When I was about five years old — old enough to know better, really — my sweet, caring mother sat me down next to her on the sofa, and told me she wanted to read something from the evening newspaper. I didn’t yet know how to read, so I relied heavily on my mother to share literary materials on my behalf.
I was old enough, however, to know that what was written in the colorful picture books obtained from the library, and what was written in the evening paper, were two different types of stories. The picture books were meant as entertainment and were not meant to be believed, while newspaper stories were the truth.
I think this was the first time my mother had read to me from the newspaper, other than the comics, which made the occasion feel special.
I distinctly remember one particular detail from the article, which I imagine had been printed on the op-ed page — where the hard line between truth and fiction is often less distinct.
The article suggested that Santa Claus really existed, but that he and his factory workers did not live at the North Pole. My family had a subscription to National Geographic, which was a wonderful resource, but which also had managed to reveal what the North Pole and its surroundings looked like, in actual color photographs — thus crushing, even for a five-year-old, any belief that it could be the location of Santa’s workshop.
The article my mother read to me, however, proposed something completely plausible to my five-year-old mind. Santa’s home and workshop was actually located, not at the North Pole per se, but at the Magnetic North Pole, a location in close proximity to the northern coast of Greenland, on Ellesmere island.
On actual dry land. Very cold and barren dry land — but dry land, nevertheless.
The author of the article made other arguments in favor of Santa’s existence, which I cannot now recall, but I still get a warm feeling, whenever I see a map of the northern hemisphere that indicates the location of the Magnetic North Pole.
Later that week, in my kindergarten class, I got into an argument with a boy named Chris about the existence of Santa Claus. I explained the scientific misunderstanding about the North Pole and the Magnetic North Pole, and was very close to winning the argument. But Chris brought up the fact that my house didn’t have a chimney, but rather, used a gas-fired wall heater, so how then did Santa get into my house on Christmas Eve?
I was flummoxed for a moment, but then suggested that my parents simply left the front door unlocked — having no idea whether that was, in fact, true.
Needless to say, I later learned that Chris was correct. Santa Claus was a playful fantasy that prevented children from knowing how far in debt their parents had gone during the holidays.
For a few years, I harbored some bad feelings towards my mother for misleading me so effectively, and forcing me to resort to lies about an unlocked front door. I began to wonder what else my mother — and the newspaper — was lying about. I continue to wonder, to this day.
Then I got married, and Darlene and I started having kids, so we had to come to an agreement. Pretend Santa was real, for as long as possible? Or tell the kids the truth, right from the start? We actually made a list on paper, outlining the advantages to each approach, and concluded that honesty would be the best policy, knowing that there would be other, more important things to lie about, down the road, and why ruin our credibility over something as silly as Santa Claus?
One day, our daughter came home from kindergarten and announced that Santa Claus was, in fact, real. Her teacher had conducted an opinion poll during circle time, and had asked how many kids believed in Santa. Every child in her class had raised their hand, she told us, so — not wanting to be the sole unbeliever — she had also raised her hand.
Her teacher had then invited everyone to share how they knew that Santa was real, with the result being, our daughter came home convinced that we had been lying to her all along.
So there we are, sitting around the living room at Darlene’s house on Sunday — it’s my ex’s turn to host Christmas this year — and one of the kids asks about where this whole Santa Claus thing got started, and someone says, “Google it.”
We find out that a fourth-century bishop known as St. Nicholas lived in the city of Myra in what was then the Byzantine Empire, and was known for his anonymous gifts. In one story, a certain father had no money for his three daughters’ dowries, which would have left them to a fate of prostitution. St. Nicholas hears about this, and finding their girls’ stockings hanging out to dry, he fills them with coins — thereby allowing them the opportunity to be married, and spend their lives as slaves to their husbands. (That last phrase about slavery is my own addition, and not part of the original legend as told by Google.)
I think everyone liked hearing this story, and since we found it online, we all decided the story was true. (I asked for a show of hands.)
Thank goodness St. Nicholas didn’t live at the North Pole. That would have made the story less credible.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.