Joy to the World: In Defense of Santa Claus

Let’s face it—Santa Claus has a bit of a bad reputation. It seems impossible to turn around these days without facing yet another snippy article accusing parents of destroying their children’s deepest convictions by telling them the awful lie that Santa Claus is real.

“How dare you ruin the logical development of your child’s brain?” these articles demand of us in righteous fury. “How dare you insinuate that something is real which does not physically exist? How could you tear apart the rational functions of the human mind, since obviously the human mind is the only thing that matters?”

Perhaps it is too much to expect Christian bloggers at least to refrain from this nonsense—but recently I came across an article written by John Piper discussing how Christians should make their Christmas celebrations Jesus-centric, and explaining how that effort requires sacrificing Santa Claus on the altar of reality.

Piper says:

“My question is this: How could we possibly even think of giving our children a bowl of bland, sugarless porridge when they are offered the greatest meal in the world? Why would we give them Santa Claus when they can have the incarnation of the Son of God? It is just mind-boggling to me that any Christian would even contemplate such a trade — that we would divert attention away from the incarnation of the God of the universe into this world to save us and our children. I scarcely have words for it that people would contemplate this. Not only is Santa Claus not true and Jesus is very truth himself, but compared to Jesus, Santa is simply pitiful and our kids should be helped to see this.”

Although Mr. Piper is a wonderful theologian and a wise man, he is wrong on this count. Very wrong. I have come to defend Santa Claus against the likes of Mr. Piper and other Christians who hold him in contempt.

Firstly, we must dispense with the silly notion that Santa Claus is not real. This idea comes along with modern insistence that all our truth also be fact. We have lost the ability to divorce reality from fact, and we suffer greatly for it.

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis had much this same argument—over myth and fact—during Lewis’s long road to faith. According to J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, they had this exchange:

But, said Lewis, myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver.

No, said Tolkien, they are not. …Just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.

We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic ‘progress’ leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.

You mean, asked Lewis, that the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth that works on us in the same way as the others, but a myth that really happened? In that case, he said, I begin to understand.

A myth is not a lie. Repeat that until it is deeply seared into your soul. A myth is not a lie. A myth is an embodiment of truth, told in a way that speaks to the human soul. The myth of Santa Claus speaks truth to a child’s soul in a deeper sense than mere lectures ever could. Santa Claus is real, whether or not he physically exists.

Mr. Piper continues his objections to Santa Claus with this assertion:

“Santa Claus offers only earthly things, nothing lasting, nothing eternal. Jesus offers eternal joy with the world thrown in. Yeah, the fire engine is thrown in.”

With all due respect, Mr. Piper, this is silly. Not the part about Jesus offering eternal joy with the world thrown in—that is absolutely true. But it is silly to presume that giving a little child a plastic fire engine on Christmas morning is in no way eternal.

Every Christmas, we sing the song Joy to the World, and somehow we expect children to understand what that means. We tell them that Jesus is the joy in the world, and that He offers them a joy that lasts forever. But that little fire engine wrapped in bright paper gives the word joy a meaning. How is the child expected to understand a concept so great, so marvelous, that adults have difficulty putting it into words? The gifts of Santa Claus fill a child’s heart with a wonder and magic far beyond anything we could ever instill using mere lectures.

It is not enough to tell a child that Jesus loves him and offers him joy. The child will feel that love, feel that joy, through the passing material things he receives on Christmas morning.

Mr. Piper also claims that Santa Claus “offers his ephemeral goodies only on the condition of good works.” Once again, this is rather nonsensical. Have you ever seen a child receive coal in his stocking on Christmas morning? Of course not. But the condition must exist, all the same.

Santa Claus teaches children, in the simplest terms possible, what the Law is. Johnny learns that he must be a nice little boy, and be good and kind and obey his parents, if he is going to receive a reward. And isn’t that the embodiment of the Old Testament? Deuteronomy 5:33 says, “You shall walk in all the way which the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess.”

The Law comes with a promise. Santa’s list comes with its own promise, but a promise which makes sense to children—do good, and you will receive good. Do evil, and you will receive coal. Every child understands this condition the moment he hears it. This seems to be only fair, only just. The Law is written upon his heart, and he feels that he is capable of fulfilling it. Every year he tries.

But on Christmas morning, every child knows that he has not fulfilled the requirement, no matter how hard he has worked. Every child knows that he deserves coal—and yet, every single Christmas, he receives gifts instead. He is given what he does not deserve. And that wonder—the wonder of grace—is powerful to the heart of a child.

The story of Santa Claus speaks mercy into the lives of children, and it does so using a story full of magic and flying reindeer and busy elves and candy and toys. Santa Claus tells the story of the joy and fun and beauty of Jesus, but he speaks in the language of a little child.

Chances are, if you tell a child the story of Christmas, he will not comprehend it. How can he? How can he yet understand the virgin birth, the miracle of the star, the strange magic of laying a king into a manger? But he can understand the love behind a simple gift. He can understand the miracle of finding presents instead of coal, the strange magic of reindeer who fly instead of run.

Like C.S. Lewis’s great lion Aslan, Santa Claus is simply a childhood name for the joy and hope of Jesus Christ. And like the Pevensies in Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, children will one day see Santa for what he always was—a shadow of the grace of Jesus.

As Lewis writes:

“It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"

"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

"Are—are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Mr. Piper ends his stern rebuke of Santa Claus with these words:

“I cannot see why a parent — if they know and love Jesus, if they have found Jesus to be the greatest treasure in the world — why they would bring Jesus out of the celebration and Santa into the celebration at all. He is just irrelevant. He has nothing to do with it. He is zero.”

But why must there be mutual exclusivity? Why must we give up Santa Claus when we celebrate Jesus? Santa Claus points to Jesus in the truest way possible. Why can we not have both?

Under Mr. Piper’s logic, why not eliminate Christmas movies like Elf, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and It’s a Wonderful Life from our repertoires? Why not put away our Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carols and our Barbara Robinson’s Best Christmas Pageant Evers? Why not read only the second chapter of the gospel of Luke, all day, every day?

Because we respond to magic. Joy. Wonder. All these things come from the original Christmas story, and they are so powerful that we create beautiful art based on them. The art points back to Christmas, and that is why the art is worthwhile. The celebration of Christmas gives joy a meaning to children in the most profound sense possible—but it renews a sense of wonder in adults too. The magic of Christmas is never wholly lost, no matter how old you become, no matter how apathetic you feel. Santa Claus embodies that magic.

As Charles Dickens says in his immortal work A Christmas Carol, “For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”