The Santa Claus Myth-Why It Must Be Crushed

Chile had an earthquake, Pakistan got a tidal wave, and the United States ended up with Santa Claus. Yet, we have celebrated our disaster and have been too shallow to realize the damage he has done to our moral fiber.

I remember being but a child when Santa Claus was brought to my attention. My contemporaries and I were taught that he was good, so good in fact that he would bring us presents for the hell of it-though it has to be Christmas time. We, like the generations before us, have suffered from this belief in Santa and subsequent disillusionment, but it seems that we have all been unaware of the ill effects; except for me.

It was some six months ago that I realized what was happening, that our society was being torn down by this legendary figure. Pornography and the Commies are severe threats to this country, but Santa Claus seems to be the most severe. If this nation acts, perhaps we can save those who are not yet three years old. But we cannot wait. Massive funds must be appropriated for the crushing of Santa Claus; there is no room for partisan politics.

But we need the money for programs to fight our grave drug problem, you may argue. Well, what better way than to destroy Santa Claus? Why do you think our generation has turned to drugs, and those before us to alcohol? Depression, disillusionment, that's why. Children are brought up to believe in the Santa myth, to trust in his actual existence, and then are told that this source of goodness does not exist. This withdrawal is a very upsetting experience. Youth must turn somewhere, and drugs provide the answer. A boy seeks a replacement in his neighborhood pusher-who, incidentally, probably plays Santa for his kids, too-and another addict is created.

This depression can also lead to suicide. This nation, as we know, leads the world in suicides. After a while, it becomes too hard to go on without Santa, and death is the only solution. Then, perhaps, one can be reincarnated as a reindeer.

How about juvenile delinquency? Understandably, some youths react not with depression but with anger. They have been cheated, and they lash out at the world which deceived them; they attack the society that created the Santa lie. Obviously, anticrime measures might better be anti-Claus bills. In conclusion, our entire social program could just be dropped social program could just about be dropped if we could conquer this root cause.

Another social problem, of course, is the breakdown of the family. Communist infiltration always begins with an attempt to bring about this collapse of the family, and how subtle is the plot when Santa is dressed in red? No one can expect a child to come through the Claus withdrawal without some loss of faith in his parents. They are the ones who foster the lie and knowledgeably deceive their children for years at a time. So when the myth is shattered, the child is taught not to trust or respect his parents. Then we are surprised when kids run away from home; Santa, if he really lived, would do well to buy land in Greenwich Village. Of course, if he lived, then there would not be this loss of faith and running away. Ergo, Q. E. D.

The adults suffer, too. They learn that it is respectable to deceive. What person is more admired than he who goes through all the motions of Santa for his kids and keeps them believing it for a long time? But the adults are subconsciously acting out their resentment which resulted from their childhood Santa traumas. We cannot blame them for their failings.

These reasons would certainly seem sufficient to expose Santa. But there are more. The great myth distorts our social values. Ask yourself these questions: What color is Santa? What is his religion? What is his ancestry? Santa is white, Protestant, and Anglo. Some say he's Dutch, but at any rate, we can settle on West European. The great Santa Claus, kids observe, has all these characteristics. Necessarily, the children associate this WASPness with good. As a WASP child on your way to Macy's in New York City, you pictured a WASP Santa Claus. As a black child on your way to Macy's you too would imagine a WASP Santa after your first few visits. A black Santa, or a Santa with a big nose and a Grand Concourse address just wouldn't have been satisfactory. And what if you were Jewish? Don't you wonder why this nice man missed Chanukah every year and then arrived on Christmas? Portnoy missed the point in his complaint.

Return to the race problem again. Don't you think a black gets a little fed up when he finds out that not only were God and Jesus white, but even Santa Claus is white? That's a little hard to accept. A couple of New York department stores have apparently caught on. They have hired a black Santa and a white Santa. This makes it a bit more obvious to the bright child that Santa just might be a hoax, but it's a nice gesture.

At Jordan Marsh yesterday, the white Santa had a few black visitors, and a little black girl just didn't know how to handle him. Santa, to let us know he was hip, opened with, "Hi, sister."

Speaking of discrimination, when was the last time you saw Mrs. Claus out on the department store campaign trail? While Santa is out doing business, his wife is back home in the kitchen baking Christmas cookies and looking after the gifts. That's her place, she's led to believe. She doesn't even ride in the sleigh the big night. If she did, she probably wouldn't get to hold the reins.

