Making Peace with Santa
Note from Carmen: This post was originally meant to go up during the holidays. Christmas may be over, but Easter is on its way! So I’m posting this anyway, as I think Michelle’s thoughts are still relevant, funny and thought-provoking.
by Anti-Racist Parent Columnist Michelle Myers
Since my oldest daughter Myong has been old enough to understand and latch onto the fantasy of Christmas, I have waged war against Santa Claus. A progressive and pro-“of color” Mommy, I regarded Santa as Family Enemy #1, for he was a suspiciously jolly and costumed white man who appeared to pilfer parents of the gratitude, love, and adoration we rightfully deserved from our over-indulgent, toy-crazed children. My Mommy reconnaissance missions indicated that Santa was ever-present in my daughter’s life—from preschool to television to lawn decorations—and needed to be taken out immediately.
Having sized up Santa as a formidable adversary, I knew my offensive had to be swift, brutal, and indisputable—but at the same time could not appear calculated or hateful. I had to wait for a moment in which Santa was offered to me voluntarily and completely vulnerable. That moment came when, one day, my daughter asked me how Santa was going to leave presents in our house since we didn’t have a chimney.
“Santa doesn’t exist,” I told Myong in a disapproving tone intended to extinguish the glint of Santa-allure in her toddler’s eyes. “Why would some old, fat white man in a red suit come visit us? Besides, you do not take gifts from strangers—all the presents you get on Christmas are from people who love you—be sure to thank them.”
Ha! I gloated at how easily Santa had fallen—make-believe, white man, stranger danger, family guilt—Santa never stood a chance.
Or so I thought. Santa culture in this country is amazingly strong, and the children who are non-believers often endure rigorous proselytizing campaigns made by believers and their agents. One year at school, Myong found herself forced to make clay Santa ornaments. Unsure what to do and fearful that I would mortally wound her art project with my “Santa Buster” bazooka and bury its shattered bits under the remains of the Easter Bunny still rotting away in an undisclosed place in our home, she decided that her best course of action would be to combat me head-on and force me to accept Santa by my own terms.
I was caught off-guard when she came home from school and presented me with a brown-faced Santa ornament with her name etched on the back. “Can we put it on the tree, Mommy? I know there’s no such thing as Santa, but I painted him brown like me—and I made it for you.” Left defenseless by her cunning reverse tactics and strategic puppy-dog-eyes appeal, I grudgingly admitted defeat and hung that brown-faced Santa ornament on our tree. And noticing Myong’s glowing face as she lovingly regarded the art project which bore her name dangling amidst the soft lights of our Christmas tree, I wondered what my war against Santa was good for.
Though I intermittently fought lesser battles against Santa over the years, I didn’t anticipate that his ultimate defeat would come through the hands and words of my daughter herself. There is nothing more powerful in destroying childhood fantasies than the derisive and judgmental laughter of older children. To some extent, my own war against Santa spared Myong from experiencing the confusion and hurt caused by the piercing words of older kids exclaiming to her, “You still believe in Santa?! There’s no such thing as Santa, you big baby!” This she already knew.
But what sadness for me to discover a few weeks ago that my now ten-year-old daughter was telling 2nd and 3rd graders in the afterschool program she attends that Santa doesn’t exist. As the woman who supervises the program pulled me aside with all the airs and indicators of needing to have “the talk” with me about something Myong did, I knew already what she was going to tell me. And with her account of my daughter and her friends’ assault against Santa and how the little ones cried over his dead body, I found myself mourning as well—mourning that my daughter truly wasn’t my little baby-girl anymore who wanted so much to believe in Christmas magic and Santa.
With my son and youngest daughter now entering those wonder years of childhood in which monsters live in closets and reindeer really do fly, I have been trying to declare a truce with Santa. When my son asked me a couple of days ago if we could bake cookies for Santa, I said “OK” and began planning how I could make baking cookies with my kids a cherished childhood memory for them. When my husband asked Victor why he thought Santa would want cookies and what if Santa needed to use the bathroom instead, Victor said Santa could come in and do whatever he wanted “as long as he takes his shoes off first.” When I tuck my youngest daughter Vanessa into bed every night and ask her what three songs she wants me to sing before she goes to sleep and she asks for “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Up on the Housetop,” and “Here Comes Santa Claus,” I sing them and treasure her gleeful smiles, her sparkling eyes. And when Myong and I found an abandoned Santa ornament in a shopping cart before we did some holiday shopping over the past weekend, I asked her if it mattered that he was a white Santa. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “No.” After I rescued that white Santa from his cart, wiped him off with a baby wipe, and took him home, Myong hung him on our Christmas tree under the brown-faced Santa bearing her name. Peace, Santa.
Michelle Myers holds a Ph.D. in English from Temple University, specializing in Asian American Literature. She is a founding member of the spoken word poetry group Yellow Rage, which was featured on HBO’s RUSSELL SIMMONS PRESENTS DEF POETRY
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Laurie wrote:
My husband waged a war on Santa too. Though we are white and our daughters are of Chinese descent, it wasn’t about color - it was about truth telling. With our adopted children, truth and trust are very important. She asked point blank, he told the truth. Not only did we end up with the same issues the author did re: telling others, at 4 our older daughter was able to extrapolate to the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy too. That REALLY bummed me out. So now we talk about magic and wonder and make believe. Still, in second grade this year, she came home with homework that said “Santa brings us gifts” with Santa crossed out and Mom and Dad written in. Our youngest is soon to be 5 and her older sister can’t shake her belief in Santa or anyone else that brings her stuff! Go figure.
