Just Say No to Santa Claus

Photo by PPOC, Library of Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Case Against Santa Claus

I am going to come out and say it: Santa Claus is undoubtedly the WORST part of Christmas.

First for some clarity: I do not dislike Christmas as a holiday season. It’s a great time for gift giving, family, reconnecting, and a time away from the hustle and bustle of work.

Now, this isn’t a piece meant to point out the dubious origins of the Christmas holiday by dwelling on the traditions stolen or borrowed from Pagan holidays like Yule or Saturnalia in the service of consumption and capitalism. Nor am I going to harp on the arbitrary selection of the date December 25^th by a bunch of fearful and politically minded priests for the purported birth of the savior of humanity in a remote Palestinian village over 2000 years ago. I will barely mention the fact that every origin story surrounding the holiday, from the birth of Jesus to the renewal of the harvest calendar, is an admitted amalgamation of dozens of dead and forgotten religions wrapped up into one convenient package for Western cultures to consume and celebrate.

No, this isn’t taking aim at those things. This is taking aim squarely at what is surely the least useful, the least exciting, the least fun, and the most odious aspect of modern Christmas: Santa Claus.

What exactly does this character bring to the holiday season or the holiday itself that is positive? The threat of an all-seeing, all-knowing, magical being is already covered by other mythological creatures that are supposed to be around all year; what benefit is there to adding another? This is especially egregious since this is one that is targeted at children with, as far as they are concerned, real material consequences for violating “goodness” that is often directly a result of a poor social or economic condition. The effects are all universally negative when we inject Santa into the situation since it ties things beyond a child’s control into their purported reward at what is supposed to be a happy time of the year.  Children intrinsically understand this too. They see the less fortunate children get fewer presents, they see the commercials with Santa delivering luxury vehicles to well-to-do families, they can make a direct connection between consumption and Santa’s involvement. After all, the most common place to visit a Santa is a mall, is it not?  All this myth does is prop up the idea that kids who get a lot of gifts from “Santa” are better behaved, and thus ‘better’, than the kids who don’t, and this is an awful thing to teach children. Especially since according to the myth, the inverse is true as well.

Another pernicious effect of Santa being involved in a holiday of gift giving is, like other cultural mores that involve magic panopticons, it blurs the line between cause and effect. If all good things can be attributed to Santa like a happy opening of the big-ticket item, doesn’t that teach children that wishes are more important than empathy, listening, or familial connections? After all, the top ticket Santa items are often the best because they are purchased or made from a desire to make children happy and to see their faces light up upon receiving the gift and coming closer together. This comes from a place of compassion and love, why would you want that attributed to or associated with a magical fat man from the North Pole? If your young child came up and gave you a hug but thanked Santa instead of the double shifts you’d been working since October, is that somehow better?  How is this improved by introducing a specter as a stand in for familial and community compassion and consideration?

I posit that it simply isn’t, and this idea should just be done away with.

The gifts and spirit are cheapened. It’s diffused. It’s building a myth on top of a myth for the purpose of perpetuating the myth. Then what happens once a child asks the questions, starts thinking for themselves, applying critical thinking to the situation? Do you lie to your child and convince them that yes, a fat white man really DOES control an industrialized factory in the North Pole using here-to-fore-unseen elves to construct the same products available on the shelves at Target? That the amount of work and effort you’ve put into learning about them and listening to them mean nothing in the face of Santa?  What if they ask questions about the elves? The reindeer? Why red and white? Why is Santa himself white? What about people with no chimneys or fireplaces? What about kids with no homes? How much are you willing to lie to keep the façade up and for what reason would you be doing so and how must your children feel after finding out the truth?

All of this isn’t to say that all traditions and make-believe is bad and harmful; it is just to say that Santa is specifically so. We should remember that the real reason is actually so much better than the Santa explanation, and that reason is the love and care we have towards one another, especially our children. Attributing things to Santa that can ACTUALLY be attributed to others that put in the work is what makes this particular cultural artifact so distasteful to me. The season should be one of togetherness, of family, of camaraderie, and of remembering the good things about humanity and of the things to come in the coming year. Bringing along a mythical being detracts from the special bonds that are created between people and just gets in the way. It is good for children to learn exactly how and why they got the gifts. It is good that the connections they make in the holiday season are to their family and not to a myth. It is good that they know they are loved and respected enough to be trusted with the truth.

So have your Christmas Tree, have your favorite Christmas dinner, struggle through the airport, get out the spare bed sheets for the family, and do your best to not get Whamageddon’d. These are fun and exciting and sometimes stressful things that make the season great and memorable as cultural celebrations should be. Never forget that the power to shape what holidays mean are held within us all and we can choose what we elevate and what we don’t.

Just leave Santa out of it.