My Issues With "Santa"

Last week a Christmassy post at Simply Heather's blog set a rather complicated line of thoughts in motion in my head. I promised a more full explanation to a short comment I made, and this post is the result. I don't really wish to argue with the point Heather was trying to make though. That might work just fine for some readers even if it doesn't for me. It all depends on what images we have in our own head to begin with...

I think I will need to begin with certain differences between the Father Christmas or Santa Claus of the English/American tradition and the Swedish one. First of all, while you use the word Christmas, referring to the birth of Christ as centre of the holiday, the origin of the Swedish word jul has nothing to do with Christ. There is a corresponding old English word you may recognise - Yule, or yuletide, which is of pre-Christian origin. (Links go to Wikipedia articles.)

Our equivalent of Father Christmas (nowadays they're pretty much mixed up, because we get so much of British/American culture via television) is Jultomten.

In old Swedish folklore, a tomte is a fairytale figure for which the best equivalent in British folklore is probably brownie. A kind of hobgoblin or gnome are other possible translations. Basically he was a figure that lived in secret on a farm and could be of great help if you kept on the good side of him, but could play nasty tricks on you if you didn't. At Yuletide/Christmas it was customary, for example, to set out a dish of porridge and milk for the tomte; outside on the ground, or in the barn, or some place like that.

In the late 19th or early 20th century, it was a Swedish artist Jenny Nyström who created the image of the traditional Swedish "jultomte". She introduced the typical pictures that are still very popular on our Christmas cards. Below is one of them, which also includes a buck (he-goat), which in turn also belongs in the old traditions.

Before Tomten came into our Christmas gifts tradition, the gifts were delivered by a Yule Buck, or someone wearing a buck-mask, or neighbours etc would knock on the door and just throw in presents anonymously on Christmas Eve. Later on, the tomte got mixed up in this and the image blended with that of St Nicholaus/St Claus/Father Christmas from other European countries.

Tomten/Father Christmas still comes to call in person on Christmas Eve, instead of coming invisibly through the chimney in the middle of the night as he does in the English-speaking world. Here he traditionally knocks on the door, and someone wearing an extremely ugly and scary mask enters and begins by asking in a muffled and severe voice: "Are there any good children in the house?"

Now this is where my issuses with "Santa" or Tomten begin! Besides the man looking really scary, his question indicates that if you have not been good enough, you won't be worthy of his gifts. Moreover, parents know how to use this line of arguing too, especially in the months before Christmas: "If you don't behave, Tomten will know, and there won't be any Christmas presents!"

I don't remember at what age I began to suspect that Tomten was just my grandfather or uncle or someone else dressing up and hiding under that mask.  (The traditional way of getting away with this trickery is that some grown-up will suddenly decide they have to go out and buy a newspaper in the midst of the festivities. Grown-ups do so many strange things that children probably rarely question this odd behaviour.) What I do know is that the first dream or nightmare that I can remember from my childhood was one where I dreamt that Tomten came, and asked his question  - "Are there any good children here?" - and my mother (I think it was my mother, in the dream) said: NO...

This is why the image of the child's faith in Santa does not work for me as an image of faith in God.

This is also why, for many years after I became a Christian, I banished all tomte-decorations in my own home for Christmas. And if I had had children of my own, I don't think I would have agreed to try to make them believe for a moment that there was a real Santa/tomte. Since I never had children, however, that remains a theoretical standpoint...

Unfortunately, there seems to be quite a few people who got stuck from childhood on with an image of God which all too much resembles my childhood image of  Santa/Tomten: The old masked man with the beard whose first question is if we've been good enough to deserve his gifts. And if that is your image of God, then I say: No wonder if faith fails you when times get rough, and you discover that in fact all over the world a lot of good people suffer, while villains seem to thrive and get away with murder (quite literally).

But that is not the true Christian image of God at all. The true image of God is found in Christ, who stepped right into all the human suffering and took it upon himself to bring us back the gift of eternal life, without asking if we've been good enough. None of us have, that's the problem. Every one of us has a certain standard of "good" inscribed in our hearts but also the awareness that we keep failing to live up to it. Some come closer than others but still not 100%. Even small children have that awareness.

The message of Christmas is not: Try harder!
The message of Christmas is: Don't be afraid, because help will be given.

The angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David's a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger."
Luke 2:10-12

What a strange sign to announce that help is on its way: Can you imagine anything more helpless than a newborn baby? Landing on a bed of straw in a stable on top of all, instead of on a bed of silk or fine linen in a ruler's castle.

One thing for sure: A lot of people for various reasons won't find him "good enough". But he will know as much as anyone about the conditions and struggles of ordinary people...




PS. A few Santa/tomte figures did find their way back into my Christmas decorations later on in my life. I will return to that in another post...

Quotation of the Week (48/09)

Swedish Whitebeam Trees, November

"You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down."
C.S. Lewis

Not Just Narnia

Looking through my email files, I found one I had sent to myself and forgotten about!

I think it is a post I originally wrote for some subforum at the Harry Potter discussion forum Leaky Lounge, in answer to someone asking for more info on books by C.S. Lewis, other than The Chronicles of Narnia.

