The story goes that if you’re naughty you get something vile instead of presents and sweets, but it doesn’t say that those who get more gifts were nicer children. It doesn’t say that the most expensive gifts go to the best children, I don’t think. At least I never heard that. That would indeed be an ugly twisting of the story.

“recognize [....] possessions.)”

I don’t dispute anything in that paragraph.

“Yep, people say that. And some people say that God hates gays. Both claims are terribly wrong; they are, in my view, corrupted twists upon simpler, more basic truths.”

The amount of people who say what I’ve attributed to the gospel of Santa are many many more than the people who say God hates gays. Theism isn’t dominated by the idea that “God hates gays”, but Santaism is dominated by “he’s making a list and checking it twice”. It seems like when you say you believe in Santa you’re talking about someone completely different from the person everyone else believes in. So if you are saying you believe you probably add a big caveat that you don’t believe he acts at all in the way most people think he acts. If assuming that this is how you would put it, perhaps I’m wrong.

“Could be, but I doubt it. Someone who has been alive that long very likely has some sort of close relationship the Higher Powers”

Point taken–perhaps we’re talking about different things. I’m talking mainly about the tradition, which has its roots in a real person who lived, and I’m remaining agnostic on the issue whether there really is a very old guy walking the earth right now. In that sense, I agree wherever he is he may indeed be dismayed by all the bad santas misbehaving in his name (in which case we might think it best to repudiate the whole tradition of Santa rather than embracing it). But if we leave aside the possibility that there is some enormous equivocation going on when people say the word “Santa”, some story of corruption (whether it involves a single human being or a whole string of people who acted in a single office or persona) seems pretty plausible to me.

“If showering massive amounts of needless items on one’s own (while others go without) and then calling such a shower a reward for goodness, is the best kind of egalitarianism (and even **charity**?), I’m wondering what counts as plutocracy.”

You’re misreading my post. I didn’t say our civilization’s Christmas gift-giving habits constitute the “best kind of egalitarianism”; I said that the “best [kind of] egalitarians,” in my view, recognize that one cannot and should not attempt to achieve a perfect parity in every and all possessions and gifts. Societies that strive for that kind of equality–completely equal incomes, standardized homes, etc.–always end up, so far as I can tell, becoming tyrannical, and never really advancing personal or collective virtue along the way either. The latter-day prophets and apostles who did the most to advance Jospeh Smith’s early ideas about consecration rarely, if ever, talked about abolishing or completely equalizing private property, possessions, and stewardships; instead, they talked about how important it was that 1) everyone’s needs be satisfied, and 2) no one have so much more than another as to set up social distinctions, which is where inequality’s real damage is always done. It seems to me that this is the fundamental insight of all the best socialist thinking (even the private property which Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, talked about abolishing was “bourgeois” property, or in other words the means of production, not all personal possessions.)

Sorry; this was supposed to be a post on Santa, wasn’t it?

“The claim about Santa is that if you don’t get anything, then you’ve been bad.”

Yep, people say that. And some people say that God hates gays. Both claims are terribly wrong; they are, in my view, corrupted twists upon simpler, more basic truths.

“I fail to see how this embodies a ‘charitable spirit’. I’ve never met anyone who has said that all those Christmas mornings taught them about charity.”

Really? I tend to think that a lot–certainly not everything, but a goodly amount–of what I know about charity arises from my years as a child of having received unasked-for Christmas gifts, and now as an adult from taking part in delivering such unasked-for Christmas gifts to my own children and others (sometimes anonymously, sometimes not). But again, I think you may have misunderstood me up above; my point is not that Christmas, as presently exists in America, is by definition an example of charity (it isn’t!); I mean rather that the activities which one may reasonably attribute to Santa Claus at Christmastime are by no means necessarily incompatible with charity.

“Problem is that like many other people who believe in Jesus, [Santa]’s been led terribly astray by Dec. 25, so much so that he’s become complicit in unChristian ways of thinking and acting.”

