Christ. Unfortunately, this explanation, while fulfilling our nostalgic longings, also falls flat.
The problem is not so much a battle between material versus spiritual gifts. When Israel was a child, God bestowed material benefits on them in order to point towards the spiritual gifts He wanted to give them. The Divine Pedagogy uses things that are seen to reveal things unseen. Likewise the problem is not that it is only for children. Signs pass away as one approaches the thing signified. If we reverse this relationship and start with the thing signified we can then see why Santa Claus is a false myth.
No child will make the connection between Santa Claus and Christ. Parents have to tell them. But the meaning of a true myth as a sign should be obvious, otherwise it is a terrible sign. Sure, the parents may have to remind them, but the sign ought to be enough. The fact that we struggle to “keep Christ in Christmas”, but have no trouble “keeping Santa Claus in Christmas” shows that the myth has eclipsed the truth. As further evidence, once the sign passes away and gives way to the thing signified, the children have gotten the message loud and clear: Christmas is about giving gifts. Otherwise, the gift giving would cease (or at least the felt obligation of it) once the person grasped that Christmas was about the gift of Christ.
Is Santa Claus a Lie?
And this is why Santa Claus ultimately is not just a false myth but also a lie. True myths may be confused for facts, but they never fabricate the facts. Fabricating facts is simply a nice way to say lying. Parents must make up the fact of gifts under the tree to support the myth of Santa Claus. But, as we said, a true myth does not need the support of facts. Its truth stands on its own foundation. Intuitively parents know this because they universally speak about whether their children know the “truth about Santa Claus” or not. No one speaks of a true myth in those terms.
But what’s the harm? Maybe it isn’t true, but it creates a nice holiday that everyone seems to enjoy. No child ever felt betrayed by his parents for playing the Santa Claus game. But this ignores the fact that lies are wrong, not just because they harm other people, but because they are an offense against God.
Lies ultimately are an attempt on our part to alter reality. We try to speak or act a different reality into existence. They are an offense against God then because they usurp His right to determine reality. This is why a false myth like this is also a lie—it tells a falsehood about reality and tries to make reality other than it really is. God could very easily have given St. Nicholas the power to visit homes each year. As proof of this, St. Nicholas brings gifts of healing and consolation to thousands of people who apply his manna, the mysterious substance that seeps from his bones every year and has been the source of many miraculous cures. But He didn’t do it because, ultimately, it wasn’t for the benefit on mankind. If we trace the fruit that has come from Santa’s arrival in the 19th Century, we must admit that He was right.