Santa Gives Me the Creeps!
I have tried to be a good sport at Christmas but I could never get past the whole Santa fascination. I don’t understand why this fat man in a bright red suit should take credit for all the money we spend for gifts at Christmas time. Come on now folks, am I the only one that sees that Santa is trying to steal my thunder? Why should he be praised, revered, respected and feared? HE DOESN’T EVEN EXIST! Why do parents teach their children to believe in this creepy figure? Is he the role model I want my children to emulate? What are his values? Santa doesn’t have any values. If he did, he wouldn’t be telling parents to make their children believe in him. So value number one with Santa is “lie to your children.” Santa would have you string your children along for six or seven years until someone like one of my kids comes along and blows the whistle! Then you’re screwed, because your children just found out that you are a liar! Now, don’t go blaming my kids because you chose to lie to yours. I never taught my kids to believe in the fat man. It wasn’t easy dealing with them either at Christmas time! My daughter Gina used to beg me to just “let her believe in Santa” because if we said we were sorry to him and believed hard enough, he would come to our house and give really nice gifts. She wasn’t satisfied with Hanukkah gelt and dreidel spinning. Little chocolate coins weren’t enough for her and neither was getting one gift each night for eight nights. Over the years, we got a Christmas tree, lights, presents and all the pretty decorations for the house. But I drew the line with Santa. I even allowed Santa figurines and ornaments to be displayed. My daughter Shoshannah used to call Santa “Papa.” I swear it seams to be encoded in a child’s DNA to utter the word “Santa” in November and December. I was a good Jewish mother, baking Christmas cookies, wrapping gifts and getting ready for Hanukkah. I saw no harm in lighting up our house and letting the kids have some fun. Here is a picture from the “good ol’ days” when my two oldest girls were just five and seven years old. Gina is on the left and Hannah is on the right.
Looking at this picture, is it any wonder Gina was asking for Santa to come and bring her some “good gifts?” She cried and begged all the time for Santa to come, yet Santa creeped my kids out too! You should have seen them in the mall. We were shopping, and my kids just looked terrified at the thought of sitting on Santa’s lap. AND HELL NO, I would never have attempted to put them on his lap in the first place! That creeps me out even more.
Value #2 that Santa teaches children…it’s ok to eat milk and cookies all the time day and night. When was the last time you saw Santa sitting down to a nice salad or bowl of fruit?
Value #3 that Santa teaches children…it’s perfectly normal to be shouting “Ho Ho Ho.” What is that, some sort of inside joke? Is he calling children around the world whores? That wouldn’t be too far from the truth though would it! Think about it, what is the job of a hooker? She performs and then she gets paid. Is it any different for children at Christmas time? What do parents around the world say to their kids? “If you aren’t good, Santa isn’t gonna bring you gifts this year! Now stop whining and go clean up your room.” In other words, they put out and then they get paid!
Value #4 that Santa teaches children…get someone else to do your dirty work, and then take all the credit! Is Santa hard at work making toys and wrapping them with loving care? NO, he gets his slaves to do it. Elves do all the work, and he also gets parents to relinquish the joy of giving to their children and saying it was was from Mom and Dad. I wonder how he pulled that one off!
Value #5 that Santa teaches children…it’s ok to be cruel to animals. Did you really think that Rudolf’s nose 
was red because he was “special?” Santa has been abusing Rudolf for a long time and to make matters worse, he didn’t even care when the other reindeer picked on him. Rudolf was so scared of Santa’s rage, that he never told a soul that Santa beat him daily. He just kept telling the other Reindeer that he fell down the stairs.
Value #6 that Santa teaches children…it’s ok to live in isolation out in the middle of no where, shacked up with a woman, a bunch of slaves and some animals. Where is Santa’s family? Does he even have any? A mother or father…maybe some sisters or brothers? How about neigbors? What the hell does Santa do all year long? We know he doesn’t make toys, and he only works once a year, which leads us to…
Value #7 that Santa teaches children…it’s ok to only work one day a year! Wouldn’t it be great if we all only worked one day a year?
