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Who is Santa?

Ok...... I wanted to vent my opinions on this weird social construct that we call 'Santa Claus'.


I want to preface this with - I do not have any children of my own, and have nothing against anyone telling their children about Santa - however I used to work with children and young adults with special needs and therefore have experienced first hand the confusion that this kind of hypocritical social construct can cause.

Let's start by breaking down exactly what (or who) Santa is, without taking any festivity or tradition into account:

Santa is an old man who comes into your house in the middle of the night (down the chimney no less?!) and leaves presents for children. By this logic, we can both trust unknown men in our house (while we are sleeping) and especially unknown men who give us presents.



As neuro-typical adults, we understand this construct as 'tradition' and 'a bit of fun', or whatever you want to call it. 

But for some people, rules (do not trust unknown people) cannot usually work with exceptions (unless they are called Santa give you gifts on Christmas).

It can also cause issues regarding personal space - we encourage hugging or even sitting on the knee of people dressed as Santa. Why is this only ok for people dressed as Santa, and why only at Christmas time?

As a support worker out on trips, I often had to deal with scenarios such as:

                    "I'm only allowed to say hello to the men dressed as Santa?"

                                        "But I want to hug that man too!"

                                "How about that lady? She has a hat on!"

                                                        "Why?!"

                                                *tantrum ensues*





I spent some time looking into the history of Santa, or St Nicholas, and there aren't any horror stories of the origins, I'm pleased to say. It seems that a Turkish man called Nicholas, born around 280 A.D. was made into a Saint because he paid the dowry for 2 young girls to be married, rather than see them go into prostitution.

Seems pretty noble, and from then on he became the Patron Saint of children. 

It seems that he found his way into popular culture due to a New York magazine reporting that Dutch families were mourning the death of Saint Nicholas. The name 'Santa Claus' evolved from Nick’s Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas).

Call me a scrooge if you like, but I'm still not convinced about 'celebrating' (capitalising on) a man who lived over 1500 years ago, it's confusing for children and young adults with disabilities.


That's my 2 cent, and again I would like to stress that I understand that it is a tradition and is fun. Just be thankful that you and your children are able to understand the strange nuances and exceptions that Christmas brings into the world of 'who can I trust?'



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