As children, we learn that this is the established, and the acceptable, relationship. Dexterous first-grader that I was, I learned to be a prolific potholder producer, and every Christmas Eve, I would leave two of the potholders on the mantel for Santa. It was understood that he would take them black to Mrs. Claus, who would be expected to use them to cook. For Santa himself, we left cookies and milk or after-shave lotion. Male chauvinist, to say the least.

The Santa myth even manages to instill feelings of shame and guilt in some youngsters. Either you're good or you get coal in your stocking. How is one to recover from the debasing experience of receiving coal? Right; he isn't. He must live with this for the rest of his life-the knowledge that Santa thought so little of him as a person that he left coal.

Perhaps the most obvious curse of the Santa myth is the materialism it encourages in our children. We were all urged to ask Santa for all the things we desired. Once at the department store, we were shoved toward the red imposter with the instructions: "Tell him what you want, Tommy." And after Tommy tells Santa what he wants, Santa asks, "Is that all?" As if that's not enough. Then on Christmas morning, when it's not all there, the kid feels robbed. He is taught to expect whatever his little heart desires.

The implications of this are not lost on the business community. If you take little Tommy to see Santa at Jordan's, the cost for one print is $2.34. But naturally, grandma will want one, and so will Aunt Sally, so you buy the package of three for $5.50. And acting as Santa Claus, a parent must buy extra presents, and that means more profits for someone. Then you have your Santa Claus dolls, your Santa Claus outfits, and your Santa Claus statues for your front yard in Shaker Heights.

Even the Encyclopedia Americana recognizes the horror of it all. "The American Santa Claus is a corruption of the Dutch Sant Nikolaas," it says. In Europe, St. Nick-fraud though he may be-rides a white donkey or a grey horse, while in America he uses a bunch of reindeer and flies through the air. In Italy, the children wait for la Bafena, a female who must be at least partially liberated.

Furthermore, while American children sleep away on their six-inch mattresses and visions of G.I. Joe Sub-machine Guns dance through their head, kids in Slavic countries some-times sleep on beds of straw and hay on Christmas Eve so that they may share in Christ's humble birth.

Don't think this isn't hard for me to accept. Santa and I have gone through a lot together, and it's painful now to realize his role in the moral collapse of our society. I was happy and innocent back in my pre-school days when my younger brother and I used to wake up two hours early on Christmas morning to enjoy the anticipation of that romp down the stairs to the living room full of presents. We used to go into our older brother's room to wait and play in our pajamas, the ones with the feet on them.

And what fun I had in our third-grade play at M.K.E.S.-Mt. Kisco Elementary School-when I got to play Santa himself in all his red, pillow-stuffed splendor. Hadn't that been the height of my academic career? How can I dump on him now?

I also remember, however, the day I came home crying because fourth-grade classmate Randy Albright had told me there was no Santa Claus. He tried to be logical and endeavored to strain the credibility of it all. Randy argued that chimneys and omnipresence and other things that I answered to, but not very well. Then a week later, my father sat down with me and explained to me that there was indeed no Santa. It had just been a game. That Christmas Eve I took my first sleeping pill. I didn't bother pecking out the window before getting in bed to see if the sleigh were flying through the air. And I just put the potholders on my mother's rack after I finished them. My childhood had been torn asunder.

It was a long transition, and now I've experienced the harmful aftereffects. So I was encouraged some-what yesterday at Jordan's when some six-year-old flatly refused to go up and sit in Santa's lap. The thing about department store Santas is that they take this reluctance as an affront to their personal appeal. So this Santa engaged the boy in a little heckling. "I think you're scared," he told him.

"I'm not scared," he retaliated. "I just don't want to see you."

"Aw, you must be scared." Santa countered. He was determined not to be put down.

"No, really. I'm not scared. I just don't want to talk to you," the boy asserted. Exit the six-year-old and one mother, embarrassed.

It wasn't the only defeat for this particular Santa. A number of younger children found him too threatening and preferred to cry on Mommy's shoulder. So maybe there is hope. Maybe these young ones recognize the risk of placing one's faith in Santa.

All I know is that we must put an end to it. Imagine Dick Nixon playing Santa for his daughters many years ago. Doesn't that do anything for you? Do you still want to have a Santa in Christmas? What means more to you, Santa or America?