A Virtual Xmas Card

When I met my husband, I was not really "up" on the idea of Christmas. It wasn't a big thing in my family -- my mother is Jewish -- and it served as an "in yo' face" reminder that the everyone is Christian on Christmas (except me). In *his* family, though, Christmas is the hub of the family year, and Christmas morning, with stockings and gifts and waffles, was the center of the universe.

At one point he asked me if I believed in Santa Claus, and I was shocked. A young man in his late twenties asking me this question! "Of *course* not!" was my automatic reply. He just *tsk*ed and admonished me that Santa believed in me anyway, but that I should certainly grow a little belief, or I'd get coal in my stocking...

Over the weeks between then and Christmas I thought a lot about Santa, and what he means to folk. I remember learning that it was my parents who left the gifts when I was perhaps 5 or 6 years old. I remember the feeling of sophistocation that lent me, among my peers. That's a feeling I've learned to distrust in later years. The old elf needed some re-examination.

I've spent a moderate slice of my life investigating comparative religion and the history of religious ideas, and I finally found the bit that I was able to make serve to bring me back to Santa. I often find that I have to look away from my own culture to find my way back...

In the southwestern US, the kachinas are the spirits that protect and look after the needs of the villagers. Every year, the children watch the kachina dances, and receive dolls in the images of various kachinas. When a boy reaches a certain age, he is gathered up by the kachinas, and led back into the kiva. There, the kachinas unmask, and he sees that these kachinas are the brothers, uncles, and friends of his family that he has grown up with. However, he is now to join them, in the understanding that he *also* is to protect and look after the needs of his people.

I see this as an enrichening experience -- this understanding that we are all the embodiment of the old saint, on his day. And when my son is old enough to understand this, I will tell him this.

Not that "there is no Santa Claus," but that "we are *all* Santa Claus." And that he is not *fooling* the younger children, but creating magic for them, and acting as their special guardian, out of love. Santa Claus is a blessing, and a rite of passage.

Merry Christmas to y'all, and to y'all a good night!

Shava Nerad Averett
(a little in advance of) Winter Solstice 1994