As the summer draws to a close and we begin the heavy-footed plod into winter, one beacon of light looms in the middle of the gray, dank tunnel that is the most miserable season of all: Christmas. I don't care if you are Jewish (or really want to be Jewish) or Muslim or atheist, or whatever. Christmas as we celebrate it pretty much has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with finding a reason to eat, drink, get presents, and forget about being depressed when the weather gets shitty. So this message is for all y'all.
If you were once a child, you know how magical Santa Claus is. He is all-seeing, all-knowing, kind of like God but better because he's into positive reinforcement. Santa's all, "You ate your vegetables, didn't hit your sister, and walked the dog? Cool, kid, here's a present." God, on the other hand, is down with negative reinforcement: "You said your prayers, didn't hit your sister, and didn't steal that candy bar even though you really wanted it and totally could have gotten away with it? Cool, kid, if you died right now, you probably wouldn't burn in hell."
If you are an adult who interacts with children, you know you can use Santa's magic to your advantage. From October through December, all you have to say to keep a kid in line is to tell him or her that Santa's elves are watching. I watched this work on all my younger cousins for YEARS, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real magic of Christmas. The power to control children for three months out of the year.
That's not to say that kids don't make out on the deal. Christmas was SO AWESOME when you thought that a fat man driving a team of flying, cloven-hooved ruminants landed on your roof and slipped down your chimney, defying the laws of physics (especially if you had no chimney) to bring you all the stuff your greedy little mind could dream up (or select practically at random from the Toys 'R Us catalog).
So, adults, I'm begging you. Do everything in your power to perpetuate the Santa mythology. Lie to your kids. Don't let them hang out with older kids who will try to do your kids a "favor" by telling them the truth. Lock your kids in the house from October through December if you have to. Don't let them learn the truth until they are AT LEAST 12, when hormones of defiance will outweigh the lure of presents anyway.
Please, just whatever you do, don't do to your children what my father did to me:
It was early November. I was six. I had just gotten over the trauma of spraining my ankle trying to rollerskate down some steps outside at my dad's apartment complex in September. It was fun to start first grade banished to the back of every line because I walked with a limp. I guess my dad had recently moved, because this story takes place in the apartment he lived in after the one from the rollerskating incident.
Anyway, I was spending another miserable weekend at my dad's house. Most of these weekends entailed hanging out with his live-in girlfriend's two bratty, mentally-underdeveloped children, one of whom was older than me but still in kindergarten, while my dad and his girlfriend drank, smoked cigarettes, and did god knows what else. This weekend was no different. I found myself playing a rousing game of hide-and-seek. The younger girl was the seeker, and she was beyond dumb, even for a four year old, so I was pretty blase about finding a good hiding spot. I crawled behind a chair and tried to figure out how many hours remained before I could go home.
The seeker was still struggling to count to ten, because she kept getting tripped up at 'three,' so I had a lot of time to kill. I laid down on the floor behind the chair, too bored to remain seated in an upright position. What I saw under the chair changed my life forever. No, it wasn't my dad's Playboys. They were under a different chair, waiting to ruin my life in other ways on another day. It was a small stack of neatly wrapped Christmas presents. It was only November, and I believed that all presents came from Santa on Christmas Eve, so this discovery created some intense cognitive dissonance. I had to investigate.
I glanced around to make sure no secret elves were watching, and pulled one present towards me. I peeked at the gift tag.
To: Katie
From: Santa
I had couriered enough child support checks from my father to my mother at this point that I recognized my dad's handwriting immediately. WHAT. THE. FUCK. WAS. THAT. SHIT? I was so angry, and so confused. I didn't want to believe what logic demanded that I recognize. Santa was a sham! Christmas was ruined forever! EVERYTHING was ruined forever. Even now, 19 years later, I feel physically ill recounting this trauma.
Needless to say, I bottled this up for the next day or so, and unleashed the tear-filled fury of this betrayal on my mother, because that's just the kind of kid I was. She was beyond pissed at my father's utterly stupid carelessness. But, try as she might to soothe my anger, I had peered into the bucket of truth, and what I saw was horrifying. Nothing my poor mother could say or do could fix that Christmas. Worst of all, she lost the power to control me with threats of elves reporting my bad behavior to Santa. All I can do is apologize for the monster I must have been in those ensuing two months. Mom, I am sorry.
People of the world, do not let this happen to you. Learn from my tragedy. Have a safe, materialistic, lie-filled Christmas. It's the American way.
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