I don’t know about you, but I sure am glad that I never allowed Santa to be a role model to my kids. I want my kids to be upstanding members of society not liars, fat gluttons, whores, animal abusers, hermits or lazy assed unemployed people that only work one day during the holiday season just so they can get a discount.
Christmas is coming once again, and what a beautiful time to tell your children what a blessing they are no matter what they do…for good or bad. Children are a joy and they should know that they are loved and appreciated by us as parents. Will children really be missing out on “the magic of Christmas” if there is no Santa? I don’t think so. The wonder of Christmas will still be there for them, and it will be so special because every gift was thoughtfully wrapped by mom and dad.
Babs - beetle on Tue, 23rd Dec 2008 10:47 am
While I know that what you’re saying is mostly true. I grew up believing in Father Christmas, along with all my brothers and sisters. True it was back in the fifties, when things were vastly different. It did us no harm, and it brought a really magical time into our otherwise hard lives.
I knew somebody, who did not have the same upbringing and he, like you, said it was wrong to make your children believe in a lie. Without a doubt, I know who were happier.
Children are somehow made to grow up and face the ‘truth’ of the world all too soon, and miss out on the innocent, magical childhood we had when I was a child.
It did us no harm to stay kids for as long as we wanted to, in fact we were far more academically advanced than many school kids of today are.
I don’t wish to be rude. I just thought I’d mention the other side of the story. You may be interested in reading my post about Christmas day in the 1950’s, when you get a minute :O) There is a link to it in my new post.
Angela on Tue, 23rd Dec 2008 11:11 am
Hi Babs, have a very blessed a magical Christmas.
Babs - beetle on Tue, 23rd Dec 2008 11:20 am
Ha ha ha! I’ll definitely try :O)
John J Savo, the Authoring Auctioneer on Wed, 24th Dec 2008 7:59 am
AMEN!
If I added my own two cents here, I’d only repeat your wonderful analysis of Santa Claus. I couldn’t agree with you more.
(Stumbled.)
Bonnie on Mon, 29th Dec 2008 1:41 pm
ha! you know what’s even weirder? Here in Italy, they tell the kids you have to go to bed by midnight on Christmas eve because if you’re awake after midnight and you see Santa come in, he’ll throw salt in your eyes! How’s that for a stocking stuffer???
Angela on Mon, 29th Dec 2008 1:48 pm
OMG! Bonnie that’s horrible, LOL. I wonder what other Santa traditions around the world would say insane things like that!
Latrece on Mon, 27th Dec 2010 8:09 pm
I second what Bonnie was saying because that’s what I was told while growing up in Texas. And you know how it is when you’re a kid and all excited over something, that it can be difficult to go to sleep, right? Well as a child I would become terrified because I didn’t always make it to sleep before midnight, so I would just lay there with my eyes closed in hopes that Santa would think that I was asleep. And that fear went on for years. But despite the fact of salty eyes, I admit that my Christmases and believing in Santa were some pretty good years, but like that, everything must come to an end at some point. So one year a few days before Christmas my mom, I suppose, had forgotten that she’d put a few gifts in the closet and had sent me to look for something in it. Well I saw all of these gifts in there and my curiousity quickly took over, so I decided to continue my investigative search throughtout the house for more gifts whenever she was busy doing something. Sure enough I found a lot more of them and of course I didn’t mention anything to her. So Christmas came and I was “surprised” and carried on the usual conversations about Santa and what all he brought me. It wasn’t until a few days later that I finally decided to break down and ask her about him, by then she had no choice but to tell me the truth. I wasn’t upset or anything like that with my mom because she was a single parent and any type of help to her whether fake or not, I was grateful for. I just told myself that I when i got older and had children that I wouldn’t do that to them. So they learned at an early age that there wasn’t a fat guy in a red suit to climb down a chimney to bring them gifts because we lived in an apartment, but that I was their Santa and I loved them very much. And still to this day, now that I’ve married, they continue to thank ME AND THEIR DAD for their Christmas gifts. And to top it off, the children they go to school with knows that there’s no Santa as well. I guess it’s time for us to believe in different things now. Thanks Angela for an awesome article! Happy Holidays!