‘Tis the season to read umpteen posts in mom forums that begin, “We don’t do the Santa thing…” and blogs across the world will twist together the words Santa with deception and lies. On the opposite hand, we have all those angry folks talking about robbing kids of magic. If one thing is for certain it’s that the Internet is never going to agree.
What about our family? Behind the scenes here, and I don’t speak for any other faiths or families, we are a Catholic family who attend daily mass when no one is having a morning meltdown, make sure to avail ourselves of the sacraments and love to celebrate a feast day. We also follow Montessori principles in the home which emphasize independent, wise children. We try to give them the best in life and let the rest work itself out — don’t most mothers?
Mostly I skirt the issue of Santa when talking to other parents because I don’t have time for drama y’all. However I made a little time to explain how I see Santa Claus, and it’s rooted in the words of the poetic Yes, Virginia, an editorial from 1897 in the New York Sun newspaper.
You see, I personally believe in Santa Claus, and I never have had a moment of doubt. I also believe in faith, trust and Pixie Dust — and even though my cousin was an honest-to-God “friend of Mickey” (and Lilo and Mushu — she’s quite petite) in Walt Disney World — my belief in that magic has never been shattered.
I tell my kids Santa Claus is coming because he does to thousands of homes. We celebrate St Nicholas’ feast and talk about the actual bishop and man. I have never told my kids he literally crawls down our chimney, but much like I see taught in the Montessori-inspired Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (faith formation for the young), I let them wonder. We never tell the children that they are the sheep in the Good Shepherd parable. We show them Jesus and allow them to make connections and that’s when the magic happens. It is the unconditional love of the Good Shepherd that makes the parable so attractive to the children, that causes them to ponder.
We can let them make that connection in the same way that we let them discover the pink tower and brown stair fit together — and later that it correlates with the decanomial. They learn that a bead becomes something entirely new when there are ten, or a hundred, or a thousand cube moving on to enormous Hierarchical Materials to infinity.
In the same way, we let the story become something new, unchanged but seen through different eyes.
We do not obscure or explicitly instruct, but we present the story with the prepared materials; we allow the wonder and wisdom of the absorbent mind to fill in the details. The lines between sensorial and math fade as connections are made — and that is how I have always aligned the concrete saint who punched a hereticwith the magic of the mythical Santa Claus legends.
Lastly, no I don’t see it as detrimental in any way or detracting from reality because as I’ve said, it is real even to me as an adult. I can sensorially touch and see in the concrete as I can feel the mystery in my heart when I see my family gathered. I have never been disappointed in this.
Yes Santa Claus can certainly distract from the true importance, the birth of Christ, if we are not wary — but a great many things rooted in less honesty and goodness can rob of us of that too.
So of course, reconcile this mystery in whatever way a mother’s heart bids you to do. But please understand that for some of us, it isn’t make believe at all. That it’s not “do you tell the secret?” because there is no secret to tell.
Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Here for the original masterpiece in full.
Click here to see my daughter interacting with Father Christmas at Epcot. A favorite memory!
And with Pierre Noel
