Santa Chimney Cartoon
This Christmas many children will stay up late enamored with the notion of an oversized magical man flying down their chimney to deliver their most prized gifts. Years later, the let down of such falsehoods set forth by their parents and society will leave the adult children with a sense of disillusionment, betrayal, and perhaps an inferiority complex. Or, maybe they will learn one of the greatest lessons Santa teaches: fantasy is short-lived, violates the human intellect, and is ultimately disappointing. Reality proves to be far more favorable.
What bad can a little lying about reality do? Teaching our children to live in reality while they are young shows them later in life that they don’t need to do drugs, get into meaningless troubles, or get lost in any other kind of false sense of reality. That, sobriety and life as it truly is, has much to be enjoyed without any additives. That the troubles that life brings may be faced with courage and head on. The Santa fantasy may come at such healthy psychologies with a crowbar, masked under a bag of overflowing gifts.
One of Santa’s greatest magical powers is his ability to fit his great belly down a narrow chimney. Here, relative theory, science, or physics is not needed – only faith. Faith in what? Some guy’s poem from 200 years ago. Santa coming down the chimney was made up in a poem by Clement Clarke Moore called “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” We’ve all heard the line. . . “Twas the night before Christmas . . .” Here, is described children awaiting their greatest hopes when Santa comes flashing past the windows like lightning, travelling about by reindeer before descending the chimney with a bag of toys to deliver – full of merriness and delight. Also introduced in this poem are elves. . . which I won’t get started on here.
Santa in a Chimney
We have all heard one of the greatest arguments against santa… that if you move the letters around, S-A-N-T-A spells SATAN! Well, that’s quite clever, although santa in Spanish is actually the word for saint – so perhaps it’s not clever enough. Santa is a derived from an actual saint – Saint Nicholas who was born in Greece around 270 AD. Actually, we know little about him. . . but that through the giving of payments he saved three young girls from a life of prostitution among other works and miracles. He also was the Bishop of Myra and attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. There is also a rumor that he served some time in prison after slapping the heretic Arius for his heresies!
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Sv. Mikulas, Jaroslav Cermak (1831-1878)
Where does such an imagination come from? Well, European paganism of course! European records in 1400’s reveals the mindset of chimney travelers. However, these chimney travelers were witches and occult figures. Such is La Befana – Italy’s Epiphany Witch among many other characters - Zwarte Piet, Belsnickel, Krampus, Pere Fouettard, Ded Moroz, Knecht Ruprecth, Zwarte Piet, Sinterklaas, Befana. From such beginnings of folklore and witchery the Santa as we now know it has been influenced and evolved from Father Christmas . . . and has embedded himself into the hearts and minds of millions of unsuspecting children!
Various Pagan Santa Figures
Let's face it. Santa is not going anywhere. For all of history, Christmas has been personified as demanded by the multitudes. Yet, with all this folklore and fantasy, how can we tell ourselves and our children’s forming minds the true reality of Christmas?
Portrait of Santa TNast 1881
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