The death of Santa.

We are slowly being surrounded by Santa. It's the last day of November, so we've been allowed to say the c-word for a month now, and it has crept closer every day, just as its domination seems to begin earlier every year, with the opening of the Christmas shops in August or, obscenely, July, the booking of Christmas 'experiences' selling out in minutes in early September. So with this comes Santa, the jolly, red-clothed, cocaine-laced-beverage-invented image, with his magical sleigh and magical reindeer and most of all his magical ability to deliver real-life toys into the real-life homes of real-life children around the world every Christmas Eve. Santa's ubiquity is so all encompassing in Ireland that many people don't seem to register that he is a religious figure, full name Saint Nicholas, inextricably associated with a religious festival that celebrates the birth of a really quite significant religious figure, one Jesus Christ, it's right there in the name of the 25th December festivities, it's hard to miss, yet so many people do. Just this week during a discussion of diversity and inclusion in relation to a christmas-themed event, a very sensible and kind person stated that christmas was just a part of Irish culture, so it couldn't not be inclusive, and Christmas certainly wasn't Christian, so what was the problem? Particularly with Santa. There are not just one but several statues of Santa in my child's montessori school, the man himself will be making a visit there in a couple of weeks, or at least a human man dressed in a Santa costume will be there in really-real life and give really-real presents, the under fives are all learning songs about Santa and the aforementioned reindeer or chimney-based shenanigans, drawing pictures of him, writing letters to him that don't require stamps. SANTA ISN'T REAL. But already, whether the children are Christian or not, whether they wish to or not, whatever they're being told at home, they are being told that this is a real person, a real but magical person, who magically delivers real presents and says ho ho ho a great deal. And the entire society is colluding in this lie, a delightful lie in many ways, but a lie, an elaborate fiction, a collective fantasy, but one that has many very tangible, concrete and abundant subtantiations in real life. And everyone is in on it. And what do the children make of this? And later, what do the adults? Because at some point, earlier or later, as young child shouting the truth to their blindly gullible peers, or older child clinging to their belief in the face of incontrovertible evidence and plain facts imparted to them by multiple authorities, at some point, the child realises that Santa isn't real. And this week I found myself wondering, what does this do to them? It's often said that one part of the problematic fallout of realising that Santa isn't real is realising that your parents, and many other trusted adults, have been lying to you. And thus, there is a sense of betrayal. And a wondering about what else they might be lying about (Capitalism? Love? Equality?), what else society says is great and true, if it's not true, might not be so great either? But that betrayal, that unsettling distrust, is not what was concerning me this week. I was thinking instead of the death of Santa. The loss of Santa. The terrible, irrevocable ending of Santa when you realise, when you _know_ that Santa is not real. Because Santa seems mainly great. Awesome. Amazing. He brings presents! He rides around in a flying sleigh powered by reindeer, one of whom has a glowing red nose! He gets presents to every child on Earth in one night! He likes biscuits! All of it. Santa is wonderful, generally. There are no doubt some rougher edges and more dubious elements and certain dimensions that would not stand up to serious scrutiny, but overall, to a young child deep in the Santa-lie, Santa is mostly wonderful. And then he's gone. Then, at some point, still probably as quite a young child, Santa is no more. You probably first suspect, then realise, then really know that he doesn't exist. But he was real for you before. And now he's gone. And that is a terrible loss. That is an awful absence of something wonderful. That is a sorrow. That is grief. That is a death. The death of Santa. Because when you had someone in your life, whose presence was actively felt, who you could meet and talk to and write to, who other people also knew, who brought you gifts, whose picture was everywhere, who had songs and films and poems written about him, who was entirely a real presence in your life, and then that person is not there any more, they are permanently gone, they are forever absent, then that is a death. This is the death of Santa that millions of people experience every year and perhaps billions of people are living with this loss from their own childhoods. And this loss is not acknowledged. It's not even seen as a loss. When it is profound. Someone, something good has been taken away. Then later perhaps you feel that he never existed. Which is even worse, which is discrediting the magic and positive experiences you had as a child, your belief, your reality. Which leaves you grieving the loss of a person you're now being told didn't ever exist and therefore your loss and grief do not exist either. And I think this is happening for a lot of people. This is happening for a lot of children. And it is very confusing and distressing. It is not a reason to get rid of the concept of Santa or to decide not to pretend to children that he is real or any of the many other positions in regards to this that could be taken, that provide a magical and wonderful experience for many children. I just thought suddenly this week that it is the death of Santa that is painful and confusing and terribly sad. That is a grief. That is a real loss of an unreal person and all they meant to you. And this loss is echoed in other losses, of very real people, that you may experience later, and of other things, ideas, hopes, places, anything. But mainly, there is a real loss here in the death of Santa. It is real grief. And I think that is not acknowledged, not understood, and not soothed. We need to think carefully about how we give Santa to our children, and how we will take him away. How we will give the joy, and how we will honour the grief. We need to be jolly careful how we let Santa into our lives and especially our children's lives, knowing that he does not exist, that his death is intrinsic to his creation. Because it hurts. Santa isn't real. But the pain of losing him is. Let's be a little careful how we bring him to life and have him die. Joy, magic, gifts, collusion, lies, confusion, loss, grief, complexity, inexpressibility, societal dysfunction and societal celebration, community and isolation, life and death, reality and unreality. It's all very Christmassy. Ho ho ho to one and all.