The implications of this are not lost on the business community. If you take little Tommy to see Santa at Jordan's, the cost for one print is $2.34. But naturally, grandma will want one, and so will Aunt Sally, so you buy the package of three for $5.50. And acting as Santa Claus, a parent must buy extra presents, and that means more profits for someone. Then you have your Santa Claus dolls, your Santa Claus outfits, and your Santa Claus statues for your front yard in Shaker Heights.
Even the Encyclopedia Americana recognizes the horror of it all. "The American Santa Claus is a corruption of the Dutch Sant Nikolaas," it says. In Europe, St. Nick-fraud though he may be-rides a white donkey or a grey horse, while in America he uses a bunch of reindeer and flies through the air. In Italy, the children wait for la Bafena, a female who must be at least partially liberated.
Furthermore, while American children sleep away on their six-inch mattresses and visions of G.I. Joe Sub-machine Guns dance through their head, kids in Slavic countries some-times sleep on beds of straw and hay on Christmas Eve so that they may share in Christ's humble birth.
Don't think this isn't hard for me to accept. Santa and I have gone through a lot together, and it's painful now to realize his role in the moral collapse of our society. I was happy and innocent back in my pre-school days when my younger brother and I used to wake up two hours early on Christmas morning to enjoy the anticipation of that romp down the stairs to the living room full of presents. We used to go into our older brother's room to wait and play in our pajamas, the ones with the feet on them.
And what fun I had in our third-grade play at M.K.E.S.-Mt. Kisco Elementary School-when I got to play Santa himself in all his red, pillow-stuffed splendor. Hadn't that been the height of my academic career? How can I dump on him now?
I also remember, however, the day I came home crying because fourth-grade classmate Randy Albright had told me there was no Santa Claus. He tried to be logical and endeavored to strain the credibility of it all. Randy argued that chimneys and omnipresence and other things that I answered to, but not very well. Then a week later, my father sat down with me and explained to me that there was indeed no Santa. It had just been a game. That Christmas Eve I took my first sleeping pill. I didn't bother pecking out the window before getting in bed to see if the sleigh were flying through the air. And I just put the potholders on my mother's rack after I finished them. My childhood had been torn asunder.
It was a long transition, and now I've experienced the harmful aftereffects. So I was encouraged some-what yesterday at Jordan's when some six-year-old flatly refused to go up and sit in Santa's lap. The thing about department store Santas is that they take this reluctance as an affront to their personal appeal. So this Santa engaged the boy in a little heckling. "I think you're scared," he told him.
"I'm not scared," he retaliated. "I just don't want to see you."
"Aw, you must be scared." Santa countered. He was determined not to be put down.
"No, really. I'm not scared. I just don't want to talk to you," the boy asserted. Exit the six-year-old and one mother, embarrassed.
It wasn't the only defeat for this particular Santa. A number of younger children found him too threatening and preferred to cry on Mommy's shoulder. So maybe there is hope. Maybe these young ones recognize the risk of placing one's faith in Santa.
All I know is that we must put an end to it. Imagine Dick Nixon playing Santa for his daughters many years ago. Doesn't that do anything for you? Do you still want to have a Santa in Christmas? What means more to you, Santa or America?