Your Guide to Christmas: Part Four

Part Four: Your Role as a Parent, and Why Your Children Need Desperately to Cling to the Santa Myth

You may be wondering who, exactly, this fat man in red is, and why he is so critically important to the Christmas condition. (Sorry, tradition.) Seriously, who’s going to believe that there’s a magical man who visits every house in the world in one night, distributing presents to all the little boys and girls appearing on the “nice” side of his list? (The rest get lumps of coal, poison, or both.) Sure, there are “Santa’s helpers” in the malls who dress and act like him to appease people under the age of 12, but they don’t play a part in gift dispersement.

The answer, of course, is that there is no Santa. In fact, it goes beyond mere nonexistence. You, parent, are going to be Santa this year.

DISCLAIMER: If you still believe in Santa, ignore what I just said, pay no heed to the duplicitous duplicates in every mall and major department store, and be sure not to light a fire late Christmas Eve.

So why is it direly important that your children foster a perennial belief in Kriss Kringle, Father Christmas, Santa Claus, Old Saint Nick, Krispy Kreme, the Jolly Fat Man, the Overly Rotund But Extremely Charitable Bearded Chimney-Diver? I will discuss that a little later. First, some relevant facts concerning the gifts you will undoubtedly receive this year:

How much you spend on your children at Christmas is directly proportional to the amount they spend on you later in life, and it may be the deciding factor that confines you to a “home.” Conversely, your children are not required to spend a cent on you until they’re 9 years old, regardless of whether you’ve sent them off to work in a blacking factory. Even then they’ll use their mother’s money to buy you that tie you wanted so badly (again). For this reason you should expect to receive abstract art for many successive Christmases, and by this I mean one hundred popsicle sticks adhered together with two whole bottles of Elmer’s glue, which is probably still wet enough to ruin that new tie you wanted. You have to pretend to love popsicle sticks, however, or you will emotionally scar your offspring and eventually end up being spoon-fed by a male nurse. Usually this gob of skinny tongue depressors tries very badly to be a house, and you must promptly make it the centerpiece in your bedroom, out of fear that guests might see it on the coffee table and pass out from the glue fumes.

Another type of gift your children might give you is one you paid for yourself. I’m talking about the googly-eyed construction-paper Santas with cotton-ball beards your children will whip out of their backpacks after a productive day in Mrs. Scola’s art class. A portion of your tax dollars goes to the schools, and a smaller portion of that money buys arts and crafts supplies. Therefore, you’ve paid for your own artwork. Luckily, gifts like these, because of their seasonal nature, can be stored deep within your basement, far from the light of day, for eleven and a half months.

Santa, as some claim, is an invention of the Coca-Cola company commissioned to artist Haddon Sundblum in 1931. According to this page, people thought of Santa as somewhere between a leprechaun, a gnome, and a bishop before coming to worship the man in red and white (Coke’s corporate colors). But it seems Coke merely gave him a human image, and was not responsible for his conception. Others say that Santa is actually Jesus in disguise, which explains why the Second Coming has been taking so long, but I have absolutely no evidence of this and may have just made it up on the spot.

Regardless, it is extremely important that your children continue to believe in Santa Claus for as long as humanly possible. Here’s why: say, for whatever reason, your children don’t find the Hot Item of the Year under the tree on Christmas morning. Perhaps it was too expensive, or maybe you weren’t willing to kill somebody to obtain it. But if you can avoid the blame, you can also avoid more dangerous situations. Observe what happens in the following scenarios:

• Children believe in Santa. “Looks like Santa didn’t bring it. Maybe next year.” You’re off the hook!
• Children do not believe in Santa. They put you in a “home” and visit you once a year. In July.
• Children do not believe in Santa but you do. They put you in a “home” and their mother buys them the Hot Item of the Year. They are forced into counseling sessions.

So how can you, in a world of evidence pointing to Santa’s nonexistence, keep your children hopeful? Well, there are a few preventive measures you can take each year. For example, you should pre-screen mall Santas by inspecting their beards, making sure no strings or elastic cords show, before you take your children to visit. And never take them to see more than one Santa a year! Doing so leads to a very delicate situation, to which the only known remedy is this: “He’s just Santa’s helper.” Furthermore, make sure the mall Santa is not black or Asian or Eskimo, or unnaturally skinny or short.

Most importantly, label two-thirds of the presents “from Santa” in a foreign, whimsical handwriting. Don’t let your children see you doing this, and after they are asleep in their rooms on Christmas Eve, block them in with large pieces of furniture while you sneak the presents under the tree. You can remove the furniture around 11:00 a.m. Christmas morning, which is the ideal waking time.

FUN FACT! Did you know that Christmas is actually Jesus’s birthday? Imagine that!

On Christmas Eve, it is traditional to leave milk and cookies for Santa by the fireplace. If you don’t have a fireplace, you should go out and get one because it is Santa’s only way in. Optionally you can leave carrots for his eight reindeer too. Then, by taking bites and leaving the rest, you’re proving Santa’s existence! He couldn’t possibly eat everyone’s cookies and drink everyone’s milk, but he’s nice enough to sample.

Finally, if you find yourself driving somewhere on Christmas Eve with your children, pretend you saw a shooting star and tell them it was Santa’s sleigh. If they don’t believe you, turn the car around immediately.

Beware! Once kids latch onto the truth, there is no return to innocence. Santa cannot be resurrected, as hard as you may try. Oh, you may dress up like him and make a scene of dropping down the chimney on Christmas Eve, ultimately getting stuck, or you may attempt to pay your children to believe, but no method will prevail.

So, on that cheery note: come back next Sunday for Part Five of this eight-part series, in which I finally discuss how to build a snowman.