Last week in England, a vicar told a group of Grade 6 pupils that Santa Claus isn’t real.
He then told them their parents ate the biscuits the kids left out for Father Christmas. Many of them burst into tears and their parents complained that the Reverend Dr Paul Chamberlain had ruined their families’ Christmas.
The Anglican Diocese of Portsmouth then apologized on Chamberlain’s behalf, saying: “Paul has accepted that this was an error of judgement, and he should not have done so. He apologized unreservedly to the school, to the parents and to the children, and the headteacher immediately wrote to all parents to explain this.”
So if you believe this tale is an example of coddled kids and organizations terrified of giving offence, raise your right hand. If you feel that it was a bit much of the good Vicar to tell the kids “the truth” about Santa Claus, but we all have to grow up sometime, and better to learn this life lesson from someone in authority than the drug dealer down the street, raise your left hand.
It’s easy to think this is a test of your wokeness. Do you live in a world where being complicit in creating even the slightest feeling of victimhood in others is a constant fear that comes with dreadful consequences? Or do you live at the other end of the teeter-totter and feel that while everyone preaches resilience, very few people practice it any more. Indeed, grit is popular these days because there’s so little of it.
Christmas is an especially fraught time of the year, whether you’re awoke or asleep.
A few years back, WASPs like me were terrified of wishing someone Merry Christmas for fear that in signalling the coming of my religion’s most important holiday, I would by definition insult the other person’s religion.
Today, I proudly say “Merry Christmas” to people I know aren’t Christian and if they want me to revert to the pablum of “Seasons Greetings”, I won’t take offence. And if someone comes up to me and says: “Happy Hanukkah”, I’m happy to reply, in this most diverse city on earth, “Happy Hanukkah” back. When you live in a city where more of its residents were born outside Canada than in, it’s the least I can do to grease the wheels of civility.
But Christmas reveals a force more powerful than political correctness and the need never to offend – and especially the need to believe that Santa Claus exists.
That force is guilt, and for me it offers a much more credible explanation about why the Vicar’s school kids burst into tears and their parents loudly complained.
When I read that the parents ate the biscuits the kids left out for Santa, my memory shot back to when I was a child in Edmonton.
My father was a florist and always worked late on Christmas Eve, making sure his customers’ flowers got delivered. I would wait up for him, and often fall asleep before he got home. And yet, I’d wake on Christmas morning, and the cookies and milk my mom had put out for Santa would be gone. Just an empty glass and some crumbs.
As a young teen, I quickly fell away from believing in Santa Claus. But still, my parents would put out the cookies and milk on Christmas Eve, and the next morning it would be gone. By 1973 when I was 23 years old, both of my parents had died. Yet every Christmas Eve since, I set out cookies and milk for Santa Claus.
Why?
So that my mom and dad will be safe.
I know, this is all magical thinking. But I don’t care about the facts of this story. I care about the magic of it.
So whatever you believe about Christmas, or however you want to mark your winter holiday, just remember why Santa exists: to make wishes for the briefest of times in one of the darkest of days, real.
Meanwhile…
1. Birth stories rule, especially next week. Paris had a rebirth this year, first with the Olympics, then with Notre Dame. Oh, and here’s a wonderful two-hander version of the Rite of Spring which opened in Paris in 1913 and turned the worlds of dance and music on their heads. And here’s the number of births by the hour according to country. Finally, if I don’t have a chance to say it to you next Wednesday, Happy Birthday Jesus.
2. Death has some dominion. For the death-curious, here’s the number of deaths by the hour according to country. Plus, the leading cause of car deaths is no longer drunk driving. Plus, could AI be the death of stealth submarines?
3. Put on a happy face. If your plan for managing 2025 is to pull the covers over your head, try these first: picture hope on parade; solve your very own empathy crisis; watch a Sainsbury’s Christmas ad; try this if you prefer to eat Chinese on Christmas Day, and remember, changing times change even nativity scenes. But they don’t seem to change debutante balls which still thrive across Europe.
4. Adventure is not in the guidebook. Abu Dhabi is promoting itself as a mega cultural mecca. And speaking of optical illusions, try these closer to home. Plus, Niagara Falls finally gets a 5-star hotel. And if you want the path much less travelled, try this.
5. Could you be a cyber-spy? For the ninth year, Britain’s cyber intelligence agency, GCHQ, offers a Christmas puzzle for the nation’s school kids to solve. Said GCHQ Director Anne Keast-Butler: “The challenge has been designed for a mix of minds to solve, so is best tackled in groups.”
6. Blue Zones take a truth hit. Blue Zones are where people live longer than anywhere else, like Okinawa, Sardinia, Greece and Loma Linda, California. They’ve been spun off into books, a Netflix series, and even a company that certifies towns that boost longevity. But are they for real? It seems not so much.
7. Want to be the only human in your social network? Try the new SocialAI app. All of your followers are bots and you can choose what kind of personalities you want them to have. Fill your AI echo-chamber with supporters, counselors and visionaries who will argue endlessly with skeptics and doomers about every word you post. So if you’re feeling lonely, you can get infinite replies from millions of AI followers.
8. Two documents worth reading. First, Bryan Cranston reads the opening pages of Robert Caro’s magisterial The Power Broker, the 1,344-page indictment of New York City planning commissioner Robert Moses, first published in 1975 and reprinted 74 times since.
Next, the Writers’ Union of Canada’s quarterly magazine is naturally called Write. Back in 2017 when cancel culture was barely a baby, Write’s editor, Hal Niedzviecki, wrote an article entitled “Winning the Appropriation Prize.” It begins: “I don’t believe in cultural appropriation. In my opinion, anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities. I’d go so far as to say that there should even be an award for doing so – the Appropriation Prize for best book by an author who writes about people who aren’t even remotely like her or him.”
The fallout was instant and brutal. As The Globe and Mail reported: “Some people were enraged…TWUC issued an apology, a board member resigned, TWUC’s Equity Task Force issued a list of demands – and Mr. Niedzviecki left his position.” Here are the Task Force’s demands.
So what do these two documents – the book about Robert Moses and the demands of the Task Force – have in common?
9. If you’re reading this on Saturday…welcome to the shortest day of the year. From now until June 21st, every day will be a bit brighter. Here’s what the Winter Solstice means for the six billion of us living in the northern hemisphere.
10. What I’m liking. Every Valley, the story of George Frederic Handel and the creation of the Messiah and the times that enveloped them. Simon Sebag Montefiore hails it as: “A delicious history of music, power, love, genius, royalty and adventure.” And what better time to read all about “the desperate lives and troubles times that made Handel’s Messiah?” And yes, he wrote the 260-page oratorio in just 24 days.