Santa in the Age of Information

I distinctly remember the exact site of my first theological debate. 

I was only 7 and it was in the parking lot of the Jewish Community Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.  It was Christmas time and I was walking home from school with my best friend.  Somehow we got to talking about the true nature of Santa Claus and covered the usual questions:

Is Santa magic or just a regular nice man?  Does he really have flying reindeer or does he employ more conventional methods of transportation?  How could one guy cover the whole world in just one night?  I mean, think of sneaking into just the houses in our neighborhood, and then consider that the world must have at least 100 neighborhoods like ours.  How does he know if we did something bad?  Do people have to tell him, or does he see everything?  What about the rumor that our parents are making Santa up?  Could our parents really afford the presents necessary to pull off such an elaborate ruse?  Is it possible that every grown up is in on this scam?  What happens if we don't believe in Santa?  Do we still get presents?  Are Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, and Kris Kringle the same person?  Is it possible that more than one nice man delivers presents? 

As is typical of theological debates, it got pretty heated.  My friend was pretty invested in a particular version of "magic" Santa, to the point that he felt some of the questions bordered on heresy.  That made me a little nervous, not only because he seemed at times ready to punch me, but, more importantly, what if I was a heretic and consequently, wasn't going to get any presents?  It was very disconcerting.  What's a kid to do?  

If only we had the Internet then, my friend and I could have gone home and Googled "Is Santa Real?" Then we could have had these pearls of wisdom from Answers.com [and our responses in brackets]:

•    Santa Claus is as real as one wishes him to be. If you believe in Santa then he is real. If you don't believe in him, then he isn't real. He is real as long as you believe. [Friend: see, I told you he’s real; he’s exactly how I believe him to be. Me: that’s just stupid.  Friend: my mom says “stupid” is a bad word.  Me: your mom’s stupid.  Fight ensues.]

•    No, sorry. He is just a character made up by adults to make their children more imaginative. [Me: Why would adults making things up cause children to be more imaginative?  Shouldn’t the kids be making things up?]

•    I really think that Santa Claus is totally real. But I am only 6 years old so you might not believe me. By the way my mom is typing this because I can't read and I am just saying this to mom and she is typing. [Friend: 6 year olds are stupid because they believe in Santa Claus.  Me: you said “stupid.”  Giggling ensues.]

•    He is not real. Parents are the ones who put presents in the stockings.  [Me: why would my parents put apples and oranges in my stocking?  They know I don’t like those.  Friend: you get apples and oranges?  I get Twinkies and root beer.  Me: What!? Something’s not adding up here.  Who’s in charge here?]

•    Santa Claus is totally, totally real. There are about 2 billion children in the world (people under the age of 18). But Santa doesn't appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, and Buddhist children. That reduces the workload on Santa to about 15%, now with a total of 378 million children is easier. He has 31 hours of Christmas time to do so. That is 91.8 million homes. He goes East to West because of time differences. So therefore he is real. [Me: I don’t know what this means, but I think there’s even more than 100 neighborhoods in the world.  Friend: I think 200.  Me: 1000.  Friend: infinity.  Me: infinity plus infinity.  Friend: you can’t have more than infinity.  Me: yes you can; 1000 infinities.  Friend: no you can’t.  Fight ensues.]

•    If you are ten or under, Santa is real. Don't worry about what others say. Go  back to what you are doing. If you're older than ten then Santa is the giving  spirit of Christmas. It's about giving to others and being selfless. The spirit of Santa is in us all and as long as we remember what Christmas is really about, then yes he is real. [Me: looks like we have three more good years before life is over as we know it; let’s just pretend we believe in Santa until the presents stop and never speak about it again.  Friend: Agreed.]

For better or worse, our kids never had to resort to the Internet to wrestle with the Santa questions that have plagued generations of kids in the past.  The truth is that my wife and I didn't put any effort into creating the Santa fantasy for them in the first place.  We always gave presents from Santa, and still do, but the kids have always known the real source of the presents.  It didn't seem right to us to so aggressively tell them things that weren't true.  Of course, the immediate consequence of our "enlightened" parenting was that our kids ruined the Santa myth for other kids, frustrating countless parents who no doubt took our kids off of their play date list. 

It occurs to me that if a kid asked parents in the past whether there was a Santa Claus, they’d say “yes” to the kid’s face without giving it a second thought, if for no other reason than out of respect for all the other parents who were in on the deal. That’s old school.  Sometimes I wonder if perhaps we should have shown more respect for the old parental code – the one that brings everyone together in a communal effort to extract a few weeks of good behavior out of our progeny.  But it's hard to hold together a parental conspiracy these days in the age of information. 

So we figured we better play it straight.

by JOHN WUNDERLI, a Harvard trained litigator, retired little league baseball coach, and supporter of all University of Utah Athletic teams.