Why We Need Santa Claus

I saw the above comic running around Facebook recently, and it confuses me. First off why is Linus Van Pelt, the kid who sits in a pumpkin patch waiting for a pumpkin man to play Santa on Halloween (you know, the creepy, scary season where other kids are going for the free candy they can just ask for by role-playing), trashing Santa Claus? I bet he rooted for Jack Skellington, too. Also, having him reference the famous scene from A Charlie Brown Christmas feels just really off to me. The message of that special wasn’t anti-Santa. It was letting commercialism (yes, I know) and greed get in the way of why Christmas is so important. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this is just a really good mock-up, but I have no reason to believe Charles Schultz didn’t do this. Anybody know when this came out?

Still, I’d like to answer Linus’s question: who needs Santa Claus? It’s makes more sense to ask “who needs the Great Pumpkin”, and we know how Linus would respond to that. Yes, Jesus is the reason for the season. We celebrate his birthday as we do for famous people who aren’t the Son of our Creator come to liberate us from sin; we honor His teachings of peace, goodwill, and getting closer to the Father. However, I would make the case that Easter is more spiritually important because it celebrates the ultimate act of those teachings, dying on the cross and coming back from the dead after preaching in Hell of all places, thus breaking the sin barrier between God and man. I love Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday and honoring Jesus’s message is one of the reasons, but we’re supposed to do that 24/7/365 anyway. Christmas just gives us a definite date to come together and really live that message.

However, Santa Claus is not only a representative of those teachings but also embodies everything else I love about Christmas, setting it apart from the other 364. St Nicholas, based in part on the actual Saint Nicholas combined with other legends and traditions, brought to life by a famous poem, immigration, and Coca-Cola, is an important part of the Christmas spirit. Allow me to plead my case to a fictional child because it’s fun and my site and it’s Christmastime so I need Christmas topics.

Look at what Santa Claus is all about. On Christmas Eve he travels around the world just to give good boys and girls presents, toys to play with. Bad kids get coal, but in the early years of the Santa mythos that still served a purpose at least. Coal isn’t as fun to play with but at least you didn’t have to put your wood toys into the fire to keep from freezing to death. Nowadays you could replace that with…I don’t know, socks or something. They keep your feet warm, and if you get both Santa saw that one thing you did and made a judgement call. Actually, some kids might want socks. It’s just not as fun as toys.

Why toys? Toys are fun. Toys spark imagination, which will be a running theme in this essay. Toys invoke play. Some kid may prefer a book, and Santa will pivot where necessary. For the most part, Santa gets us to play pretend and boost our minds and ability to believe. Look where we are now, where even the genre called “fantasy” is lacking more and more of it to become grounded in reality (as seen in one particular section of California). If Santa had been in their childhoods more maybe they would be able to imagine more than what’s outside their coffee shop window. Toys and games get us active physically and mentally. Kids love toys. Kids made toys out of things before there were toys, playing out what they saw as the adult world they would someday inhabit. Never underestimate the power of play and importance of imagination. You wouldn’t have electric heat without someone thinking it up. That’s as much imagination as some world where people fight dragons by flying on other dragons.

The whole Santa “game” is play. How many writers started with “how does Santa get toys to everyone’s house in 24 hours as the number of kids grow?”, leading to building storytelling skills. I even have an explanation that has yet to come up in a Captain Yuletide adventure WHICH I HOPE I GET TO MAKE AGAIN NEXT YEAR SINCE THIS YEAR’S A BUST!!!! Sorry, venting a bit. Extra apologies to archival readers in the following years. That sense of imagination, but also logistics. Look at some of the answers in the above video, or ask a bunch of children and see what their answers are. Some answers will be a bit more practical, others more magical, and some just plain silly. Even the adults get into the fun. Writing about what Santa, the missus, the reindeer, the elves, and the other magical beings and residents of the North Pole do is part of the fun for me and partly why I wanted to do a Christmas superhero comic. Also, wondering where Santa’s workshop actually is outside of that area of the planet that has no landmasses, just ice.

As for the lore, in different ways Santa also opens a moment to teach kids how to be good. Be “naughty” and either Santa won’t bring you anything useful for more than a few minutes, or nothing at all, or you’ll be dragged to Hell! Wow, some countries are really dark. You don’t know how toned down I make the Krampus in my comic unless you look up the real thing. A bit nightmare inducing for a kids Christmas superhero mini-comic. How many parents tell their kids “be good or Santa will let his minion toss you into a fire pit where you’ll never see us again won’t bring you any presents”? If the parents have any money, that kid’s getting presents unless they did something really bad. Even then it has to be bad just before Jesus’ birthday (and before mom and dad goes to the sto…I mean Santa gets all those nice gifts from the elves at the workshop). Tugging your sister’s hair in March gets you a scolding. Doing it in December will cost you that bike. Unless the parents overdoes it, Santa can be used to teach those kids good habits.

Said habits including giving gifts out of the love of doing so and expecting nothing in return. While the occasional story has kids getting Santa something besides milk, cookies, and carrots for the reindeer (few people know Dasher is lactose intolerant–where do you think he dashes to?), most of the time Santa does it because he loves all children, with he and the Mrs not being able to have their own in some origins, and wants to make them happy. What better way than to give them something they can have fun with, either alone or with friends and relatives? He asks no reward. Just thinking of those happy kids at Christmas opening a present and getting what they wanted is enough for him. The same goes for the elves, which is why the “sweatshop” running gag ruffles my fur so much. Santa and the elves give out of love and live in an environment that allows them to do so which we couldn’t emulate for a whole host of reason. They’re quite happy up there, so get off their case! They’re better than you, so stop trying to be their hero unless some villain is trying to ruin Christmas! Seeing how Santa operates may leave a positive mark on a child to do the same. Even the cookies and carrots are done to thank Santa for the new doll.

As for that nonsense supposed experts in child psychology like to spit out about all the reasons playing Santa Claus hurts kids? All of them are full of crap. That’s the real humbug! I don’t know a single adult whose childhood was ruined when their parents told them “the truth”. They just brought that same game to their siblings, their cousins, and any other kid younger than them because it was fun. To ruin the magic is the act of a bully who wants to be “grown-up” by being cynical and depressing. That’s not what Christmas is all about. Even Lucy doesn’t go that far, and look at all the stuff she pulls on Linus and Charlie Brown.

Who needs Santa? Everyone does. Everyone who needs to believe in love, in imagination, in play, in the festiveness of the holiday. Let your kids believe in Santa, learn from Santa, and have fun playing the game with the next kids in line. Let them grow, pretend, and play.

Linus was right to point out the reason for the season. Virginia was right to continue to search for and believe in Santa Claus. Keep believing in Santa Claus. Heck, keep believing in the Great Pumpkin. I’m not stopping you. Let love, imagination, fun, and festivity live in your heart and your mind. Who needs Santa Claus? Look in the mirror.