Another Christmas come and gone, for the most part anyway. I hate to sound like a curmudgeon, or a cynic, but I'm particularly glad this year to be past that Christmas-morning hump.
Last night I watched my oldest son playing a game that he had gotten from relatives. We'd been out visiting for Christmas Eve and he and his little brother got to open a few presents. This game was one that you just plugged into the front of your television set, a simple little multi-game system for young children. He decided early on that he was having no fun at all with this game, got frustrated quickly, and suddenly burst into tears. "It's not fun!" he kept saying, as if in bewilderment. How could a gift from Santa Claus NOT be fun? It didn't make sense to him, and I think he was quite a bit put-off. He's at that age now where he still believes (or did, up to a few hours ago) in Santa, but is starting to consider all sorts of things a great deal more thoughtfully. His reasoning skills are kicking in, his ability to come to his own conclusions about the whys and wherefores of certain events in his life.
I'm no psychologist, but what bothers me is that I couldn't shake the idea that my son felt somehow slighted, even punished, at least maybe to some very minor degree, because he received a gift which he didn't wish for and which he didn't much care for. Consider it for a minute: from a young age children are told a great deal of myths, lies, fanciful fabrications, all of which they believe, at least until they are told the truth or figure things out for themselves. Leaving the religious myths aside, the Santa Claus story actually distorts the entire purpose of gift-giving, as far as I'm concerned. A gift isn't something that a person ought to earn, yet children are explicitely told that they will only get gifts from Santa if they are good. Santa has god-like omniscience, which is a frightening prospect, as well as near-god-like omnipresence, since he can give children all over the world their presents in a single night, as well as appear in several schools and stores at precisely the same time. Amazing guy, that Santa.
So kids buy the myth, because they are true innocents (despite the revolting and stupid concept of Original Sin), and so they make up their wish-lists and mail them off to the Big Guy. Then, come Christmas morning, when they find that things have not exactly gone their way, what might their bright little minds think? What if their parents had very little money and couldn't buy their kids what they wanted? What if what their kids wanted was impossible to find, or all sold-out, or simply didn't exist? What might these disappointed children think?
I know I'm putting too fine a point on it, but is it too far-fetched to think that some kids might actually attribute their being disappointed to the possibility that they deserved to be disappointed? That, since only good boys and girls get what they wish for on Christmas, perhaps they were just not good enough, or were bad in some way that they don't understand, that they somehow, in some way, failed to win Santa's love and approval on that Big Day?
These are just things to think about. I was not mentally damaged as a Santa-believing sprout, and I don't intend to wage any outrageous or paranoid war against Mr. Kringle. But I did tell my oldest boy that there was no such thing as Santa Claus, that his aunt and uncle, who love him very much, whether he's a good boy or not, bought that game for him which he didn't much care for, and that they had no idea about what he would like or dislike. He got it for free, and it was given to him in simple, unconditional love. He could take it or leave it. After I had my talk with him, he played the game some more and explored its possibilities, and realized that it wasn't so bad after all, or at least so he claimed. I'm inclined to think that he was more open to the game when he understood that it was simply a gift, not a slight, or a judgment.
Last night I watched my oldest son playing a game that he had gotten from relatives. We'd been out visiting for Christmas Eve and he and his little brother got to open a few presents. This game was one that you just plugged into the front of your television set, a simple little multi-game system for young children. He decided early on that he was having no fun at all with this game, got frustrated quickly, and suddenly burst into tears. "It's not fun!" he kept saying, as if in bewilderment. How could a gift from Santa Claus NOT be fun? It didn't make sense to him, and I think he was quite a bit put-off. He's at that age now where he still believes (or did, up to a few hours ago) in Santa, but is starting to consider all sorts of things a great deal more thoughtfully. His reasoning skills are kicking in, his ability to come to his own conclusions about the whys and wherefores of certain events in his life.
I'm no psychologist, but what bothers me is that I couldn't shake the idea that my son felt somehow slighted, even punished, at least maybe to some very minor degree, because he received a gift which he didn't wish for and which he didn't much care for. Consider it for a minute: from a young age children are told a great deal of myths, lies, fanciful fabrications, all of which they believe, at least until they are told the truth or figure things out for themselves. Leaving the religious myths aside, the Santa Claus story actually distorts the entire purpose of gift-giving, as far as I'm concerned. A gift isn't something that a person ought to earn, yet children are explicitely told that they will only get gifts from Santa if they are good. Santa has god-like omniscience, which is a frightening prospect, as well as near-god-like omnipresence, since he can give children all over the world their presents in a single night, as well as appear in several schools and stores at precisely the same time. Amazing guy, that Santa.
So kids buy the myth, because they are true innocents (despite the revolting and stupid concept of Original Sin), and so they make up their wish-lists and mail them off to the Big Guy. Then, come Christmas morning, when they find that things have not exactly gone their way, what might their bright little minds think? What if their parents had very little money and couldn't buy their kids what they wanted? What if what their kids wanted was impossible to find, or all sold-out, or simply didn't exist? What might these disappointed children think?
I know I'm putting too fine a point on it, but is it too far-fetched to think that some kids might actually attribute their being disappointed to the possibility that they deserved to be disappointed? That, since only good boys and girls get what they wish for on Christmas, perhaps they were just not good enough, or were bad in some way that they don't understand, that they somehow, in some way, failed to win Santa's love and approval on that Big Day?
These are just things to think about. I was not mentally damaged as a Santa-believing sprout, and I don't intend to wage any outrageous or paranoid war against Mr. Kringle. But I did tell my oldest boy that there was no such thing as Santa Claus, that his aunt and uncle, who love him very much, whether he's a good boy or not, bought that game for him which he didn't much care for, and that they had no idea about what he would like or dislike. He got it for free, and it was given to him in simple, unconditional love. He could take it or leave it. After I had my talk with him, he played the game some more and explored its possibilities, and realized that it wasn't so bad after all, or at least so he claimed. I'm inclined to think that he was more open to the game when he understood that it was simply a gift, not a slight, or a judgment.
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