I believe in the idea of 'Santa Claus" symbolizing the spirit of giving, of abundant giving and giving for the sake of giving ... as in giving yet another mug for Christmas to somebody who doesn't need yet another mug because that's what the budget would allow.
It would really be nice if I could see the real physical Santa Claus and not just the trimming on the Christmas tree or the myriad Santa Claus toys hanging like acrobats in windows and Christmas displays. But I believe in the idea of Santa Claus winging through the Christmas night sky in his reindeer-powered sleigh dropping off gifts.
Yes, Virginia, I believe in the idea of Santa Claus enough to log every Christmas on a Santa Claus tracking website ( a Norad site, is it?) to know where Santa Clause is this minute and that. It's a Christmas treat, doing that.
But, let's here it from an expert on religious and spiritual things. Here's a very nice discourse from G.K. Chesterton :
" What has happened to me has been the very reverse of what appears to the the experience of most of my friends. Instead of dwindling to a point, Santa Claus has grown larger and larger in my life until. It happened in this way. As a child I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation. I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking. I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it. I had not worked for them, or made them or helped to make them. I had not even been good --- far from it.
And the explanaion was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed to me.
And as I say, I believe it still. I have merely extended the idea. Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking \; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet and the great planet in the void. Once I only thanked Santa Claus for a few dolls and crackers, now I thanks him for stars and street faces and wine and the great sea. Once I though it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking, now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside, it is the large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer no suggestion except that Santa Claus gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly fantastic good will."
OK, while wondering who would and why give G.K. Chesterton dolls when I read or saw a picture somewhere that he is a boy/man/male, let me go back to gift -wrapping the mugs.
Merry Christmas, and happy holidays, everyone. HO-HO-HO!!
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