Jump to content

Santa


Cantabile

Recommended Posts

Here in Luxembourg the bad children get willow switches from Santa's helper. Of course we always found those much cooler because you could go and whip other people with them.

I read once that small kids don't have a sense of good and bad in terms of what they should do, so they do the thing that will get them a reward, until they develop a conscience. Maybe the Santa myth is linked to that.

In seriousness its more this than anything I think, Cantabile. You wrote earlier on how you don't want to encourage kids to be good in hopes of getting something, but the reality is kids don't necessarily think in that way. Santa creates a concrete reason to behave as opposed to an abstract one. And its fun.

I'm gonna come clean though and admit I had my nephew convinced I was a super-villain for a year or two. And another nephew convinced crocodiles live in the basement. So maybe I just enjoy lying to kids.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mine were. After that episode though, I never misbehaved for them again.

What did you do that was so naughty? I'd have guilt trips for the rest of my life if I put coal in my kid's stocking and traumatized them.

As a child we always used to call Santa Father Christmas. ie the real one. his many many helpers all had the tilte of Santa. these where the ones you saw in shops and grotto's and on TV ect. The real Father Christmas was far too busy managing the distribution of all the gifts and checking to make sure the bad boys and girl lists where accurate and uptodate.

That's a pretty elaborate explanation. I imagine parents are having to go to greater lengths to keep their kids fooled, as it seems to me that with the Internet kids learn things more quickly this generation. Not too long ago I was babysitting 8 and 9 year olds, and they were talking about videos they watched on YouTube...sweet God, definitely things I didn't talk about at that age.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm gonna come clean though and admit I had my nephew convinced I was a super-villain for a year or two. And another nephew convinced crocodiles live in the basement. So maybe I just enjoy lying to kids.

I don't think I'm alone in wanting to know what your super-villain name and powers were :P

We NEED Santa! X-mas is the only time a year that my nephew gives my mom kisses. Either that or Santa won't visit!! :kiss:

You don't think he'd give her kisses if he knew she was the one purchasing all his presents?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In all seriousness, I'm not sure why they bothered adding that into Santa mythology. Are there any kids that actually act any differently out of fear they'll get coal?

Sounds suspiciously like a training-wheels version of the heaven/hell mythology to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually sort of wish that I had been given Santa or one of the other Mythological Holiday Beasts.

When I was in second grade, my whole class visited a some "Christmas Festival" two or three days before the eve, on the last school day before break. I'm Jewish, but I came home...believing in Santa. This didn't make much sense to my parents, as, besides the whole Jewish thing, I'd already decided that I wasn't a big fan of the whole god concept. My dad sat down with me and tried to understand how one could believe in Santa but not god, but I wasn't to be swayed. I think I sort of knew it didn't make much sense, but it just seemed like such a cool thing that I went along with it. Then Christmas came, I got nothing, and that was it for me and Santa.

As for the tooth fairy, my mom kept it up for the first few teeth. I was totally convinced. Then, for the fourth tooth, I told my dad instead of her. Instead of telling me to put the tooth under my pillow, he just gave me a twenty and said to throw it out.

Damned iconoclasts...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What did you do that was so naughty? I'd have guilt trips for the rest of my life if I put coal in my kid's stocking and traumatized them.

You know, I can't actually remember what it is that I did. All I can remember is that I got coal one year, and that made me so determined for it to never happen again, that I went out of my way to not do anything that might have upset my parents. (After that point in time, I don't ever recall getting a spanking, sitting in the corner, grounded, or even getting a lecture.) Though trying to jog my memory a bit more, I think it was largely to do with being quite unruly at school (calling teachers names, bullying other students, fighting, etc.)

It definitely didn't traumatize me though. But seeing as how different people are different, I could see that such an event might possibly be traumatic to certain kids.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Santa is a critical thinking test for your kids. The longer it takes for them to figure it out, the less you start to budget for college.

Uh seriously though I agree, it doesn't seem to be a great idea. I bet we could construct a more useful and more fun myth if we really wanted to lie to our kids.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My parents were Evangelical and felt that believing in Santa was sacriligious to Jesus. I mean, I always had big Christmas's but I knew it was my mom getting me the presents. I was terrible and looked EVERYWHERE for my gifts, often spoiling what they figured to be big surprises.

I was also that bratty kid that ruined Santa for all my friends and cousins, showing them where their parents hid the gifts and how illogical it was.

My daughter never believed in Santa, and I'm not sad about it and neither is she - so far. She always knew Christmas was important but that we as her parents got her the gifts. It was still a huge day and night for us.

I do have friends that felt betrayed by the lying their parents did with Santa. I know others that appreciated the "magic" they got. My nephew, at his mother's insistence, believed in Santa to some degree til he was 13. I was constantly warned about his innocence in the matter. I think it was coddling him, and sure enough, his mother still is overprotective.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right now my 4 year old niece believes in Santa with her whole heart. She wrote him a list that included such items as a magic ball. (When my mom called my sister to see if "Magic Ball" was some kind of brand name, my sister informed my mom that my niece actually wanted a magic ball, one that could turn her into rainbows and giraffes and such. Melted my poor heart into a puddle.)

The point is right now my niece truly believes in magic. She gets to be totally innocent and expect that anything is possible. I feel like that is such a gift to give a child. The rest of her life she is going to see how cold, hard and unfair the world is. But she'll always have this pool of light to draw from her childhood. It's also good for her imagination, and seems to make her happier. She'll figure it out before to long, or if she gets to 7 my sister will tell her. But Santa is all about letting kids be kids, and letting grown ups worry about the big stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And what about the Naughty-or-Nice-List? Do we really want to teach our kids that the only reason they should behave is because of material rewards? Are we training them to be dolphins hopping through hoops for a fish at the end?

I always figured that that was kind of the POINT of Santa - the kids know that Christmas is the time for presents, so to stave off the pestering you invent some guy at the North Pole who has final say and is not only immune to tears and begging, but actively opposed to such...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mommy, does Cantabile's grandson exist?

Re Santa: I think it's something that children pick up on and start believing in when they're young and impressionable, and the parents just run with it. I believed in Santa as a young kid, but I pretty much shrugged it off when I founf out he wasn't real. Why do the parents encourage kids to believe in Santa? Well, both because it's a Christmas tradition, and because parents like to feel that they're protecting their kids, that they're little innocents. One way to do this is to keep them vulnerable and gullible. The more vulnerable and childlike someone is, the cuter they are.

I suppose that's human nature.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And why? How the hell can we tell our kids that lying is bad, then turn around and lie to them for a decade about the existence of an obese man who breaks into their house at night to give them toys. Is there anything more fucking hypocritical? That's a rhetorical question. Because there isn't.

Now, I know what you're going to say, "But it gives the children magic!" and "We're just lying to make them happy!"

Bullshit. First off, lying to make people happy is a good moral to teach kids? Let's all weave elaborate webs of lies for years on end to make our loved ones happy? Nice.

So if your wife asked you in she looked fat in 'those jeans' you'd say yes?

Bullshit. Sometimes you gotta lie to make someone happy. Sometimes the good that comes from lying outweighs the bad from the act of lying itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

aimlessgun,

Santa is a critical thinking test for your kids. The longer it takes for them to figure it out, the less you start to budget for college.

Uh seriously though I agree, it doesn't seem to be a great idea. I bet we could construct a more useful and more fun myth if we really wanted to lie to our kids.

So, where does you pithy little test place my daughter? She has know for years that Santa isn't "real". She's simply chosen to believe. By the way she's a seven year old who reads on the college level.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...