Does Santa exist? Why I support the tradition of Santa Claus!

Christmas will soon be upon us, so I thought I'd share this with you all:

By Mike Wingert

The Christmas season has seen some major changes in the last several
decades, reflecting the ever-changing portions of Western society. With
regard to Santa Claus, some have grown averse to this jolly, fat man.
Some see the Santa Claus practice as anachronistic, and others are fed
up with the consumerist reinterpretation of the season of Christmas; as
such, many have grown unsure about this joyous time. On the other side
of things, many Christians themselves in Western society have grown
frustrated with the attention on the mythos of the Christmas season,
exalting Santa, elves, reindeer and even snowmen instead of Jesus
Christ—the reason we celebrate Christmas! With this in mind, I’d like
to share with you all my thoughts on why I hope to teach my kids,
should I be so blessed to have any, about the traditions of Santa.

Santa Claus



We know Santa Claus as a jolly old fat guy, who brings good boys and
girls presents on Christmas by coming down through the chimney (and
often eating our cookies) and leaving the gifts under our Christmas
trees. He lives in the North Pole, and is led by 8 (9) reindeer around
the world, where he delivers elvencrafted toys. How does this relate to
the birth of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth? Many wonder, and indeed,
its only natural they do so.

I see nothing wrong with teaching
children about Santa Claus. In fact, I encourage it! Through the mythos
of Santa Claus, we can really learn and appreciate the spirit of
Christmas!

Santa Claus is a legendary figure, based on the
life of a good hearted saint from present-day Turkey, named Nicholas.
In fact, if you try to say “Claus” in a Germanic accent, you will be
able to hear the name’s connection to “Nicholas” (the English version).
St. Nicholas was a wonderful human being; he was a man of God whose
passion for goodness was abounding. Much can be said of his life, but
for this write up, I’ll focus on those portions pertinent to Christmas.


The Jolly Fat Man in the Red Suit
Now
fitted in cold weather gear, our image of Santa is that of an old man
in a red suit. This is not simply some creative imagery—this was taken
from the vestments (official clothing) of Orthodox Christian bishops
from the East. St. Nicholas was one of these bishops. Like St. Nick,
our Orthodox bishops today maintain the look from which Santa Claus’s
depiction is based upon. Santa Claus’s imagery can help later educate
our children about the lives of saints.


Patriarch Ignatius Zakka Iwas I., Successor of Peter the Apostle and Bishop of Antioch and all the East


Among his many charitable works, St. Nicholas had come to know of the
circumstance of a poor family. The man had three daughters and could
not afford to pay their dowry for marriage. The family became so
desperate for their daily sustenance, that the father was contemplating
selling his daughters into a form of harlotry, so that the family could
eat. St. Nicholas responded by filling a sock with gold, and secretly
tossing that sack through the poor man’s window. The compassion of St.
Nicholas was the answer to the poor man’s prayers. St. Nicholas threw
another sock filled with gold into the man’s house again. The man was
able to pay for his daughters’ dowries (which would ensure his girls
were taken care of) and feed his family. On the third time that St.
Nicholas tried to perform this secret deed of charity, the poor man
caught him (and thus, we come to know of it).

From this
story we learn of the teaching of Christ in Matthew Ch. 6. “Take heed
that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye
have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.” From Christ’s
teaching, we learn that giving should be a product of our soul/heart
(naphsho). In its ideal form, giving should be done as the natural
impulse which results from pure compassion.

Why Do We Give Gifts?


St. Nicholas of Myra (AKA, Mor Zokhe)

St.
Paul writes that eternal life through Jesus Christ is a free gift. To
put it another way, the act of the incarnation of God’s meaning (love),
is a gift to the world. Christ is the gift given to us. It was not just
the Hebrews who rejoiced at the Messiah’s coming, but those among the
other nations as well. The birth of the king (Christ) beckoned wise men
from Persia to welcome Christ with gifts. We give gifts to one another
as a means of commemorating the event of Christ’s birth.

I
feel very bad for those people who find themselves stressed out during
this holiday time. The delusion of consumerism has been a poison to our
society. A man died at a Wal-Mart because he was stampeded by people
trying to get a “bargain” on certain consumer items. A man’s life is
gone. When one is stirred to compassion of the heart, nothing like this
can transpire. Our society has supplanted real heart-felt giving for
the practice of purchasing and exchanging. In Christian terms, we’ve
exchanged the heart of the law for the letter of it. By teaching our
children about Santa Claus, we will have the opportunity to instill in
them a pure ethic of Christ-based gift-giving.

When you
stuff your stockings, remember St. Nick stuffing the stockings with the
means by which a man could sustain and keep his family safe.

Eventually a time will come when our children learn that Santa Claus
“isn’t real,” but this will be your opportunity to explain how real he
is. The mythos surrounding today's Santa Claus is a form for teaching
children the real history behind this wonder-worker. We remember St.
Nick because he points to Christ. The spirit which inspired St. Nick to
goodness is the same spirit which should inspire us every day. If only
now we can approach our understanding of this spirit of goodness (and
of the Good One Himself) with the same innocence we had as children,
we’ll be able to transform ourselves into this divine love that was
freely given to us.

‘Eido Brikho and Merry Christmas to all!


The Nativity of the Messiah. The Incarnation of God's Love with Us.


To read more about St. Nick, visit the following Articles:
Syriac Orthodox Synaxarium on St. Nick: http://www.socdigest.org/news/02dec04.html

I love Chriatmas!!
Interesting read, thanks.

Fun little podcast on St. Nick: http://www.myocn.net/index.php/200912042125/Theologically-Thinking/Is-Saint-Nick-Real.html

I really enjoy the Christmas season, too, and everything about it.

Don't believe in Santa Claus? You need to watch The Polar Express! That'll learn ya! Great flick about this very subject.

metalheaded wrote:

I really enjoy the Christmas season, too, and everything about it.

Don't believe in Santa Claus? You need to watch The Polar Express! That'll learn ya! Great flick about this very subject.

Love the Christmas season but don't really like that movie for some reason.

Something my priest Father Vazken put together:

NEW LOOK AT THE MYTH OF SANTA CLAUS VERSUS THE REALITY OF JESUS CHRIST http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n1132.cfm

troublemagnet wrote:

NEW LOOK AT THE MYTH OF SANTA CLAUS VERSUS THE REALITY OF JESUS CHRIST http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n1132.cfm

I hope this website is a joke and that you read the article my buddy wrote about St. Nicholas. His article was about the real tradition from the East of Saint Nicholas and how he ended up being "Santa Claus" in the European tradition. It was meant to be fun and educational, not some fanatic diatribe on "Santa Claus".

Here's some physics that I know are extremely depressing, but true.

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle most Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison, this is four times the weight of the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth II.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to acceleration forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.