Under the Myth-el-toe

There are some beliefs you embrace in your life that just take all kinds of work before you un-believe them. I had particular problems with Santa Claus.

A lot of my early life was spent growing up in an apartment in Manhattan. We lived on the second floor. Every Christmas Eve, after supposedly going to bed, I would open my bedroom window (letting in the cold air in the dead of winter) twist my neck around, and look up in the sky to see if there were a sleigh, reindeer, etc. Yes, I did worry about the logistical difficulties of how Santa was going to noiselessly deliver the toys, especially when there were nine floors of apartments above.

I didn’t usually get what I wanted for Christmas – not because we were especially poor or I had mean parents – it’s just that I wanted impossible things most of the time.

There was not nearly as much trouble un-believing in the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy – the latter in particular. When I was in bed but still awake, a family member would walk into the bedroom and slip a quarter under the pillow. If an older brother did this, he sometimes didn’t take care to tiptoe or consider how gently to shove the pillow aside to deposit the quarter, but I feigned sleep anyway. (What’s the fairy ponying up these days, $5?)

But Santa Claus – that was a tough one. I was at a rather advanced age (I won’t admit to the number here) before the breaking news was given to me about his reality. I did not take it well. I think most precious but erroneous beliefs are like that. We have to go through a mourning period when they die, just as we do when a real person close to us passes.

Yes, reality does indeed bite! But it occurs to me that those discarded fantasies leave their traces behind, and they will always be a part of us, evolving as we age, often materializing in forms other than the ones we outlined. Some of our dreams will actually come true, when the time is right. I think when all is said and done, Santa figures out how to deliver the goods.

Skin in the Game

We’ve been having a lot of fun – at least I think it’s been fun – about Fox anchor Megyn Kelly’s assertion a while ago that Santa Claus was white – kind of like Jesus. I hope the comedians and satirists out there send her thank-you notes for this great holiday gift. Saves paying writers for it.

Let’s start with the hard one first (or is it the easier one?). Scholars have debated this for a long time, but to my mind, there’s a much better-than-even chance that Jesus was Semitic (BTW, a designation that could apply to other Middle Eastern ethnicities besides Jews). Which means he likely had dark, curly hair and olive skin. Fine. Many classical artists, on the other hand, have depicted him as white. Why? I don’t think they were making political statements – more likely, that’s what they were surrounded by and were used to. It seems doubtful, given the difficulties of travel in his day, that Jesus would have been either white or black. But he didn’t do selfies, and the Shroud of Turin isn’t going to shed any light on this one, either.

Seems artists have had similar problems with the Virgin Mary. Images of her as a white woman seem to predominate in our culture, but unlike Jesus, she’s apparently been “coming back” over the centuries on a semi-regular basis, and doesn’t always look the same. Hispanics in this hemisphere have depicted her as one of them – based, I suppose, on one of her regional appearances.

Santa? Well, he would seem to be a Northern European invention – snow, reindeer, etc., so the depiction of him as white does not seem to cause too much pain, at least for me. As a young man, he may have even been blond before his beard turned white. But hang on a minute: If Santa Claus is actually based on St. Nicholas, who was a real figure, there might be a problem. St. Nicholas was Greek or Turkish. There’s a good chance, then, that he had olive skin and curly hair as well, right? (And while we’re dealing with popular symbols, is Santa, as commonly depicted, sending the wrong message to kids about obesity? Just wondering…)

Even the reindeer have their secrets. From what I heard yesterday, male reindeer shed their antlers in the winter, while females, who also grow them, hang onto theirs until after they give birth in the spring – meaning all of Santa’s reindeer, according to the depictions of the season, have to be girls. So what does that make Rudolph? A “transgen-deer”?

I think the Muslims may have a point. They forbid depictions of Allah. No white guy with a beard sitting on a cloud hurling lightning bolts at them. This has allowed those of that faith to move on to other issues. Shouldn’t we?