Santa and Adulthood

We didn’t do Santa in my family.  Both of my parents believed when they were children, but they made the together decision to avoid the Santa tradition with my brother and me.  Whenever I tell people that, it’s always kind of funny to watch the reactions.  Most people just do a little double take and say, "Really?" and then that’s the end of it.  But some people really seem upset by this, as though my childhood was somehow blighted by the loss of this Christmas tradition.  When I used to teach high school, I even had a student ask me once: "Wait…did you still get presents?"  People so clearly connect their own memories of Santa with the spirit of Christmas that the idea of no Santa perhaps makes it difficult for them to understand how a person could enjoy Christmas without that fairy tale as a backdrop.

Because I never believed in Santa, I also never had to go through the horror-inducing experience of either (a) figuring out there was no Santa or (b) having to be told that there was no Santa.  I’ve heard countless stories from former students and good friends about the unceremonious way this particular life Bandaid was ripped off, and it can be an amusing topic at a cocktail party or on a first date because almost everyone has a story to share.  The memory is a collective one, despite the fact that each individual has their own version.  Even I, who didn’t go through the experience, have a story.  My uncle, my dad’s brother, was so upset when he found out there was no Santa Claus that he went to his 2^nd grade class the next day and during Show and Tell, said to his whole class: "I don’t have anything to show, but I can tell you there’s no Santa Claus."

What I find interesting about these stories, which are partially hilarious and also a little sad, is this: something that brings people so much joy for so many years eventually becomes something that changes the nature and feeling of Christmas for the rest of their lives.  It’s the two sides of Santa.  My students used to tell me (and I trusted them, as they were not all that removed from the truth-unveiling experience) that there was a marked difference between Christmas pre-finding-out-about Santa and the Christmases that followed that traumatizing news.  And I don’t use the word "traumatizing" lightly.  There is an "everything that came before" and "everything that came after" nature to finding out there is no Santa.  It’s a watermark for most people’s childhoods—one, albeit, that most people move past rather swiftly but one that becomes an obvious line between childhood and all that comes afterward.

And whenever I’ve pushed a little beyond the story itself to find out why this childhood experience is so upsetting, what I’ve heard over and over is that some of the magic of what it means to be a child dies when the belief in Santa dies.  Currently, I hear my friends who are parents say things like "I just want my daughter to believe for one more year—I want her to retain the magic of childhood as long as possible" or "My son asked me yesterday if Santa was real, and so I told him the truth, but I also told him that now he gets to be a keeper of the magic with me and his dad and he will get to create that magic for his younger siblings."  Santa Claus is deeply connected to imagination and fantasy, two things that we struggle to maintain as we age, and I hear parents wanting to preserve that aspect of childhood for as long as possible, especially as the world around us seems to become more and more hostile to innocence.

I’ve been thinking a lot about adulthood lately.  I’ve known for many years now that I’d like to write a book about being an adult, and as I’ve transitioned post-moving back from Indiana, while I haven’t had as much time for my own writing as I would like, I’ve been able to do lots of thinking, note-taking, and voice memo-ing on my phone about topics I’d like to cover or ways I might structure what I have to say.  And I find myself talking about the overarching topic of adulthood with people of all ages—both people I know and people I’ve just met.  Everyone seems to have a story about how adulthood has not looked the way they thought it would or how much harder it is to be an adult than they ever expected.  Just as the how-I-found-out-there-is-no-Santa narrative is universal, so is the why-did-no-one-tell-me-adulthood-would-be-this-hard narrative.

What I hear behind these stories about the loss of Santa is quite similar to what is simmering under the surface of the stories about of the perils of adulthood: disappointment.  Disappointment that things aren’t as simple or as magical as we'd hoped.  Disappointment over the loss of certain dreams.  Disappointment in the harshness of reality.  Disappointment in life as a whole.  Just straight-up disappointment all over the place.

However, while people seem quite willing to share their Santa stories, I sense an unwillingness to share adulthood disappointment stories in tangible ways.  My experience has been that people are verbally open about their frustrations with adult life (the casual "Yeah, me too" conversation we all are capable of), but I don’t see great evidence of this truth-telling on social media or in the public eye.  We’ve become those mothers and fathers who know for a fact that their children no longer believe in Santa and refuse to yield to the reality, carefully making powdered sugar footprints and snowy rooftop hoof prints in an attempt to convince themselves that their children still believe and the magic is still intact.  The effort, exhausting and all-consuming, that goes into presenting this perfect façade for our lives means we miss out on the chance to see what’s real, to accept what is here, and to admit that, while we sometimes feel disappointed by the reality, all too often, reality is surprising and wonderful in ways we never could have predicted.  Finding out there is no Santa is disappointing, sure, but it’s a pit stop along the way of growing up, and there are many incredible things that happen along the way to compensate for the loss of Santa.

I’d like to see us turn adulthood into our High School Musical moment, where we say "we’re all in this together" and admit how hard this adult thing is and give each other the grace and space to embrace the mistakes, failures, and disappointments that come along with growing up.  Because that’s the reality—we are all still growing up.  Sure, biologically we’ve reached a point where we aren’t developing any longer.  But our hearts, our minds, and our perspectives are always open to growth, and unless we actively resist it, growth is always possible.  But growth is hard and confusing and takes effort, and I believe we’ve created this ideal picture of being a "grown up" that says, "Once you get here, things even out and get easier and you actually know what you’re doing."  This isn’t real.  It’s a lie.  And that message is a real joy-killer.  Because I don’t know about you, but being an adult is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve struggled with feeling like a failure when I look around and see mess, chaos, confusion, and obstacles, not knowing that every adult on the planet, if they’re telling the truth, looks around and sees a similar landscape.

I’ve heard it said that some of the magic returns to Christmas once you have your own children—that seeing Christmas through their eyes is a wonderful reminder of how it felt to see the world as a place full of wonder, imagination, and belief.  I don’t know if there’s an equivalent for adulthood, a way to counterbalance the disappointment that pops up along the path we all are walking.  But I do know this: telling the truth about the ups and downs of adult life goes a long way toward making the path seem less isolating.

I’d like to write more about that—and I need to push myself to allow people to have access to what I write.  So, over the next month, my goal is to post fifteen times.  I welcome any and all feedback on my writing or on what I have to say.  And, more than anything, I hope that my words make you feel less alone.  We really are in the trenches together, if we only look to the left and right and acknowledge each other.