~*~

It might seem strange to write an explanation of a truth that most Americans hold self-evident.

We buy Christmas presents because that’s just what we do on Christmas.

It’s fun. And Americans love fun. We especially love fun that must be purchased. So once a year we host a holiday in which we are all expected to buy each other things just for fun.

There a million reasons to subject this practice to serious critical analysis and call our consumer Christmas culture into question.

But I don’t.

I love it.

I love every gaudy minute of it.

I love receiving things I would never buy for myself, and I love tearing through shiny silver and blue paper to get at them. Love it.

But I love giving things more. I love picking out the perfect thing. I love wrapping it in shiny red and green paper and sticking a pretty bow on top. I love sliding it under the tree and teasing the recipient about what it could be. I love the anticipation of watching them open it.

When Alex and I have children, I will ruin them with my own love for giving them things, just as our mothers and fathers ruined us with theirs. And I won’t feel bad about it one bit because it was fun. Gloriously, ridiculously, mysteriously fun.

And I think we turned out okay in spite of our spoiling. When the acquisition of nice things isn’t part of your daily routine, I don’t see the harm in piling them on once every year. It’s fun. And sometimes that’s the only excuse something needs to exist. (See the platypus.)

As an intellectual blogger there is a pressure to fill up all these empty blogging time slots with cultural critiques about consumer Christmas, but as a werewolf there is a desire to not worry about what it all means and just enjoy it, just revel in the sensual pleasures of the whole thing. The lights. The smells. The tastes. The silky smooth gift wrap shredded by my ripping claws. It’s fun. It’s magical.

Last year I couldn’t buy anybody presents. Not my girlfriend. Not my parents. Not my dogs. I was miserable. I hid behind being a minimalist and told people not to buy me gifts. But I wanted gifts and I wanted to give gifts. I was just too poor.

I’m still poor, but since I currently don’t have to pay rent or buy my own food (thanks, mom! [she's not really reading this. I would die]), I was able to buy gifts for the people I love this year. I’m not craft. And I’m unreliable when it comes to time-promises. So I bought them things. Yes, objects. Why? Because it’s fun. It makes us all happy. To me, that’s a good thing.

Tomorrow night I will open presents without one iota of guilt. I will give presents without one iota of guilt. It will be marvelous. Despite what the culture warriors would have us believe, it is, in fact, possible to spend quality time with people you love and give them awesome presents at the same time.

On Monday morning, we’ll clear away the remnants of paper and ribbons and go back to work. I’ll write scathing essays about consumerism and blah blah blah. It’ll be great. But for the next few days, I will be lost in a blur of magnificent materialistic frenzy. See you on the other side.

Merry Christmas!

 

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“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.” ~ Albert Einstein

~*~

I was that kid.

You know the one.

The one who believed in Santa until people started to worry. The one who knew the hand-writing on the gift tags belonged to his mother, but still refused to let go of the dream.

To be honest, I am still that kid.

My heart still skips a beat when I see a red light crossing the heavens on Christmas Eve. When my niece rolls her eyes and tells me that it’s just an airplane, I roll mine right back and say “You don’t know that.”

And she doesn’t. It is entirely possible that the hoax is not the existence of Santa, but the non-existence. That perhaps Santa functions much like Hogwarts, his workshop hidden behind a magical veil, his elves doling out Confundus Charms convince parents they left those extra gifts out when in reality it actually was the work of a jolly old man who flies around the globe in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, including one with a shiny red nose.

Or perhaps more insidiously, Santa has been captured by the U.S. Government because all those free gifts were a threat to the economy. Now his name and image have been co-opted by the forces of capitalism and plastered with a wink-and-a-nudge to all manner of corporate-manufactured toys and treats. The government doesn’t want Santa’s socialism to put toys in the hands of every child rich or poor. They want parents to feel pressured to do it themselves, to buy all the latest toys and gadgets and possibly even put themselves in debt so their children won’t feel the shame of being forgotten by Santa.

Hmm. I’ll think I’ll write a story about that. (Or will it be a chilling expose?)

The point is we can’t really prove that Santa doesn’t exist. For every rational explanation, there is an equal and opposite magical explanation.

Scientific truth is finite; there is always a chance that a theory will be proven wrong one day, that in 500 years someone will discover something that turns all of our existing ideas on their heads.

Magical truth is infinite. There is no way to prove it wrong. Because it’s magic. And of course, it won’t work for you if your heart isn’t in the right place. If you don’t believe reindeer can fly, how will your eyes ever be open enough to see them?

Because I am an atheist, I am often expected to be a man of reason. But the only thing I can think of more horrifying than being a man of absolute religious faith is being a man of absolute scientific reason. To deny the existence of wondrous things just because I have never read a peer-reviewed article proving their existence – I shudder at the thought of such a small world.

I once set out to sleep under a full moon to see if I could really turn into a werewolf. (I read that sleeping under a full moon was the best way to become a werewolf without selling your soul to an evil spirit.) Unfortunately, there were so many bugs at our camping spot that we were forced to sleep in our car instead. I did not achieve werewolf transformation. But was it because werewolves don’t exist? Or because I didn’t sleep directly under the moon?

One possible answer is boring. The other opens the door for further exploration and adventure. Which do you think I prefer? To accept that I will never be a real werewolf and content myself with metaphors? Or to find a less insect-infested camping spot next summer and try again?

It is the same with Santa.

Nowadays, people write in to advice columns, begging to know if they should tell their children there is a Santa Clause when they know it is a lie.

The answer is yes. Yes, always. You’re not lying to them. You’re teaching them.

To say that Santa doesn’t exist is boring. The “truth” shuts the door to further inquiry that the “myth” encourages. When a child is allowed to believe in Santa, his imagination grows in leaps and bounds with every question he comes up with: How do reindeer fly? How does Santa get down the chimney? How does he hide the North Pole? There are a million possible answers.

Limiting a child’s education to what we know is true turns children into passive receptacles of other people’s knowledge. Fairy tales turn children into active seekers as they wrestle with their own questions about what is possible and what is not.

And not just children, but adults. You and me. We need fairy tales too.

When we have discovered everything there is to discover about the universe, the human species will cease to exist. There will be nothing left to learn, and so our brains will slowly die of boredom. When every fanciful question is quickly pepper-sprayed into silence by the Truth Police, we will have nowhere to go by backwards. We’ll turn back into monkeys just for the thrill of learning everything all over again.

And so, I believe in reindeer with red noses who can fly faster than the speed of light. I believe there is a jolly old man in a funny red suit who rides in a sleigh behind those reindeer, a sleigh overflowing with children’s presents.

For what do the presents really represent but the same mystery that Santa himself represents?

As adults we frown at the idea that Christmas is all about getting presents, but as children we know that’s not true. It’s about the mystery. It’s about wondering what is beneath the bright paper and shiny bows, and it is about pulling the paper apart ourselves and discovering what is underneath.

Imagine how boring Christmas would be if we just stacked a bunch of unwrapped things in a corner of the living room. The things would still be fun and useful, but it is undeniable that something crucial would be lost if we were not given the chance to wonder first and then discover the truth for ourselves.

This is the joy of Christmas: Mystery and Discovery.

That is the magic.

Let us all work to keep it alive.

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