Santa Claus: Symbol of the Capitalist Holiday

Right now Child of Pacifist Viking is living a peaceful warm existence inside Possible Flurries' stomach. We have made a decision about our child.

We aren't going to teach him/her to believe in Santa Claus.

We'll still "have" Santa Claus; he'll be a jolly fun guy we talk about and laugh with. A game we play. But we aren't going to tell the kid he's real. Kids think an old fat guy in a red suit who lives on the North Pole, has reindeer, and is friends with elves, would be a really fun concept. We won't keep that from our kid.

There are many reasons for not teaching our kids to believe in something we are almost certain isn't real. Primarily, I don't want to have the following conversation:

"You know how we told you about that magic man that lives far away, and he can always see what you're doing, and he's full of magic and wonderment and brings you gifts? Well, we made it up. Yep, we lied. But God, he still exists. Yes, you should still believe in God--he's the magical figure you never see that really does exist, even though Santa Claus isn't real."

There's a lot of wonder and mystery and magic in this world; in fact somewhere around 95% of the universe is made up of Dark Energy and Dark Matter, which our best scientists know nothing about other than that it is there. I'm not arrogant enough to suggest that we have all the answers, or that "reason" has any value other than arbitrariness. With Fox Mulder, "I want to believe." In just about anything: ghosts, afterlife, parallel universes, God, and all sorts of other mysteries and enigmas. I think there's plenty of mystery without muddling the kid with early lies about the existence of Santa Claus.

So we'll have Santa, but our kids will know he's not real.