"Real in the imaginary world"

Yesterday my girlfriend asked me whether I would tell my child about Father Christmas or not. What she meant – seeing as Father Christmas appears all by himself on screen and billboard and Coca-Cola truck around October – is whether I would inform my kid of Santa Clause’s fictional nature.

I thought about it and tried to answer honestly, and I think she was gratified with my response. I have no problem with letting my offspring believe in Father Christmas. It’s a nice thing to believe, at least for a little while. Santa Clause has the right level of humanity (big fat guy, big bushy beard, works his fingers to the bone) to counterpoint the miraculous (round the world in one night, flying reindeer, lives at the north pole but isn’t featured on Frozen Planet). It’s a harmless thing to believe, I think, and it goes some way to allaying the fears a precocious child might have about Christmas (what about people who have no-one to give them gifts, or people that don’t know about Jesus, or orphans etc?). Until a child is old enough to understand that the world’s problems are not magically solved at Christmas, Santa Clause can take up the slack.

I wondered if I wasn’t cutting corners. I have no plans to instil any religious belief in my son or daughter, quite the opposite. I have no plans to ‘raise my child atheist,’ but I’m certainly not going to bring the subject of God into their life until I think they’re old enough to grasp it conceptually and come to their own conclusions.

So am I being hypocritical letting my child believe in Santa Clause, a character who is patently fictitious, while actively avoiding the subject of God, an entity which I personally believe to be the same?

After giving it some thought I still think I’m on the path of righteousness, but it’s nice to know that, when posed with the same question, Tim Minchin seemed to bottle it a bit as well.

I like Tim Minchin a lot, not least because we seem to share views on science, faith and religion. He’s a little more outspoken in his beliefs, but I suspect that is because he has to get on stage and sing about them all the time.

I think Tim Minchin is always remarkably cogent about his personal views, and generally fairly magnanimous about other people’s. His justification in the New Statesman for letting his little girl believe in Santa Clause is certainly better put together than mine would ever be. You can read it here, and I suggest you do. It makes more sense than the piffle I’d be spouting about now.

It’s reassuring when people you admire make the same decisions as you; it makes you feel like you’ve chosen correctly. I’m not saying you should blindly follow your idols, but if you’re seeking to evaluate your judgement it makes sense to start with people who you consider rational and well-informed. Tim Minchin seems to be a pretty good social compass, so I was pleased we shared a viewpoint.

I’m glad I don’t have to reconsider my girlfriend’s question, partly because everybody likes to be right but mostly because she was pleased with my answer, and that made me happy. She looked at me as if I were a precocious child myself, and had given an answer beyond my years. I don’t think it was what she was expecting; being right is nice but sometimes it is equally gratifying to surprise the people you love.

So finally, sticking with the subject of people you admire sharing your views, here’s a video from Tim Minchin talking about his opinion of Christmas (seeing as he's not on the Jonathan Ross show, for some pretty spurious reasons).

It would be nice (at least for me) if you went back and had a look at this time last year’s post, in which I talk about why I like Christmas, despite being a pretty staunch atheist with a mental family. Once again, my own ideas seem to be in line with Mr. Minchin’s, and that gives me rather fuzzy feeling inside. A nice Christmas gift is to be certain in your beliefs, or at least to know that people you care about share them. I hope that Tim Minchin won’t mind me sharing this video. You should buy his DVD with your Christmas money.

My mate's mate's birthday.

It's nearly Christmas, and you know what that means! It's time for my most saccharine blog post ever! Ho ho ho etc.

As I've mentioned before, I don't believe in God, at least not at the moment. Although like any good scientist I'm prepared to have my mind changed, I believe in a godless universe like I believe in gravity, and none of this stuff in here is floating away. There's no mystical energy field controlling my destiny. Jesus, though, him I gots time for. For one thing, there's some evidence that he actually existed, which makes him a lot more inspiring. The man's got a great message, a good story and an excellent look. I'm also a big fan of myths in general: big scope, a lesson to be learned, cool gimmicks that you can't get otherwise.

