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 This is an "It Just Bugs Me" entry. This area of the wiki is more friendly to the idea of conversation in the article itself, due to the highly subjective content. The regular entry on this topic is in the main wiki.
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- In just about every Christmas movie or special on TV, adults in general refuse to believe in Santa Claus even when he has been established to be real. The issue is that their kids should be receiving presents that neither parent has any memory of buying. Do these parents automatically assume that they have some weird form of Christmas present amnesia even though they never have any similar problems right before birthdays? Besides, surely someone would have noticed Santa flying on his sleigh with his reindeer (he was perfectly visible to the adult narrator in the poem "The Night Before Christmas").
- I like to assume that they're using a slightly more realistic version of Santa who can't deliver presents to everyone on one night because he neither has the time or resources, magic included. Thus, he probably only visits truly needy children and orphanages where his presents are regarded as cutesy anonymous gifts from mundane strangers rather than the miracles they are and only visits a couple of middle-class houses a year with kids that have been extremely well-behaved. With the parents both assuming that the other bought extra presents without telling each other. Actually, this could indeed be what happens in Real Life and we'd never know.
- Bear in mind that Santa (and we all know what that's an anagram of, don't we boys and girls?) doesn't need to cover all of humanity in one night - large numbers of people don't celebrate Christmas and then there are those like the Spanish, who last I heard have gifts delivered on twelfth night by the magi, and the Russians who I think expect some old lady who meant to take gifts to the nativity but stayed home to do housework and missed it. Take the international dateline and the Eastern calendar and you're done.
- Maybe Santa sneaks into the parents' bedroom and implants Fake Memories in their heads so they remember buying the stuff he brought. After all, Santa can do anything, right?
- It was always my interpretation that Santa just doesn't visit the houses where parents do all the shopping themselves. In those cases, his job's already done. But there must be SOME families out there who still believe, and those are the ones he visits. Or, alternatively, he has some sort of "North Pole magic" version of the Xanatos Gambit/Roulette that allows parents to DO the shopping successfully in the first place.
- Another factor might be that the sort of toys Santa's shop is capable of making— mostly wooden horses and the like— are largely out of fashion, and today's children would no longer appreciate them. So the parents, for the most part, do their own shopping, with Santa as an occasional miracle worker.
- Which reminds me, has anyone ever tried to sue Santa for making copyrighted toys? Does Santa own the rights to his likeness?
- The classic Miracle on 34th Street gives an answer. The Santa in that film is (probably) real, but most of his work in that film is impressing on adults that their kids want X and would they please get an X for the kid? And removing obstacles for getting the X.
- My answer would be that when presents appear under the tree, both parents automatically assume it is the other parent who "really" bought it, and any denial by that other parent that he bought it will be seen as said parent playing to the Santa Clause "myth". Obviously, single-parent house holds are a problem with this theory. Further investigation is required.
- Simpler explanation; The reason all those parents have to buy presents is because their kids have not been nice. The coal never arrives because there's no more at the north pole to be dug up. Genuinely nice kids get genuine elf-crafted gifts from the genuine Santa Claus, and both of those children are very grateful.
- Bootom line: Santa Claus is a magical being, and magic doesn't have to answer the laws of physics and logic. That's why it's called "a WIZARD did it". When Harry Potter uses a spell to make something grow or shrink, where does all the extra mass come from/go to? When someone uses the One Ring and turns invisible, how can they still see? How can Wanda Maximoff's words affect genetics? How can Skeletor see if he has no eyes? Magic.
- I've figured it out myself! It's possible that they are using Occam's razor which states that entitites should not be created to simplify a situation. Even if presents did arrive that neither parent had any memory of buying, it might still not make sense to create a Santa Claus to "fill in in the gaps" even if by standard logic it seems there must be a Santa Claus. Note that this is the same logic applied to where the Universe originated from. People don't believe in "God" even if by standard logic there must have been someone to put the first cell on Earth, but this violates Occam's razor which states that entities should not be created to "fill in the gaps".
- Isn't telling your children that a magical saint breaks into your house to deposit gifts the same as lying to their faces?
- ARE YOU SUGGESTING SANTA IS IMAGINARY? You're in deep. VERY deep.
