Our Santa Celebrates Christmas and, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s, Ramadan, Winter Solstice
Our Santa Celebrates Christmas and, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s, Ramadan, Winter Solstice
We agree with the facts presented in this post to some extent, BUT NOT ON SANTA.NET!
Via the San Jose Mercury News we learn that not only does Santa bring great pain and suffering for children with different cultural and religious beliefs - they’re left feeling like “bad”
children when he doesn’t show up, as Santa only visits the “good.” Also, the additional pain and suffering of the visited children when they finally find out Santa Claus doesn’t exist may well scar them for life. It sets them up for “disappointment and self-doubt.”In 1897 it was a newsman with the New York Sun, Francis Pharcellus Church, who penned what has apparently become “history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial” in response to a letter to the editor from eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon: Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus.
One can only marvel at how far some of today’s media outlets have progressed.
Then there’s the demographic diversity of Silicon Valley, home for people of all sorts of
religious beliefs, many of whom don’t celebrate Christmas.A former child care director, Fry wrote the piece “Old Saint Nick Needs a Modern Makeover: You Better Not Lie, I’m Telling You Why.” There, she explains that she’s witnessed firsthand the “pain and suffering” experienced by some non-Christian kids when they hear about Santa visiting the homes of “good”
children, but not theirs.And in the multicultural, multiracial, multi-faith Bay Area, Fry says an increasing number of
children end up feeling excluded.“The Santa myth,” Fry says, “sets
children up for disappointment and self-doubt.”So Fry — who does celebrate Christmas — came up with the “Santa Game,” which she says the preschool parents also have embraced. She talked to the kids about the differences between pretend and real, and then told them “different families play different games.” Some families believe Santa is real and others don’t, she teaches, adding that she told the
children it wouldn’t be nice to ruin anyone’s family game.