by Gord Munroe

Created on: January 02, 2009

When I was a kid, Santa Claus was more than just a jolly guy with a beard who delivered presents; Santa represented the true balance of morality. If you were good all year, you were rewarded. However, if you had been bad, you were likely to get nothing more than a lump of coal in your stocking. The concept of Santa Claus is nothing more than a basic rewards-versus-punishment lesson which has been teaching virtues for hundreds of years.

It is therefore necessary to keep the myth of Santa Claus alive, because it serves as a reminder to children that good deeds are rewarded. Santa Claus also helps to keep alive the true spirit of the holidays. Without Santa, Christmas is nothing more than a reason to go shopping. Without the myth, Christmas is devalued and cheapened and turned into a commercial mess where the only thing that matters is the almighty dollar.

Even though Christmas is celebrated as the birth of Christ, Santa Claus serves as a non-denominational all-purpose indiscriminating beacon of good and morality. It makes no difference if you are black or white, Christian or Muslim; Santa Claus is a myth we can all benefit from.

Even though I'm old, I still like to believe in Santa, because believing in Santa is the same thing as believing in magic. Sure, it didn't take me long to realize that the presents beneath my tree were delivered by my parents, and not some mythical being from the North Pole, but even after I came to the conclusion that Santa wasn't "real", I still continued to believe. Not in the actual person, but in what Santa Claus represented. It is the ideal that is important, not the historical debates over whether or not Santa Claus ever existed in a physical and tangible form.

I reckon that I'm going to keep on believing in Santa Claus, right up until the day I draw my final breath. To some it may sound downright silly, for a grown man to be given to such fanciful whims, but I'd rather look silly than to abandon the feeling of peace, goodwill, and magic that Santa Claus provides. This is why I urge everyone to continue the myth and to keep the legend alive. In this world of corruption and avarice, it is now more important than ever to have a figure we can all rally around, an upholder of the virtues of the holidays. All too often wedeprive children of their right to be children. They grow up way too fast. So why not allow them the luxury, if no the necessity, of having something to believe in?

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