- Yes. What bugs me more is what's the point in the lie? It serves no logical purpose, why would a parent want their child to believe that some magical fat guy they'll never know apparently loves them enough to give them toys for free, thereby taking zero credit? Wouldn't it make more sense to tell little Timmy "Yes, I bought that toy for Christmas because I love you." as oppose to "No Timmy, I didn't buy it. You see there's this fat guy with magical reindeer with elven slaves that made the toy for you, then gave it to you for free, breaking into the house in the middle of the night."? Especially since the latter not only gives no real human any credit, it also promotes mindless faith, which isn't very good.
- Fear. Fear is the gasoline in the automobile of children not revolting and taking over the world, leading to a Logan's run style dystopia.
- Counter-point: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Kids CAN make a sucessful society, but only if the entire world degenerates into a more medieval/aboriginal state.
- Convincing someone that "there is a big beardy man who watches your every move and has the power to reward or punish you depending on how good you are, i.e. how well you obey me," goes a long way in convincing them to do what you tell them. Indeed, this seems to work quite well on a disquieting number of fully-grown adults to whom the idea seems naive if the big beardy man in question is wearing a red suit, but perfectly rational if he is wearing a white robe.
- Why use the fat guy to convince them to be good? Why not just say "Do what I say, or I won't give you any presents," or, "Do as I say, or I'll beat you."
- The question shouldn't be why we tell kids about Santa, but why we no longer tell them about Black Pete. The devil that Santa shackled and forced to help him? The one who would put the bad kids in a sack and beat them?
- I do.
- My best guess is that some adults think that it is a good idea to preserve their children's innocence by convincing them that benevolent magical beings are real. This probably would explain the old statement that "every time a child says he doesn't believe in fairies, a fairy dies." Apparently, this was once more common back in the nineteenth century, when the American version of Santa Claus became part of the holiday tradition.
- Indeed, it's a game. It's part of childhood innocence. Why would someone grab a plastic replica of Batman and have him fight a plastic replica of the Abomination? Why would someone watch a TV show about an alien watch that lets you change shape? What's the "logic" behind tag, hide-and-seek or nerf gun battles?
- Except kids know all those things aren't real. However, many parents want their kids to believe in the lie of Santa to the point where telling their kid the truth is seen as a great offense. There's a difference between a couple games, and an outright lie that many act very hard to keep up.
- Fun game. Lie to kids, and when they find out before you plan them to, they lose any trace of innocence they had before you started. Reeeeal fun. When I was younger, we used to have arguments in the schoolyard over whether Santa was real or not. I always defended him, because my parents would never lie to me, right? Then, in fourth grade, my friend's mom told us the truth, and now I have trust issues!
- In tandem with the above, apparently their pure belief after simply being told something exists is what keeps them innocent. Innocent and gullible, apparently.
- In our family, Santa is taken more as a symbol of the selfless spirit of the season. We still give each other gifts from "Santa" as adults, even though we "know better," as such. Even when I realized that the mystical fat guy didn't really exist, I understood the purpose and never got upset or disillusioned. I think it's a good way of doing things, and besides, it's fun. Lighten up, you cynics!
- Well, if you want to be technical, there was a real Saint Nicholas. But besides that, I always thought it was just folklore, and if folklore isn't taken seriously, I think it's relatively harmless.
- There was a Nicholas, but he was never canonized. He's called "saint" as a folk tradition.
- No, Nicholas is an official saint. His feast day is December 6th. He's also the patron saint of hookers.
- I wanna get a prostitute for Chriiistmas...
- For some, Santa becomes an object lesson. Sadly, one of the things children need to learn is that other people, even authority figures, don't always tell them the truth. Used well, the revelation of Santa Claus can be seen as an object lesson on topics like, say, believing what the government tells you.
- Or believing what TV Tropes tell you?
- The problem is that parent's don't really have a way to make it useful. They can say "We lied to you for years about Santa Claus, but it was for your own good, since as far as we knew you were having fun with it, right?" Which teaches the kids that it's okay if an authority figure lies to them, because it's an authority figure. But "We lied to you for years about Santa Clause, because it gave us a way to control your behavior, and the government will eventually try to do that too, so watch out" just undermines their own reliability, and makes the kid that much more of a mini-anarchist in relation to the parents.
- Because telling them that it's just you that buys the presents from the local mall would take all the magic and mystery out of Christmas. However, kids love to play make-believe, so it does seem a bit drastic to try and convince them that it's actually a fat man in a suit, when it would be kinder and just as efficient to get them to pretend Santa is real for the sake of making it more fun, which they will most likely willingly do.
- I think Terry Pratchett has come up with the best answer. It's practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies (eg Santa) so that you can belive the bigger ones like justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
- Cynical much? The only place justice, mercy and duty are lies is Africa.
- 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?
- That's it make Death a certified troper!
- This Troper would like to pint out that the troper between the two P Terry reference pretty much walked into that one.
- Evidently very few of the tropers who have commented so far actually have any children. Telling blatant, fantastical, ridiculous lies to your kid is one of the greatest things about being a parent. I'll always remember the day my little girl asked me what hay bales were and I told her they were elephant cocoons.
- I like to think it's a way of growing up. By stating that Santa exists and finding out that he doesn't, kids are taught to be more mature and not believe in silly things anymore and accept the world for what it really is. Besides, I've never heard any thing that terrible arising from someone finding out Santa wasn't real. By this point, it's simply become tradition. Or it's a way to ensure that we'll act good in our youth.
- I don't know about everyone else, but This Troper's parents taught us the concept, but then only used him as a threat to get us to bed on Christmas Eve. Everything else was done by the kids themselves.
- Where the hell is that train set I asked for? I've been good!
- Did anybody have parents who told them about Santa and then, when Christmas rolled around, didn't get them anything from "Santa"? You know, the kids wake up, go downstairs and there's nothing there. Mom & Dad arrive and say, "What? Santa didn't bring you anything? What did you do?"
- That's why I always behaved uncharacteristically well in December...
- Granted, this isn't directly about Santa, but it's still a holiday legend. How does the Easter Bunny get all those eggs?
- Santa has Elven Slaves, the Bunny has Chicken Slaves.
- Genetically engineered, chocolate chicken slaves. Which actually raises some interesting questions; if a chocolate rooster gets in with the chocolate hens, could you crack open an Easter egg to find a tiny chocolate embryo...?
- The Easter Rabbit is actually the first creature who saw Jesus after he rised from the grave (that's why he's the EASTER Rabbit). Ergo, he gets the eggs from God/Jesus.
- Quite a fun thing to point out to small children is the fact that all rabbits do indeed produce small, round, brown objects...
- Man, he BREAKS INTO YOUR HOUSE and leaves things there! Futurama has the right idea, why the hell should we welcome someone who BREAKS INTO YOUR HOUSE. Maybe I was just a paranoid kid (and Santa depictions always reminded me of my German grandfather who scared the hell out of me) but isn't that just a bit frightening? Why do we continue to tell this story to kids?
- Because he brings you free shit. (If you're bad, that is.)
- Your example is very questionable. Remember that in Futurama, their santa was a robot that killed people.
- In The Santa Clause, what the Hell happened to the old Santa's Mrs. Claus? The second film clearly established that every Santa needs one, but she's never mentioned. Speaking of which, why is no one really mad at Scott for killing Santa?
- I was under the impression he didn't die, but simply teleported away as falling off the roof ends his contract. Before you say falling off a roof is probably fatal, keep in mind he's magical. Also, look at the nonchalant way he waves as he disappears.
- In the contract, it says that Santa remains Santa until unable to perform the duties, so this is plausible. If he simply, like, broke his leg, then he'd be unable to continue, but wouldn't die, either.
- Why can't you G-rated morons let Disney be Darker and Edgier? A Disney movie where Santa dies is AWESOME.
- As for Mrs. Claus, I would think she went back with the old Santa and went back to a normal life, or to preserve the secret of Santa, they both got memory wipes. Either that, or he simply didn't have one yet. Scott got along fine for several years without a wife, maybe that old Santa hadn't hit the time limit where he has to rush and get a wife yet.
- Then that just raises the question of what happened to that Santa's predecessor's Mrs. Claus.
- In the third movie, it is shown that a Santa released from his contract is sent back to his life just before putting on the suit, usually with a memory wipe.
- What does the post office do with all that mail to Santa?
- If Miracle On 34th Street is to be believed, they keep it in a big room somewhere. Most likely, however, they recycle the paper it was printed on.
- I'm pretty sure that was just the dead letters department. Post offices have one to keep letters that can't be delivered. In between all those letters to Santa were probably a hundred or more letters that just happened to have bad addresses or insufficient postage and no return address.
- There is a program where ordinary citizens can fulfill letters to Santa as a charitable holiday act.
- They're sent to his address at 5400 Mail Trail, Fairbanks, AK 99709-9998.
- What are you talking about? Santa lives in Finland, not America.