So Christmas? Christmas is ace. I'm perfectly happy to co-opt the celebration of a quasi-mythical historical figure to my own festive ends. It's hard to argue with its message, and it's impossible to avoid its reach, both socially and commercially. One good thing about being an atheist is that you can celebrate any religious festival you like. You may have to be discreet - as the other practitioners might take a dim view of your joining in the fun - but at least you don't have to worry about pissing off the wrong god. I love Christmas the best, but I'm also partial to Yom Kippur and Diwali.

It's not like it matters. Christmas in this country can be a religion-free festival if one so chooses. I don't get thrown out of midnight mass for clearly being an unrepentant sinner. I don't communicate with God at all, although I do watch and celebrate the story of the Nativity. I give thanks, but for elements of the tangible world: my friends and family, my health, my huge and almost obscene luck to be born where I was and when I am, compared to the many, many people who are born into suffering. I give thanks to the intangible world too: for my mind, for words, and (and this sounds nauseating, because it is) for love. I know it and miss it and am grateful for its existence and shall seek it out again. So Christmas is a time of personal, spiritual importance, not just an opportunity to over-eat.

Christmas has come to mean other things to, things far outside of its religious beginnings but, in my opinion, no less important. Christmas is a time for sadness, too.

It has often been identified that during a time in which we are expected to concentrate on joy, it is difficult to ignore the problems in our lives. Christmas is a time during which we have the loftiest aims: peace and love and goodwill to all men. These aims are noble, but difficult, and they remind us of the imperfections that we all face. For many people, Christmas can be miserable simply because we are supposed to be having fun, and we are unable.

Sometimes (not always, but often enough), just the societal conventions of Christmas can cause people problems. Christmas is, TV tells us, a time for family, a time for giving, a time for togetherness. Unfortunately Christmas can also be a time for arguing with your family, struggling to find stuff to give, together but bored to tupping tears.

That Christmas is a highly emotional time, perhaps even traumatically so, is so often identified as to become cliché. The Eastenders Christmas special is rarely all smiles and kittens. While on screen a perfect family Christmas is often the reward, normally the protagonists must profess their love, help out Santa, or take out a building full of terrorists before they get it. Christmas either sucks, or it sucks hard for a little bit and then you get the pay-off.

It happens so often that it's become accepted. Christmas is never perfect, rarely close. We celebrate it through a strange mixture of compulsions: compelled by our own personal wants or by those of others to faithfully emulate the traditions, even if we don't believe in the myth, or even the message. Sometimes we do it just because it's... well, it's Christmas. It's unavoidable.

I personally believe Christmas can be a time of growth, and growth rarely comes from complete stability. The fact that it is sometimes difficult makes it more important to me. I don't enjoy the drama (and with my family there can be drama), but I appreciate that it's a part of what happens when you get disparate persons together and try to make them love each other. If it's going to happen, then I'll try and salvage something from it, and if anything, it makes the whole festival more credible to me.

That's not true in every case. Some people have perfectly cogent reasons for despising the festive season. Victims of past trauma should not be forced to relive it year on year, and it is unfair and unfortunate that they must. But if you can't embrace Christmas, seeing as it is unavoidable, perhaps facing it head on is the way forward.

I'm looking forward to Christmas, because of the gifts and the family and all that bullshit but also, masochistically, for the crummy bits that I know are coming. It makes it feel like a real event, y'know? Something you could learn from, something worth going through, something worth more that the plastic, advertising led giftfest that we're taught to be so cynical about. There's one part of Christmas that the corporations can't take away: the arguments.

So I'm gift wrapping and carol singing and turkey eating but when the family squares up and the alcohol is flowing I'll scream obscenities and bare my feelings and put people in their place and be firmly put in mine. Christmas will be an ordeal as much as a holiday, but sometimes you come through an ordeal stronger. Just ask Father Christmas, he has a lot on his plate over the holidays (not really, if I don't believe in God Santa Clause certainly doesn't get a free pass).