Talk:Santa Claus

The Tooth fairy needs your help.

If any of Santas helpers have time, would they please consider assisting The tooth fairy. Her article is not all it could be. Penyulap _talk 11:31, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

north pole

It shouldnt say he just lives at the north pole with no qualifiers, i have most commonly heard lappland as being the place he lives — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.174.58.161 (talk) 03:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

• In the USA it's "North Pole" - What country are you from?
• WhisperToMe (talk) 05:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The North Pole, maybe.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:59, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I always heard that it was magnetic north but over hundreds of years that has changed to a random point in the middle of the ocean.90.200.103.155 (talk) 02:32, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's certainly not true north.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

This belief is not only held in the USA. Chances are if you ask anyone from the continent of North America where Santa Claus lives, they will answer with "North Pole". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.130.109 (talk) 21:58, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Can anyone please source the claim that Norwegians think Santa lives in Drøbak ? Growing up over there, I never once heard that. It was always "at the north pole" or "in Greenland". 76.113.27.172 (talk) 03:50, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

How dare u

How dare you say that santa is Legendary and not real. Please be reasonable .. some children's parents want them to grow up believing this .. my child just found out santa is not real .. and it is christmas eve .. im a digusted !! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki trus (talk • contribs) 09:42, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

The articles are supposed to give a neutral encyclopedic coverage of a topic. They are not dumbed down for kids. Wikipedia does not remove material just because someone finds it objectionable.

I don't know of any wikipedia-like project that is edited for kids, I'm sorry. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:54, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Santa is the embodiment of the spirit of Christmas, which is real, so he therefore is real as well. He does not exist as a physical being. Looking back, I think my parents were trying to explain the concept of Santa as a spirit to me for nearly my entire childhood, but to avoid disappointing me they didn't use black-and-white terms like "real" or "unreal". As a result, I was not as disappointed as most children would be when I discovered the nonexistence of Santa Claus. The point is, Wikipedia articles are meant to be neutral, there is nothing directly stating that Santa does not exist, but at the same time nothing stating that he does exist either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.130.109 (talk) 02:57, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Misleading

I think this article is misleading : "who, in many western cultures, is said to bring gifts to the homes of the good children". Is said? That's how you would talk if westerners really believed in Santa. That's one example, the article contains many misleading sentences. 70.83.117.35 (talk) 07:11, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. Many westerners do believe in Santa; they're called little kids. Powers ^T 20:16, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

More Source Material

I'm just noting here, for those who may want to expand the origins section of this article, a book that attempts to trace Santa farther back in time:

Phyllis Siefker, Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men: The Origins and Evolution of Saint Nicholas, Spanning 50,000 Years (McFarland & Company, 1997) ISBN 0-7864-0246-6

Here's an excerpt from the Introduction, to give a suggestion of the book's scope:

Our Santa is one of the last descendants of a long line of dark, sooty, hair-covered men, the remnant of a pre-Christian god of awesome power. Our pipe-smoking "jolly old elf" is only one offshoot of this old, old god; throughout the millennia this figure evolved in many ways and in many lands, adapting to new roles as society changed, until today there are remnants of the Wild Man from Russia to Britain to Japan to Greece, in ballet and movies, in Christian churches and in shopping malls. No other being has had such a far-reaching influence on our modern culture. He has shaped our core mythologies in the guise of common legendary characters in mythology, plays, and literature: Santa, Adonis, Harlequin, Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow, Peter Pan, Satan, the Piped Piper, the court fool, Merlin.

These commonplace figures have a single root in one powerful being — a priest to some, a god to others, and the personification of evil to still others. Originally a beast-god who reminded people of the cyclical nature of the world, of death and rebirth, this Wild Man was part of fertility performances throughout Europe. He was a godhead so strong, so universally worshiped by "pagans," that Christianity found him the major impediment to its goal of European salvation. In Europe, Christianity and the old god clashed in anger and violence. To undermine his grip on the people, Christianity labeled his worship evil, and called his followers devilish. In the seventh century, Pope Gregory tapped this creature for the physical form of evil, Satan.

The fact is that Santa and Satan are alter egos, brothers; they have the same origin. In our era, it is difficult to see a relationship between the two. Santa Claus is our Christmas symbol, after all — the representative of generosity, goodwill, and material blessings. And Satan: he may not be an integral part of most Americans' cosmology today, but he definitely is the antithesis of all things bright and beautiful. He is lewdness, temptation, and destruction.

On the surface, the two figures are polar opposites, but underneath they share the same parent, and both retain many of the old symbols associated with their "father." And therein lies the tale.

Tfmisc (talk) 13:34, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Deceiving children subsection

Someone revamp the "deceiving children" subsection, to make it both scientifically credible and at the same time linguistically obfuscated for children reading, and give it a more skeptical tone for young readers, so that these claims seemed as if they came from the coldest of skeptics, and not from true believers. A selective tone affecting only younger readers, if possible.

No credible scientist would take pride in openly writing about these facts in such a nature without the willing intent to emotionally affect children, so why should Wikipedia editors?

You may later delete this talk and only keep said information. I know children do resent finding out about said "deception" when they're still children, and this is not psychologically acceptable.

AFOH 22:35, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

If a child is looking up "Santa Claus" in an encyclopedia, then he or she is not likely to be irreparably damaged by reading such an article. Does Encyclopaedia Britannica "obfuscate" their language for the protection of children? Powers ^T 13:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Encylopaedia Britannica offers two distinct versions of the article for two different age groups, omitting crucial, perhaps 'sensitive' information for the younger ones -- sensitive in the sense that it may have a negative psychological impact, as opposed to being presented sensitively by repeating one's personal sensibilities several times, as in this section, overemphasizing Santa Claus as a lie, which is, following research, prone to cause emotional damage on children who come across this information before they a certain age[1], with possible damage depending on the manner on which they do -e.g. from their parents, or by reading an online encyclopedia-, for which Wikipedia, according to Google, is the most popular website for Santa Claus related searches, including questions of whether he is real, which one may assume, are more prone to be asked by children than they are by adults. Henceforth, offering protection to children seems rather important when presenting children with information, especially when neutrality and reliability can be both preserved, by only modifying the type of lexicon employed to a more scientific one, and with this, bolster this article's credibility.

Reference:

"At 4 to 6 years old, children may begin questioning whether Santa Claus is a real person. It is not until kids are about 6 to 8 that they may be ready to understand that Santa Claus is real, but not in a concrete sense. Their ability to think abstractly begins developing at this time and continues on until they are about 14 years old."

Douglas Kramer, MD, child and adolescent psychiatrist; University of Wisconsin Medical School.

AFOH 05:52, 16 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by AFOH (talk • contribs)