I read most of C.S. Lewis's works. A good place to start if you want to get aquainted with his basic theology is Mere Christianity. A more personal touch on his conversion can be found in his autobiography Surprised by Joy.

I haven't heard of a "complete works" edition but I think most of his books are getting reprinted every now and then.

The Space Trilogy consists of Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. These are not children's books but intended for more grown-up readers. Like the Narnia books they deal with good and evil, and stretch from creation till the end of the world themes. In the first two the main character Ransom, travels into space and lands on other planets, where evil is not yet found. But evil is introduced into these worlds by two other humans, Weston and Devine. The last book takes place on Earth but with "intervention" from otherworldly beings that Ransom has met in the previous books.

Lewis manages to intertwine ideas from for example Greek and Roman mythology with Christian theology; he also manages to combine speculations about life on other planets with classical Christianity. His God is God of all the Universe, whether there are other worlds and other kinds of creatures out there or not.

After Lewis's death, an unfinished manuscript was also found where the character Ransom is involved. This story was never finished by Lewis (He probably started it after the first space novel but abandoned it for other ideas). It contains ideas about time-travelling. As far as it goes, it has been published posthumously in The Dark Tower And Other Stories, together with a few other fragments and short stories, edited and with a preface by his friend Walter Hooper; who has also written a biography about Lewis together with Roger Lancelyn Green.

Another work of fiction is Till We Have Faces. It is a "reworking of the myth of Cupid and Psyche". I read it a couple of times but found it hard to understand. Maybe I should reread it again now when the internet makes it so much easier to look things up.



My own photo, taken through plexiglass window at the zoo.
(Also published not long ago at Soaring through the World)

Quotation of the Week (44/09) - What's Important

If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life or a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 1

... I'm still rereading this book, slowly...

Mere Christianity

I think few readers of this blog will have missed the fact that I'm a C.S. Lewis fan. (Hello! My blog title and my blog name are both his inventions!) In case you did miss it - now you know, because I'm telling you.

I don't think I actually read even the Narnia books until I was in my late 20s; but then I read almost every one of his books, theology as well as fiction, and a few biographies about his life as well. In my third term of college English literature studies, I wrote my essay on the concept of good and evil in the Narnia series. I think I can safely say that no other writer has had as big an impact on my overall understanding of Christianity as C.S. Lewis. Books by and about him (most of them in English small print pocket editions) occupy approximately 50 cm of my shelfspace. (He shares a shelf with Tolkien and J.K Rowling.)

I have kept returning to his fiction frequently; however, it has been a while since I properly reread any of the theology books. Some weeks ago I took out Mere Christianity to look something up. I got caught. The book has stayed on the shelf next to my bed since, and I'm reading it slowly. I'm rather fond of the picture on the cover of my 1979 pocket edition, so I scanned it for you:

The following quotation has been lingering in my mind this week. It's begging me to share it. Lucky me - when I googled, I found the whole book availabe as e-text. I can copy, don't have to type! It also means that if you urgently want to read more of the surrounding context, you don't have to go find the book...

The contents of this book were first given as radio talks. Lewis kept that style in the printed version. If he had lived today, I think he'd have been a great blogger!

'A "talk" on the radio should, I think, be as like real talk as possible, and should not sound like an essay being read aloud. In my talks I had therefore used all the contractions and colloquialisms I ordinarily use in conversation.' (Quote from the Preface)

From C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 2, Chapter 2:

Very well then, atheism is too simple. And I will tell you another view that is also too simple. It is the view I call Christianity-and-water, the view which simply says there is a good God in Heaven and everything is all right - leaving out all the difficult and terrible doctrines about sin and hell and the devil, and the redemption. Both these are boys' philosophies.


It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple. They look simple, but they are not. The table I am sitting at looks simple: but ask a scientist to tell you what it is really made of - all about the atoms and how the light waves rebound from them and hit my eye and what they do to the optic nerve and what it does to my brain-and, of course, you find that what we call "seeing a table" lands you in mysteries and complications which you can hardly get to the end of. A child saying a child's prayer looks simple. And if you are content to stop there, well and good. But if you are not - and the modern world usually is not - if you want to go on and ask what is really happening - then you must be prepared for something difficult. If we ask for something more than simplicity, it is silly then to complain that the something more is not simple.


Very often, however, this silly procedure is adopted by people who are not silly, but who, consciously or unconsciously, want to destroy Christianity. Such people put up a version of Christianity suitable for a child of six and make that the object of their attack. When you try to explain the Christian doctrine as it is really held by an instructed adult, they then complain that you are making their heads turn round and that it is all too complicated and that if there really were a God they are sure He would have made "religion" simple, because simplicity is so beautiful, etc. You must be on your guard against these people for they will change their ground every minute and only waste your tune. Notice, too, their idea of God "making religion simple": as if "religion" were something God invented, and not His statement to us of certain quite unalterable facts about His own nature.


Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect. ---

Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity.

Quotation of the Week (35/09) - just and unjust

"But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?"

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book 2, Ch. 1)

Quotation of the Week 7/09

I seem to have C.S. Lewis on every other page in my Quotation notebook... Here is another one, not from his works of fiction this time, but from Mere Christianity:

(The devil) always sends errors into the world in pairs - pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity