Oh Santa, Baby!

I'm having a Charlie Brown Christmas. I'm losing my faith, and the feeling is all too familiar. In fact I called my mom today on my lunch break at 11am, having heard "We Need A Little Christmas" at least three times since the store opened at 8. "Mom!" I cried, "Santa's not even real! Macy's made him." She was silent for several moments. "Kristin," she told me, "have I mentioned how thrilled we'll be to have you home for a few days?" Now there's a saint if I've ever known one.

It all started the weekend of the feast of St. Nicholas. Pat's school had a huge Christmas party that Friday on their campus, but he was two papers into the 6-paper home stretch, and so naturally, I went alone. (I once heard a fellow classmate gripe, 'Why do they always schedule Christmas right in the middle of finals?!?') However, I did meet up with a friend while I was there who goes to my church, St. Paul's and also happens to be an alumnus of Patrick's university. "They do this every year!" he trilled. And it was quite a sight to behold: tents and tables full of hot chocolate, face-paints, and cookie decorating, multi-colored spot-lights illuminating a stage upon which several bands played various Christmas melodies. People everywhere wearing wacky costumes: Santa hats, pajamas, those old puff-ball Christmas sweaters that were embarrassing in high school but are somehow cool this year. My friend beamed like a six-year old, his smile caught in the glow of a giant white-light Christmas tree reaching nearly thirty feet in the air. "This is Christmas!" he told me, and having never celebrated the holiday with gifts or hullabaloo in his home growing up, I can see that this is true. He looks at the puff-ball-sweater-clad crowd and sees something he can't quite name or explain, and yet it feels sweet and true. It is as much about mystery to him as it is to one who, like me, grew up with the thrilling mixture of fear and feverish pleasure that the same dead bolt I desperately prayed would hold fast every other night of the year would somehow this night give way to an old, overweight man who- God only knows how- knew precisely how to gift me with perfect joy. Even now as I glance into my living room and see the lights winking on my tree I feel a thrill of joy mixed with fear in my stomach. Oh Santy.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

It was this Friday night that I thought on behalf of my friend, 'What is Christmas?' If a thousand songs don't immediately pop into your head at this question, I'd say you are one of the lucky few who has missed the onslaught of overplayed Christmas smut piped from some holiday muzak factory into millions of shops, malls and grocery stores all over. Called to my mind are stories like Charlie Brown's. In his self-titled Christmas film, he spends the week before the big day asking each of his friends for the real meaning of the holiday, constantly wondering when and why it has gone so commercial. In the end, someone reads him "the Christmas story" from Luke, and his heart blooms with peace. Ah, the real meaning.

But as I look towards my wonderful non-religious friends this holiday season, I see a crowd of merry-makers who find that their Christmas joy leads them far from the manger. And I don't think the story of the shepherds and the baby is the one I'm looking for. What defines the experience of the non-religious? The lights, the chocolate, the music: (in the words of the Tim Burton's Jack, Pumpkin King) What IS this? Why are we here? And why do we sell six varieties of miniature trees and spice nog cakes and Christmas hams?

That Sunday St. Nicholas- donning liturgical robes and carrying a staff- processed down the aisle at our church and we all snickered at the false pomp of this 'visiting saint' and saluted him by standing and scooting our kids down the aisle after him to receive oranges and tiny cakes. That's when it hit me. Christmas may be the time in the church year that we Christians carve out to think about God's entry into our humanity, but how it functions on the world outside is something very different. And on that Sunday morning, I had the sneaking suspicion that it started with that old man carrying a staff and a basket of oranges.

So I've done a little reading and the results have been enlightening. St. Nicholas, as it turns out, is most famous for his gift, not of oranges, but of bags of gold to a family so poor that they could only hope to sell their daughters into prostitution. In order to avoid this damning act, Old St. Nick left bags of a gold on their doorsteps to use as a dowries for their weddings instead. That's it. That's the whole story.

And though I spent a few scary hours this morning convinced that Macy's created the rest, further reading has allowed me to accept that all the charming details surrounding the Santa Claus myth have evolved quite naturally over time, pin-balling between artists, poets, and yes, advertising agencies, but for the most part similar to the evolution of a great many mythical figures of our culture. And yet it is hard to deny that Santa as mainly grown up and out, sinisterly reflecting the more embarrassing of our 21st century values. How did this gift to those in desperate need translate to the piles of packages awaiting the child Christmas morning, typified by the media? And, by the way, when's the last time you received a bag of gold?

Growing up Christian, I had an easy time of it. I could spend December thinking of my birthday and obsessing over our family traditions and then let myself get caught up in the story of Jesus and the manger and those angels and shepherds, tear up a little at the thought of the Incarnation and then go back to basking in the brilliance of sweet familial glow. When I first started questioning my Christian roots in college, my experience of Christmas obviously shifted in some minor ways. But now something catastrophic has occurred: I'm losing my faith in Santa! And finding it, on the whole, a death much more difficult to manage.

Now turning to another childhood companion, I hear my worries voiced in the character of Big Bird in 'Christmas Eve on Sesame Street' who earnestly fears that without his understanding of Santa's ability to fit down a chimney, the actual task of fitting down a chimney will not be possible. After exhausting his best attempts at research (with the aid of kermit, oscar and a slew of adorable kindergarteners who offer their wisdom), Big Bird decides to solve the problem of Santa's physical inability to fit in a chimney not by helping him, but by watching him do it! Ah, Big Bird is a lot like me; you see, for him it is his own understanding that is the condition of possibility. I take comfort in knowing that I am in good company.

In the end, Big Bird falls asleep and wakes up furious with himself for missing the big show. Devastated he returns in doors only to find that Santa has still come somehow and that his friends and family are all around to bear witness: not to the feat but to the joy of being safe and together at Christmas.

So here's to hoping that like Big Bird I can take the time for a mental nap this holiday season and find that, in the end, the magic of Santa, the kindness of St. Nicholas and the joy of togetherness and family somehow squeeze themselves into my small experience of Christmas even if I can't see or understand how.