Good news/ bad news for Santa...

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_Always Changing
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Re: Good news/ bad news for Santa...

Post by _Always Changing »

Jersey Girl wrote:
MeDotOrg wrote:To me, one of the most interesting things to watch when children grow up is when they stop believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. It's like when their rational mind overtakes their fantasy mind. Logos triumphs over Mythos. You watch them try to put it together. Maybe they heard it from an older brother or sister of a friend. You can see them struggle with the issue. Who wants to NOT believe in Santa Claus? And when they finally declare that they don't believe, a necessary cognitive development has taken place, but it doesn't make you any happier.


The cognitive development happens prior to the full realization of just what makes Santa tick, when children shift into concrete operations and can sort things out. For example, children can read. They can see where a boxed item was made, that the Walmart sticker is the same sticker they saw at Walmart, that there's a UPC code on each box because they know what scanners do at the check out line. They're aware that the stores fill up with toys before Christmas, they know they're for buying and giving.

You're right that children discuss these things with each other. Children engage in their own social circles, in and out of the home. I've had many a preschool conversation crop up where one child announces that Santa is just a made up story or that there is no such thing as God. I've seen debates where one child of a single parent says they have no dad and where another child tells them that everyone has a dad.

Children spend their early years going forward ordering (and re-ordering) their thinking and awareness over time via process known as assimilation and accommodation. Taking in new concepts and fitting them into their already existing ideas and awareness.

The Santa issue can be successfully navigated by wise parents who give thought and consideration to Santa from before the time Santa is ever known to a child and even after Santa is known where the conversation was never anticipated or prepared for. The joy of Santa can be transferred to empowering increasingly maturing children to help bring joy to others, just like parents do, and just like the store Santas do.

It's only as complicated as we adults make it. So, in your above, I find places of both agreement and slight disagreement.

You are a perceptive and intuitive person, MeDot.
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In Helaman 6:39, we see the Badmintons, so similar to Skousenite Mormons, taking over the government and abusing the rights of many.
_The CCC
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Re: Good news/ bad news for Santa...

Post by _The CCC »

At worse Santa is a harmless tradition where parents get to play like little children trying to put those Christmas presents together, or trying to find the batteries. :biggrin:
_AmyJo
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Re: Good news/ bad news for Santa...

Post by _AmyJo »

The CCC wrote:At worse Santa is a harmless tradition where parents get to play like little children trying to put those Christmas presents together, or trying to find the batteries. :biggrin:


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_moksha
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Re: Good news/ bad news for Santa...

Post by _moksha »

For many children, Santa represented a joyous part of their childhood. I relished it until I started to associate it with drunken brawls. The reality and immediacy of the drunken brawls overwhelmed the receiving of presents. Good news from Santa/bad results from relatives.
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_Quasimodo
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Re: Good news/ bad news for Santa...

Post by _Quasimodo »

moksha wrote:For many children, Santa represented a joyous part of their childhood. I relished it until I started to associate it with drunken brawls. The reality and immediacy of the drunken brawls overwhelmed the receiving of presents. Good news from Santa/bad results from relatives.


Drunken brawls are a traditional part of any Winter Solstice celebration. Why do think Santa is depicted with a red nose and rosy cheeks?
This, or any other post that I have made or will make in the future, is strictly my own opinion and consequently of little or no value.

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_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Good news/ bad news for Santa...

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

moksha wrote:So no one here has any experience with parents that foster a lifelong belief in Santa and put forth a systematic Santatology in which they reveal the existence of Santa's marvelous plan, but only if Santa's faithful obey the temporal Elves and pledge their financial support to these Elven representatives of Santa?


Santautology?

Hrm. Interesting...

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_Jersey Girl
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Re: Good news/ bad news for Santa...

Post by _Jersey Girl »

Quasimodo wrote:
Drunken brawls are a traditional part of any Winter Solstice celebration. Why do think Santa is depicted with a red nose and rosy cheeks?


Hmmm...you might have a point there!

:lol:
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