-I think it depends on the country and the postal area you live in Canada they have a special postal code for him and occasionally you'll get a reply (I'm creeped out now, some one answered my letter with a bald faced lie and got paid for it)
- H0H 0H0, right? But wouldn't that be somewhere in eastern Quebec, though, not the Arctic territories?
- Though I'm all for the idea of having your children believe in Santa Claus, isn't the simple IDEA of what he does/is kind of creepy? An old fat man watches you every minute of everyday of every year. Then breaks into your house and gives you presents. Exactly what does he DO while he's watching you?
- He makes a list, checks it twice, making sure who's naughty and who's nice.
- Why do people who tell their kids about Santa think that everyone else has to go along with it? It's one thing if parents want to lie to their kids, but they shouldn't expect other people to do the same. My neighbor's kid once walked up to me and asked if he was real; I said "No." His parents got mad at me for saying that instead of assuring him that he's real. I'm not going to ignore my principles just because somebody wants me to.
- Um, because disrespecting the beliefs and wishes of others is rude maybe? Imagine if one of your neighbors told your kid that your religious beliefs were wrong and you were going to burn in Hell for it. Would you be okay with that? I doubt it. Not to mention that kids tend to get emotionally invested in the Santa myth. Sending your neighbor's child home in tears for no good reason is downright dickish.
- Parents who tell their kids Santa exists don't believe he exists. Conversely, parents who tell their kids God exists and those that tell their kids god doesn't exist believe he exists, or doesn't exist respectively.
- And that makes it less rude...how exactly?
- I wouldn't say it's less rude, just that anyone who knowingly lies to their children shouldn't expect other people to just go along with it, and thus comparing telling children Santa doesn't exist with telling them their parents' religion (or lack thereof) is wrong, doesn't make sense.
- Why? Why does it not make sense? Set aside for a moment the question of whether those beliefs are true or not and ask yourself whether it's respectful to go around telling children that something they deeply believe in is a lie. It doesn't matter whether the parents believe it, the point is that the CHILD believes it, and going around telling children that their deepest and most emotionally important beliefs are false is, as I said, downright dickish. And really, what exactly are you accomplishing by stubbornly refusing to go along with the Santa myth? Do you get some kind of sick satisfaction out of making small children cry? Is it really so much of an imposition for you to play along when a child asks you if Santa exists?
- I'm not sadistic; lying is against my religion. Me refusing to lie is no more dickish than a Muslim refusing to eat pork or a Jehovah's Witness refusing a blood transfusion.
- This has always got to me. Kids stop beleiving in Santa usually when their parents tell them he's not real. In Santa movies, the adults don't beleive, but if Santa was real (as it always turns out he is), who told them otherwise?
- The same person who told atheists God doesn't exist. (Or if you prefer, the same person who told people of faith that God does exist.)
- Where do the elves get the raw resources to make the presents considering that they live on in ice sheet over the Arctic Ocean and are about 707 km from the nearest actual land? This one has bugged me since I was nine.
- A Wizard Did It. Santa has flying reindeer, and can visit every single Christmas-celebrating dwelling on Earth in about 24 hours, and carries all those toys in a single bag. The work the elves do is probably simply magicking the presents into existence.
- I have been nagging on this for a long time. Imagine there is a MASSIVE group of children with their parents all enjoying the lie of the Santa, when suddenly someone comes in, megaphone in hand, yelling: "SANTA CLAUS IS A LIE, YOUR PARENTS BUY YOUR PRESENTS" over and over. Children would start crying and pestering their parents, inquiring if this was true, and parents would most surely lynch the bastard in front of their children, to make them stop crying. If this happened and that person died, would the news report for the next day specify the true cause of death, saying that Santa does not exist? If they did, thousands of children watching TV would suddenly learn the truth. If they didn't, news coverage of the murder would suck ass and would expose the flaws in the media. Mental jack-off, yeah.
- If I had to decide, I'd say "Cause of death: Being a dick."
- Okay, Santa in Rudolph... what was up with him? "Donner, you should be ashamed of yourself!" Just WHAT?
- To be more specific, this is the guy who wanted to cancel Christmas due to a snowstorm. Not just skip his party, but CANCEL the WHOLE RUTTIN' DAY! He shrugged off the elves laboriously rehearsed song, mocked Rudolph, implied Donner should have killed the poor kid upon birth, and I'm sure he banished the misfit toys himself!
- So is Mrs. Claus first name Martha, or what?
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