Cry and Pout If You Damn Well Want To

I am really so not a fan of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town."

Is there anything less in tune with the meanings of Christmas-- both secular and religious-- than the whole "You'd better be good, or Santa won't bring you anything" trope?

Jesus was born to wash away the sins of the world, to offer redemption and salvation, even though no human actually deserves it. God extends grace to us, regardless. But Santa says, "If you're naughty, there's no goodies for you."

Secular christmas is big on the Spirit of Giving, of giving freely to those we love and appreciate (or maybe just work with). We are supposed to give without hope of return, a sort of store-bought grace. But Santa's spirit of giving is "I'm waiting to see whether you earn it or not."

I'm a bit tetchy on this subject because an endless parade of people, some barely acquaintances, some complete strangers, choose this idea to communicate with five year olds at random moments, as if the only thing for a child to understand about Christmas is that this is the time of year you must be good or else. I understand that communicating with children is a challenge, but plain old "Are you excited for Christmas" or "Did you pick out a present for someone special" or pretty much anything other than raising the possibility that, per some obscure inscrutable adult rules, they may discover they are a bad person. And that Santa is a judge who rules on their worth as a human being. 

It finds its roots in another problematic notion--that children are "good" or "bad" based on how mush adults find them compliant or inconvenient. 

The Board of Directors, as newborn twins, required feedings every two hours, and they mostly, but not always, allowed themselves to be synched up for those. It was torturous and exhausting and mighty inconvenient, but it would never have occurred to us to say they were bad babies, yet I have heard the phrase used for similar reasons. Yikes.

This does not mean that I am in favor of raising or teaching students free of all social constraints and rules and considerations for fellow human beings. Be kind. Learn lots. No, you can't have that cookie just because you're crying about it. No, it's not okay to scream and kick because you don't like what your brother just did. 

Same for school. Let me tell you a story about one of my formative experiences. I was sitting in back of music class in fifth grade, and I was waving my hands around, mocking the conducting the teacher was doing. I was, in short, being kind of a dick. She lost her cool, called me up front, and paddled me (with something like a magazine or otherwise floppy device, making her look kind of ridiculous). And then it never came up again. Never. I was not forever marked as a bad kid, and she never treated me as if dickishness was an immutable part of my character. Even gave the me plum assignment the following year of MC of the talent show.

I took two things away from that. One is don't lose your damn mind over students acting naughty. The other was don't confuse behavior that you feel the need to correct with judgments about the student's value as a human being. "Please stop doing that" does not have to be confused with "You're a bad person." But I digress.

If Christmas is going to be about anything, please let it be about grace and love, not fear and extortion. And I don't know if this McSweeney's piece ("Santa Claus Is Coming To Town Edited by Twenty-First Century Parents") is meant to mock those parents, of which I am one, but I consider it by and large an acceptable and entertaining substitute for the original.