santa, i love you.

Lately I’ve been thinking about magic. Not magic in the sense of bunnies being pulled out of top hats, but the magic that is more of a feeling or a possibility. I think it has something to do with the time of year; Christmas brings a lot of faith, hope and wonderment. And maybe it all comes down to Santa. I think I’m speaking for a lot of us when I say brightly wrapped surprises under the tree were only a fraction of what made us worship Santa. It was the whole myth behind Santa; the jovial old man who owned flying reindeer. He’s a figure who represents warmth and generosity. Admit it. You see a man who looks like Santa walk down the street, and you can’t help but smile (please don’t ask to sit on his lap though, that probably wouldn’t end well. Unless that’s your thing).

Recently, a girl I know was telling me how, at five, her father told her Santa and fairies weren’t real, and she had to stop believing. My own father would not just give me Christmas presents from Santa, but ones from Mrs Claus and Prancer too (and to be honest, he still does). And unrelated to Christmas, the house I lived in as a child faced bushland, and he would run through it each morning, and come back and tell me stories about the purple elephant and pink zebra that lived there.

Of course, as I got older, I realised that a purple elephant probably couldn’t survive in the Australian desert. I also thought it was a little bit strange that only my father could see him. But still having the fantasy of another world that I couldn’t quite tap into was something I loved hearing about, and one I loved imagining. Realising the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus weren’t real wasn’t traumatic. It was more of a process of questioning and suspecting things, testing my parents, and then letting go.People often say their parents told them Santa/fairies/mermaids weren’t real, because they wanted them to be prepared for the “real world”.

This is what I think about the “real world”; it can be fucking scary. Horrific, unpreventable things happen to people just because they took a left instead of a right. People will hurt you, you will hurt people, you will hurt yourself. Life rarely takes you where you think it will, and if it does, there’s often a lot of angst and hard work to get you there. There’s more in life that we can’t control than we care to admit. Everyone figures out the world can be a scary, lonely, twisted place.

So, why deny magic? Isn’t it better to have the memory of the time when you thought the world was full of infinite possibilities; that if you’re a good person only good things will happen to you; that life is always going to be a sundae with cream, butterscotch and cherries on top?

I know growing up believing in Santa, fairies, mermaids, and the purple elephant have made my life better. Even though I’ve (mostly) grown-up and know all of those things don’t exist, I remember how believing in them made me feel. I’m glad my parents encouraged me to think it was possible to have a best-friend who was a mermaid, and I love them for nibbling the raw carrots I left out for the reindeer.

So, this is what I will plead to you: if you have children, and if you are going to have children, please let them enjoy the magic. Your children will figure out the non-existence on their own, so you may as well let them enjoy the fantasy for as long as they can. Because when they grow up, they will remember how warm and fuzzy they felt when they thought they heard Santa sleighing through the sky.

Merry Christmas. Hope Santa is good to y’all.