Defending Santa Claus

I think I always liked poetry, from the time I was two or three years old and memorizing the poems my mom taught me: Edward Lear, Robert Louis Stevenson, A.A. Milne. My dad constantly recited Robert Frost—"Birches" every time he saw me drying my hair; "The Road Not Taken" while going on walks; "Brown's Descent" at Christmas parties. I even remember writing second-grade journal entries for school in (likely terrible) verse.

But as I got older, I found I didn't like ALL poetry. I was no fan of the "inspirational" poems people would read in church: "Footprints in the Sand," "The Old Violin" and so forth. I would kind of roll my eyes when President Monson recited "I love you mother, said Little Nell" (which, incidentally, was another one of the poems my mom had made me memorize when I was little) in what seemed like every other conference talk. I liked T.S. Eliot. I liked Emily Dickinson. I shuddered to hear even a line of Edgar A. Guest.

But I had a creative writing teacher in high school that taught me something useful. Oh, he knew good poetry. He introduced me to Dylan Thomas and Seamus Heaney, more T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Matthew Arnold. But he also said, of these other poems I so looked down on, "Just don't think of them as poetry. Think of them as verse. Their purpose is different. They accomplish a different set of goals."

Somehow thinking of it like that helped release me from my previous feelings of scorn or superiority. Instead of only scoffing at the "inspirational" sorts of poems or stories when I heard them (though, I confess, I do still reflexively wince a bit when I hear "Footprints in the Sand"…), I started trying to think, "What is this poem trying to teach? What is it that people see in it?" And often, I found myself softening and feeling more humble through that thought process.

Later, I had a further softening when I revisited the "simple" poems I'd learned in childhood and found that some (not all) of them were more subtle and well-crafted than I had given them credit for. My mentor and teacher Leslie Norris showed me that good poetry and stories for children—words that capture their attention and appeal to their ears—are actually quite difficult to write, and the best of them contain a kind of distilled wisdom, mixed with delight, that poetry for adults often only aspires to. Good poetry—and especially good children's poetry—takes the abstract and makes it concrete; takes the vast and makes it pocket-size; takes the general and makes it personal. And somehow, by miniaturizing truth, it also enlarges our view of it.

So here is what I have learned about Santa Claus…or Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas or Père Noël…he is good poetry.

Oh, I understand the Christian reaction against the over-sugared, anodyne versions of Santa Claus, and I share the discomfort people feel at having anyone or anything replace the all-important figure of Jesus Christ at the center of our Christmas worship. Certainly, families have room to differ in how they give form to the particular truths the legends of Saint Nicholas try to teach. Our family embraces a particularly low-key Santa Claus, one with no elves on shelves; one who doesn't accept wish lists because he 'already knows what we will like'; who fills only the stockings and nothing more; and who receives less-than-passionate defenses from his defenders: usually explanations like, "Well, legends say he…" or "If the stories are to be believed, he…". So believe me, I'm not trying to talk you into a more obtrusive Santa Claus if you don't want him.

But I also think that the hand-wringing angst about Santa Claus, the how-will-my-kids-ever-learn-to-trust-me-after-this-betrayal sorts of worries, are misplaced and unnecessary, and this is why: Santa Claus is poetry. Good poetry. He does for us what good poetry does: he takes a truth that is large and formless, and he writes it in small, bright strokes that help us FEEL, in miniature, what we are not yet large enough to contain at life-size.

Certainly, there are the terrible versions of Santa, just as there are bad poems. There is the sappy, sing-songy version of Santa that doesn't teach anything except that a sort of horrifying omniscience is watching children and meting out not-particularly-appropriate justice. And there is the "inspirational poem" Santa, the bland and generalized Santa that seems to stand for a bland and generalized belief in "love" or "Christmas spirit" without any explanation or expectation of what those things must move us to become.

And of course, I don't think the legend of St. Nicholas is the only way to make Christmas comprehensible to children. Other cultures do it differently; other traditions do it differently. But even the true story of the Savior's life—the compression of His great spirit into a baby's mortal body, and the temporary narrowing of His eternal journey into a mundane, earthly one—is itself a sort of poem, a story, a simplification; a way for our small and finite minds to reach and find commonality with His infinite one. So I don't think God disapproves of us, in turn, telling the even smaller stories that can make a place for Him in the minds of our children.