Could be, but I doubt it. Someone who has been alive that long very likely has some sort of close relationship the Higher Powers, and I don’t think They’d grant such powers to anyone without being quite sure of his ability to endure to the end. I suspect that Santa’s feelings about Dec. 25 are often as bittersweet as anyone else’s.

Russell: Give me some sure sign that you’re not joking here–your defense of Santa seems as tongue-in-cheek as your profession of belief. I know from previous statements that you do “really believe” in some sense, so I’m puzzled. Forgive me if I’m misreading you. If showering massive amounts of needless items on one’s own (while others go without) and then calling such a shower a reward for goodness, is the best kind of egalitarianism (and even **charity**?), I’m wondering what counts as plutocracy.

I’m not at all one to throw cold water on any and all celebrations that are not enjoyed by everyone. The fact that some people will sit down to little or nothing on Christmas day should not necessarily spoil my turkey dinner (though it should prompt me to invite others). But what Santa does goes well beyond that. The claim about Santa is that if you don’t get anything, then you’ve been bad. In actual fact, that’s the biggest fib of all–the world is still waiting for the Christmas when a bad kid didn’t get anything but coal in his stocking, simply because he was bad (and for the day when the poor kid *did* get something, simply because he was good). Hence the story about Santa is much harder to believe if you’re poor than if your rich. Funny, the story about Jesus is just the opposite.

Any decent parent loves to see their kids have a blast. Most kids do on Christmas morning. But I fail to see how this embodies a “charitable spirit”. I’ve never met anyone who has said that all those Christmas mornings taught them about charity. Forgive me if this is getting dour and serious, but you started it (at least the serious part) :.).

I’ve never said to my daughter: “Santa isn’t real”. I don’t think I ever will. My explanation is actually very close to the one Julie describes. Maybe I’d say that St. Nicholas in fact is a real person, who if credible accounts are to be believed, really did serve Jesus and was very kind to children (as well as to students and prostitutes, if those same traditions are to be believed). Problem is that like many other people who believe in Jesus he’s been led terribly astray by Dec. 25, so much so that he’s become complicit in unChristian ways of thinking and acting. Saying to children that “I know Santa is all good all knowing and perfect”, in the face of all these things, actually disturbs me a bit–it seems like a perfect charicature of religious belief (another reason I’m not in Santa’s fan club).

To an extent, I think Santa is ok with this; like all the best egalitarians, I assume he realizes that a perfect leveling of gifts would be both impossible to achieve and counter-productive to the sort of charitable spirit he wants (or, if you want my personal opinion, has been commissioned by a Higher Power) to encourage. But all that aside, your oldest is right: there’s a lot of unfairness which is tolerated as a result. Why does Santa put up with it? Probably because he’s not allowed to stop us from misusing our gifts in his name, if we so choose. And perhaps it’s not even an “allowed” thing; maybe he genuinely, if sorrowfully, agrees with the aforementioned Higher Power that we need to be allowed to make whatever use we will of the gifts we’ve been given–even when our misuse of them often leads some adults to think that the whole thing, being so “obviously” arbitrary, must therefore being a fiction.

Russell, I’m so glad you believe it too! My nieces are careful not to mention around me their belief that Santa isn’t real, because they don’t want to shatter my illusions, I think, but the last few years they’ve received several gifts from mysterious sources (not it’s not me) so I think they are starting to come around again to my viewpoint.

When they were little, the oldest asked me one of the hardest kid questions I’ve ever had to answer, “Why does Santa Claus give more toys to rich kids than poor kids?” That one totally stumped me and made us both cry. I told her I didn’t understand that either but I knew Santa was fair. I’ve tried to figure out why ever since, and I’ve come up with a few possible answers, but I’m still not totally satisfied. What do you think?

Your post kinda made me think that Santa’s work might be kinda like using WordPress for a blog: he just makes his deliveries, postdates them, and they appear at the right time.