Did you believe in Santa when you were a kid? Do you remember the moment when you found out he wasn’t real?
Maybe your older sister spilled the beans. Maybe you cried, and it ruined your Christmas Day. Perhaps you were angry and told all your school friends the news so they could be angry too.
But maybe if adults had told you about Santa differently, the magic of your belief would have continued.
“This is how I remember it,” says Karen Gummo, founding member and past president of Storytelling Alberta. “There were ancient peoples who lived in the north among the reindeer. They saw that a mushroom with red and white spots grew under fir trees. If humans ate it, they could die, but if the reindeer ate it, it made them leap in the air.” Hearing this story, you can imagine how much these ancient people might have laughed when they saw reindeer jumping in the air.
Or there’s Saint Nicolas, the Turkish bishop who lived in the 4th century. He’s the patron saint of children because he loved giving them gifts. St Nicolas has since become Sinterklaas in Holland and Santa Claus in the English-speaking world. Each culture has added its own details to the story of St Nicolas, but in both cultures, the story of Saint Nick is one of generosity and joy.
Facts Bore, Stories Soar
For Gummo, stories are a type of play. They give both children and adults a chance to get lost in the worlds they create in their imaginations.
But they’re also more than that, she says. “Stories take the chaos of our lives and put it into a pattern.” Stories tell us about how life is.
If we remove the patterns from stories, we end up with a list of facts. People find facts dull. Facts bore people to sleep.
Years ago, Gummo told me, her sister eloped with her boyfriend on a trip to Africa. Her sister knew that her parents would not be happy with the news. Rather than telling them, she planned to show them a picture of the wedding during a slide show she’d put together about their trip. She figured if they saw pictures of it, they’d be okay with it.
“But the family fell asleep before she got to the slide that showed the ceremony,” Gummo says.
On its own, the truth is boring. Stories get a bad rap, though. Many children who discover Santa isn’t real feel like adults have lied to them. And for many children, honesty is a core value.
How Story Saves Truth
Gummo tells me another story.
Truth would often walk in the street with no clothes on. He wanted people to see him for who he was. His nakedness scared people, though, and everyone ran away. So Truth fell into despair.
One day, Truth came upon Story, and Story said to him, “You seem so desolate! What troubles you?”
Truth spilled out his tale. “People don’t like me. Every time they see me, they run away screaming!”
Story replied, “Oh my friend, people don’t like things plain and bare. Dress yourself up, though, and people will start to love you!”
Since then, Truth has found a way to dress itself in the fancy clothes of Story.
“This is How I Imagine It”
The average child loves to play pretend. Children imagine new worlds, languages, and friends. The stories children tell themselves and the stories they love to hear fill the world with magic and wonder.
How can we tell children stories they love while still recognizing that one day, they’ll discover the “truth” of these stories? That these stories aren’t facts; they’re just play? That their truth is not in their facts but in the feelings they create and the values they share?
The story of Santa Claus isn’t, at its heart, about a man who lives at the North Pole. It’s a story about joy and generosity. It’s a story of a man who gives to others without worrying about what he’s getting in return.
Gummo says that when she’s preparing to tell a story, she becomes a detective, researching the tale deeply and trying to get the facts straight.
But when it’s time to tell the story, she has to imagine how it was. She has to add details that may or may not be true, but that make the story sparkle.
And she tells her listeners that this is what she’s doing.
She has a story about her great-grandfather. She says he once found himself in a summer snowstorm and had to kill three sheep and wrap their fleece around his body to keep from dying of hypothermia.
She says, “I always begin the story by saying that I have been dreaming of my great-grandfather. Or I end it by saying, if that story isn’t true, it should be.”
The Real Meaning of Santa
Stories help children make sense of the world. A good story teaches children values, about their emotions, and about their place in the world.
A good storyteller tells children their story is just that—a story. A good storyteller invites children to imagine themselves in the story. Rather than focusing on the facts, a good storyteller asks children to think about the story’s meaning in their own lives.
So go ahead. When you tell your kids or grandkids about Santa, invite them to imagine the story’s details. Then ask them how the story makes them feel. Ask them how they see traces of Santa in their lives, even when it’s not Christmas time. Ask them, “Even if Santa didn’t live at the North Pole, how would you see him in your life?”
And don’t worry about them finding out that Santa isn’t real. That was never the point of the story, anyway. Go ahead, we hope you come up with your own stories that give your kids rich and magical feelings about the season.