Because the true Santa, the mortal-being-turned-immortal-by-his-acts-of-love, is a light that points us to more light. With his compelling and delightful generosity, he teaches us about mercy and grace long before our intellect can grasp those concepts; long before we can even find the words for what those gifts make us feel. This is what poet and theologian G. K. Chesterton said about Santa Claus:

What has happened to me has been the very reverse of what appears to be the experience of most of my friends. Instead of dwindling to a point, Santa Claus has grown larger and larger in my life until he fills almost the whole of it. It happened in this way. 

As a child I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation.  I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking, which in the morning became a full stocking.  I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it.  I had not worked for them, or made them or helped to make them.  I had not even been good – far from it. 

And the explanation was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed toward me. . . .  What we believed was that a certain benevolent agency did give us those toys for nothing. And, as I say, I believe it still.  I have merely extended the idea. 

Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void. 

Once I only thanked Santa Claus for a few dollars and crackers. Now, I thank him for stars and street faces, and wine and the great sea. Once I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking.  Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer no suggestion except that Santa Claus gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly fantastic goodwill. 

Of course Saint Nicholas is real. He was a real man who lived on earth and is now in heaven, as this insightful post points out. So there is nothing deceitful about "believing in" this person (and, honestly, when it comes down to it, even something that is a myth can be true). But who Santa Claus is to us now is also real, or can be if we want it to be. Who he is now is an ideal made concrete: a being who loves to give in secret; someone who gives not because we are good, but because he is good. Someone, as Chesterson said, who is "benevolently disposed" towards us and "gives us toys for nothing." Santa Claus, like all saints, shows us one way an abstract ideal can be "made flesh." I used to be made slightly uncomfortable by the Catholic idea of "saints" in general. I thought their emphasis on the saints was too close to worship. And there are some theological differences, no doubt, but now I have come to appreciate the way that Catholics celebrate the truth that mortals who seek God, mortals who stretch to great good, can become—and have become—a little like God. It's really the same as what we, members the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believe. We are all striving to be saints! We are all seeking to take the large story of God's goodness and write it, in small and simplified form, in our own lives.

And so now, just as I have a fresh appreciation for the children's poetry of A. A. Milne and Robert Louis Stevenson, I have a fresh appreciation for the magic of Santa Claus. I don't think he should be the main focus of our Christmas. But I think he has a place there, if we want him. And I think that he—like a good story or poem—teaches us through enchantment and delight and a little bit of mystery, truths that may remain unlearned through years of joyless study.

As Matthew Warner writes in this excellent article,

Our modern scientific minds have turned us into impotent story tellers. Telling stories is an art performance, not a repeating of scientifically verifiable facts. There are lots of ways to tell this story without lying to our kids. Again, if your conscience is bothering you about it, then it probably means you should be telling the story a little differently. 

I like to think of it this way. When we read a good bed time story, we read it like it’s real because it’s more fun and impactful that way. You learn more and it exercises the imagination. But at the end when your kid asks, “is that really real, Daddy?” the answer is rarely as simple as a yes or no. 

Do princesses and castles exist? Yes, honey. Does princess Jasmine? well, no. Or maybe she did exist, but this story is only partially true about her. Or maybe she never existed, but the situations in the story are real. Maybe the scene is made up but the lesson is not. Does magic exist? No, not really. But do some moments in life feel magical? Absolutely. Are super heroes real? Yes, although they may look differently than you think. Dad, does anyone really have special powers? Yes, but not like you are thinking…better ones, that you’ll only realize are better when you’re older and wiser. 

With Santa — just as with Genesis and so many other great stories — instead of finding out the full story immediately in one sentence, the full understanding is something that sets in over time as we are ready. That’s the mark of a great story.

You don't have to lie about Santa to enjoy the fun and mystery of his story. And obviously you don't have to even follow Santa traditions at all! But I hope that every child, in some way or other, and especially at Christmastime, gets to enjoy the wit-and-delight side of life; the joy of words and stories. Poetry, though it can teach truth, isn't for moralizing. It's for playing with language, for turning it around like a jewel in your hands, just to see it sparkle. And Christmas, that sparkliest and most joyful of seasons, deserves any bit of hope and magic our poor attempts at storytelling can assign to it. I think He whose birthday we are rejoicing in, would approve.