http://satansrapture.com/damage.htm
OK. This is probably an extreme view, but it was the first thing google gave me when I typed the above subject. I’ve thought about this a lot lately as my child of 8 years old awaits Santa’s coming this year. Some of it makes a little sense, even when you remove the whole God thing from it. You are lying, constantly, to your child. Is this so bad?
Why would anyone lie about Santa by pretending that he even exists?
Bah. Santa’s magic! The disenchantment comes too soon, and spreads too deep and far. Only a killjoy would nip it in the bud.
I’m absolutely tickled that my elder daughter’s now two and a half and REALLY excited that Santa’s coming.
The difference between sacred time – feast days and whatnot – and merely moving through one damned day after another is the difference between living and surviving. Having been here so long, forgetting most of my holidays most years, and not really appreciating the wife’s holidays, it’s really cool to work a bit of magic for the little ones and taste it again, myself.
[quote=“Jaboney”]Bah. Santa’s magic! The disenchantment comes too soon, and spreads too deep and far. Only a killjoy would nip it in the bud.
I’m absolutely tickled that my elder daughter’s now two and a half and REALLY excited that Santa’s coming.
The difference between sacred time – feast days and whatnot – and meexit moving through one damned day after another is the difference between living and surviving. Having been here so long, forgetting most of my holidays most years, and not really appreciating the wife’s holidays, it’s really cool to work a bit of magic for the little ones and taste it again, myself.[/quote]
Sometime I wish that I could recommend the same post twice.
Maybe I let this get to me…
[quote]"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
"VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
“115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.”
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.[/quote]
[quote=“jimipresley”][quote=“Jaboney”]Bah. Santa’s magic! The disenchantment comes too soon, and spreads too deep and far. Only a killjoy would nip it in the bud.
I’m absolutely tickled that my elder daughter’s now two and a half and REALLY excited that Santa’s coming.
The difference between sacred time – feast days and whatnot – and meexit moving through one damned day after another is the difference between living and surviving. Having been here so long, forgetting most of my holidays most years, and not really appreciating the wife’s holidays, it’s really cool to work a bit of magic for the little ones and taste it again, myself.[/quote]
Sometime I wish that I could recommend the same post twice.[/quote]
Yep, he hit the nail on the coffin of cynicism with that one.
But I do feel bad that J-boy has never learned to feel new magic with such an excellent calendar of events here in Taiwan.
Sadly, the only one that resonates with me here is the mid-autumn family bbq.
Maybe they’ll grow on me as they grow into the lives of the girls.
Santa does exist. My dad was Santa. And so shall I be.
A great holiday movie, Hogfather has a really wonderful take on this. I have copied and pasted the conversation between one of the main characters and Death:
Death: Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They’re not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what’s the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren’t true. How else can they become?
[quote=“Jaboney”]Bah. Santa’s magic! The disenchantment comes too soon, and spreads too deep and far. Only a killjoy would nip it in the bud.
I’m absolutely tickled that my elder daughter’s now two and a half and REALLY excited that Santa’s coming.
The difference between sacred time – feast days and whatnot – and merely moving through one damned day after another is the difference between living and surviving. Having been here so long, forgetting most of my holidays most years, and not really appreciating the wife’s holidays, it’s really cool to work a bit of magic for the little ones and taste it again, myself.[/quote]
I well agree with the sentiment about sacred time. However, I do not abide by false idles, such as that of Santa, represent. I’d raise my kids Christ-wise, if I thought it were necessary, as he’s shure as shite a few hairshirts more real than Mr. Claus, at least in the latter’s modern Coca-Cola cartoon rendition.
I’d much prefer me spawn to understand that such festivities comes at hard toil, and that indeed their father/mother parenting unit is all the Father Christmas they will ever need. In that giving brings rewards unto a future perimetre.
Christmas is also about innocent joy on young children’s faces. They don’t really care the myths us adults care to stamp upon the whole array.
As well they shouldn’t!
[quote=“Confuzius”]A great holiday movie, Hogfather has a really wonderful take on this. I have copied and pasted the conversation between one of the main characters and Death:
Death: Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They’re not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
That sounds perfectly dreadful.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what’s the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren’t true. How else can they become? [/quote]