I don’t usually quote Rodney Adler. He’s not really my type of role model.
But he said something during the HIH Royal Commission which has stuck with me. I can’t remember the exact context but he was being cross-examined and asked about why he covered up certain financial issues or didn’t report others. His response was: he had to keep the lie alive.
That would have been about 10 years ago now and suddenly “keep the lie alive” is running through my head, particularly now I have a small child and it’s Christmas.
Should I ‘keep the lie alive’ and introduce Santa? Or should I raise a realist?
A lot of people will say I’m over thinking this infinitesimal issue. When there are kids starving in Africa (and in the less advantaged suburbs of my own city in Australia), why am I labouring such a small joy? Why not just give the kid this fantasy?
Probably because I didn’t really have Santa when I was a child. My brother killed Santa very early and I had to pretend for the sake of my next door neighbour who still believed in Santa.
I’ll call her Melinda to preserve her dignity. Melinda was a year older than I was. I thought she was a bit silly about having to go to the local haberdasherer when Santa was getting his pre-Christmas briefing from the children. But she had to sit on his lap and rattle off a list of things she really wanted, while her mother listened and tried to memorise it.
At some point, Melinda’s mother must have worked out that if she could get her to write the list, she had a better chance of buying the right thing. Melinda struggled with writing these letters and as she laboured over it at the kitchen table her mother would peer over her shoulder and remind her to put the exact colour or name of the toy she wanted.
Then the letter had to be posted – into her own letterbox, of course – and for the next two or three weeks, Melinda would behave herself for fear of not getting the Barbie hairdressing thing she’d asked for.
I remembered this yesterday as I bought more dried fruit and glacé cherries and sang “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” which was being piped through the supermarket.
“He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
He’s omnipotent! For goodness sake!”
Yeah, alright. But there’s no harm in teaching your child big words like deciduous.
Melinda would also leave out a longneck and nuts for Santa. With the wisdom of age, I realise now the welcoming refreshment is a sign of what the parents like. Melinda’s dad wanted a XXXX and a few beer nuts on Christmas Eve.
Will I get my daughter to put out a bottle of Wirra Wirra and a block of Dairy Milk? Do fathers really want a biscuit and warm milk?
While I never really had Santa, thanks to my brother, his children did have Santa.
When my nephew was six or seven I made some remark that Santa didn’t exist. I was working on the theory that the schoolyard takes care of a lot of these myths and by now it would be safe to talk freely about the existence of the man in the red suit.
The look of blind panic on my nephew’s face – it was two days before Christmas – made me feel like a total heel. The look from my brother was pure “I will kill you”.
I was asked to recant and never to raise the issue of rabbits or tooth fairies either.
You can see why I’m a bit reluctant to join the Santa Conspiracy. Or “Santagate”.
But if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right. With the thought “keep the lie alive” in my head, I sat down to wrap some presents last night. How do you perpetuate this conspiracy that there’s a guy who lives at the North Pole who has a workshop of elves who spend the year making toys and wrapping them?
Clearly there would have to be some economies in paper and time per unit wrapped. I chose red and green tissue paper. You can open it up, flatten it out and pop the toy on and start wrapping. There’s no cutting or finesse folding needed. One sheet can be folded down for small items. Large items get two sheets.
I’m no Henry Ford, but I do know that many large call centres like their workers to meet the averages and keep calls short and concise. I believe elves would be required to wrap fast, not necessarily neatly.
While I am very precise with the folds and corners of the gifts I give to non-believers, gifts wrapped by elves have none of that. No ribbons, no perfect corner. Sometimes the paper is already ripped.
Spike Milligan used to create tiny little letters from fairies and leave them for his children. He went to the extreme of making envelopes with stamps. Perhaps this is better for when she can read.
Now… reindeer footprints and sleigh marks: anyone got any ideas?
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