Newsletter the Forty-first

Yes, of course I believe in Santa Claus! I hate it when people roll their eyes, knowingly, and say there isn't such a thing. The problem, I think, is that age-old mistake of getting caught in a literal personification vs. focusing on what the name really means.

For example, there was a time when people talked literally of the Grim Reaper as a person — a being that walked the earth. Most of us have let that go, right? But that doesn't mean that we have any less faith in death itself. Similarly, people talk of Mother Nature, Father Time, the Sandman, or the Four Horsemen. These are not "real" and yet they are real, in that they reflect reality.?

That's what we humans do with language: we gather up a myriad of ideas, connotations, images, stories, and we give them a word or a name. This naming-of-experience goes beyond metaphor or simile, to the deepest part of our meaning-making minds.

So yes, of course there is a Santa Claus! It's the spirit of giving, generosity, and kindness. It's the spirit of looking for the good in each person, of considering them and their needs and desires. It's the act of providing a joyous surprise.

Santa Claus may have a saint's name, but he has nothing to do with religion or faith, because we're not praying to Santa or venerating him — we're celebrating his spirit, we're honoring his cause… and best of all, we have the opportunity to become him for a little while! (Or her, or it… the pronoun doesn't matter if you get the spirit right.)

We are the vessels through which Santa Claus acts. You might even say we're the elves who do Santa's work. So yes, I believe… and I'm so excited he's on his way.

Equal Rights

In case your children are suffering from lack of gingerbread houses due to misguided religious exemption… now selling: a Chanukah house "cookie decorating kit." Includes a menorah decoration and six-pointed stars. Oy.

p.s. Note that the 8-light candelabra is called a "Chanukah menorah" or "hanukiah." A regular "menorah" has only 7 candles.

p.p.s. Yes, this is still on sale at my local grocery, even though Hanukkah ended a few weeks ago. The Jewish calendar is based (kind of) on a lunar calendar, with an occasional 13th month, which is why the holidays move around a bit. Next year, Hanuka will actually overlap Christmas.

p.p.p.s. My preferred spelling of the holiday is Khanukkah, which is technically more correct, but as far as I can tell, no one else is going along with me. Ultimately, it's a transliteration from Hebrew, so you can spell it pretty much any way you want.

p.p.p.p.s. Interesting that there's a slightly different version of this cookie kit for sale online which includes a tiny sugar mezuzah decoration for the doorframe. Is it a sin to eat Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21?

p.p.p.p.p.s. No, I didn't buy this. My general feeling about these sorts of "build it yourself cookie or gingerbread projects" is that they're best used as traction devices under the wheels of your car when stuck in snow.

Updating the Rules

Sometimes — even though my kids are still just teenagers (or perhaps because of it) — I feel like a depression era grandpa, stuck in my miserly ways based on an outdated perception of the world. Case in point: I’m viscerally appalled when people attach files larger than a few megabytes to email. I received an email with a 50 MB file attached to it recently and I actually got angry.

“You can’t do that!” I shouted in my head, and then caught myself and laughed. Obviously, this person could… and did… and the world didn’t end.

My sister sends me videos by text message! And I want to reply: what have you done? those bits cost money! And then I stop and think: Oh, right… unlimited data plan.?

But how is all this excess possible? It wasn't that long ago that I tracked how much each minute of a long distance phone call would cost… that email attachments over a few hundred K (not mega, but kilobytes) were cumbersome… that I wrote letters overseas in tiny script on lightweight blue paper to save on postage.

In one of his lesser-known books, Dr. Seuss wrote a story of a monster called the Glunk, whose worst, most ruinous crime was: he talked for hours on a long distance call to his mother.

Apparently the world has changed. I know this intellectually, but it's funny how sticky old thoughts are. My mother-in-law mentioned recently that she still has a tinge of nerves during thunderstorms because she remembers how sparks would fly from the old "party line telephone" her family had in rural Maine when she was a kid. Each summer I wait for peaches to hit 39 cents a pound, even though they haven't been that cheap for decades.

It's hard to keep up.

What "old" rules do you find yourself following, even though they're clearly no longer true?

Thank you!

I enjoy sharing my musings… and I enjoy hearing yours! Feel free to follow this newsletter, share it with a friend,?follow me on LinkedIn, and send me feedback. You can always reach me at [email protected]