Saturday Ramble- I never believed in Santa Claus. (Not actually a Christmas post.)

So I woke up about fifteen minutes ago with this idea for a ramble, so, why not. Yeah, it's a bit early to talk about Christmas stuff, but years of writing has taught me to act on inspiration when it hits, not when it's convenient, and so here we go.

I never believed in Santa Claus as a kid.

This wasn't due to higher thinking or anything like that. My parents just never really brought him up. Every year, when I would open my presents, I would know that they were from my parents, or my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

When I went to school I slowly became aware that other kids got their gifts from Santa, at least, according to them. I think I remember asking my Mom about it, and she simply shrugged and said she didn't know who got them their presents, just who got my brother and I ours. It was a pretty neat idea on their part, a way to raise me the way they wanted without spoiling anyone else's gameplan, either.

Only once in my life was a gift under my tree labeled "From Santa," a VCR for the family (our first) and labeled as such only because my parents didn't really want to set the precedent of self gift buying at the holidays. By that time, I was old enough to know have put the "truth" of Santa together, and got the point.

Mom always said that the reasons behind this were twofold. A) She didn't want some guy in a suit getting credit for the gifts she got for me, and B) She didn't want me to learn the truth and feel betrayed that she had lied to me.

Now here I am, years later, blogging about faith on the internet. Anyone who talks faith on the internet has had the Santa Claus comparison made in their presence at least once, and what inspired me to write this in the wee hours was some thinking I did about that. I never had the Santa/God analogue.

In pop culture, the moment when a kid stops believing in Santa Claus is seen as a time of abrupt maturity, a loss of innocence that parents will go to extravagant lengths to delay. To this day, being the one who "breaks" the truth about Santa to a kid is seen as a cause of shame and yet... and yet I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to cut Santa from his starring role entirely.

Not because he is an idol, or anything you will occasionally hear religious conservatives complain about. Not even necessarily to avoid the uncomfortable parallels between Santa and God as far as existence concerned. (Sure, your parents told you God is real. They said the same about Santa.) It's the morality behind Santa that worries me.

When I received presents, I knew they were from my parents, or other friends and family. I also knew that I had received those gifts because they loved me. I NEVER saw them as a reward for good behavior, dependent on my placement on the naughty or nice lists.

I sometimes wonder if Santa is part of the reason Prosperity Gospel is so popular. I mean, here we have a myth that transcends religion about a jolly figure giving good toys to those who deserve them. It's not a big leap from their to figure that the kids who got the nicest toys were better than those who got toys less nice, and of course then imagine the kids who never got any at all!

I knew when I asked for a Nintendo, and didn't get one, that it was because we couldn't afford one. That's not to say I was HAPPY about this state of affairs, but I never felt as if it's lack was a punishment, or a judgement on my character. Several of my friends had them, and it was clear to see the difference hadn't just been a matter of behavior. No offense, Josh or Mark, but you were kings of the naughty list.

But what if I hadn't had that distinction? What if I had believed in Santa Claus? What if I thought all gifts had the same genesis, brought by a jolly old elf who weighed who got what based on (hopefully) what you wanted, combined with how good you were? What if that kind of morality judgement was trained in me early on? How different would I be now?

Now, don't take this as too alarmist. Plenty of kids grow up believing in Santa and manage to come out of the experience without becoming proponents of prosperity gospel. But still, I wonder. Especially when inspiration strikes me in the middle of the night.

I wonder if some of the difficulty we have these days with Prosperity Gospel has it's roots in seemingly innocuous childhood tradition, and if the Joel Osteen's of the world don't get their start by weighing who is "naughty" or "nice" based on who received the nicest toys. What if some of our attitudes towards the poor come from our understanding of Santa Clause, namely that people, by definition, receive what they deserved to have?