Posted 23 Jan 2008 at 10:09 pm ¶
Jeff wrote:
“Grown-up Pretend”
My wife’s brilliant idea on ‘the Santa Front’ was the phrase “Grown-up Pretend”. This has several huge advantages:
1) We never had to be anything less than truthful with our children. And it explains why other adults in their lives aren’t exactly lying to them.
2) They get to play along. Kids ‘get’ pretend. It’s not too hard for them to understand that grown-ups might have things they like to pretend too. So when they’re at school or a mall and there’s a Santa, no big deal. It’s kind of like seeing Mickey Mouse at Disney.
3) There’s no chance for “You still believe?” If an older kids said it to them, they can explain how they’ve always known what was what and they enjoy playing along. And they’ll never feel a need to disabuse a child of his own belief.
Now, we’re Baha’is with enough other holidays that we only need to put enough into Christmas to be able to enjoy it with my side of the family. But, I think the “Grown-up Pretend” plan would work well even if we were celebrating Christmas on our own.
~ Jeff
Posted 24 Jan 2008 at 4:26 am ¶
Julia wrote:
In our house we used the term “Santa” to describe the “spirit of Chirstmas”.
I cannot remember a time in which I “believed in Santa”. From my earliest memories I knew that Santa was a ficticious name for a man who had lived a long time ago and who was a child advocate. As my father told the story “when he died people continued his work we still do. Giving gifts to our children, giving money to the poor” etc etc…
All those Santas you see at the mall or on TV are just playing “dress up” and getting people in the mood for the holiday.
Even though I knew the ‘truth’ my family and I had many hours of fun and memories related to Santa. All the while sharing in the ’secret’ !
Posted 24 Jan 2008 at 8:42 am ¶
GM wrote:
Funny post! I identify with many of your sentiments but I can’t seem to bring myself to tell my kids there is no Santa. My children are nine years old and still believe or at least they pretend to believe to us. My husband and I think they could be just ” NY slick” and will continue this charade as long as the getting is good. For this Santa, I’m personally running out of steam and can’t wait to jump off my sleigh. Everyone admonishes me for not having the Christmas spirit but I give all year round and just don’t feel like getting in the mood for that one day when everyone else decides it’s their turn to give.
gm
Posted 25 Jan 2008 at 8:58 am ¶
Heart wrote:
I am the white mom of nine biracial (their dads are black) kids, the youngest of whom is almost 17 now. The oldest is almost 36. When my oldest daughter (now 31) was a tiny girl, after we’d discussed how aggravating it was that Santa Claus was white, made up a song. I wish I could sing it to you, but it goes like this:
I don’t care what the white man say
Santa Claus is a black man!”
This song “stuck” and is sung every year in my family, often greatly embellished and with lots of laughing and carrying on, i.e.:
“santa claus IS-S-S-S
a BLACK MAN”
Heart
Posted 25 Jan 2008 at 1:19 pm ¶
cloudscome wrote:
LOL I have been waging war against Santa abuse/misuse for 20+ years! I am continually amazed at how persistent and deeply entrenched the Santa myth is in our society. It’s all about the economy, I fear. The thing I hate most about Santa is the way he is used to train little consumers. If Santa weren’t on TV I don’t think I would have a problem with the pretend/fantasy stuff. It really amazes me how much day care teachers feed the hype though. It’s as if some adults have a vested interest in children’s participation in the magical thinking. It feels kind of parasitic to me, actually.
Posted 27 Jan 2008 at 8:39 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
My Catholic mom focused on the “Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus’s birthday” angle. We made presents to put at the manger, and so on. I had the Night Before Christmas, and other books that featured Santa, but they didn’t register as something that I should think was true. I knew my fiction books from my nonfiction books, and I was an early reader. But some of my early education worked with me that way - my preschool taught that there were 7 continents, and people lived on 6 of them. The North Pole was not a continent, so who could live there?
As a small child, I had very literal interpretations of a lot of things (ask me about germs sometime). I hated clowns, because they came up to kids (so they were creepy strangers), and they pretended to be sad or happy all the time. Noone was sad or happy all the time, so clowns were liars, liars are bad people, clowns are bad. Anyone pretending to be Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy went into the same “liars = bad people” file.
I have intense memories of preschool conversations that went something like,
Kid: Santa comes down the chimney.
Me: I don’t have a chimney, I’m in an apartment.
Kid: Then he comes through the front door.
Me: My mommy has a deadbolt.
Kid: If you dont’ believe in Santa, you won’t get presents.
Me: I do so, they’re from Mom and Dad.
Yeah, I was real popular
I don’t like the way Santa has evolved (as a marketing tool, even in the 1800s). I like the original St. Nicholas story, and I have no problem w/ the secular nature of Christmas.
I figure, I’ll inundate my own kid with information, and let her pick and choose how to deal with it. I suspect that’s what my mom intended all along.
Posted 28 Jan 2008 at 10:36 pm ¶