Dec 25, 2012

Who Is Santa Clause?

I was born and raised in an ordinary non-Christian family in Tokyo, Japan.


I went to a Christian kindergarten, just because it was the nearest kindergarten in my neighborhood. I played the part of the first shepherd in the Christmas play so I understood that Christmas day was the day on which Jesus Christ was supposed to have been born.

On Christmas Day, my family ate Christmas cakes and my parents gave me a present, but I didn't believe in Santa Claus whatsoever and my parents didn't pretend that it was Santa Claus who had brought me my Christmas present. It was lucky for me not to have to pretend that I believed in Santa Clause.

Anyway, who is Santa Clause? He is one of the most popular characters, who are often really weird.

I couldn't even imagine that I, who lived in a small wooden house without a chimney and a fireplace, had any relationship with the fat old white man who ware a red coat and a red hat and rode on a sledge pulled by reindeers. There was no sledge on the streets in Tokyo and I had never seen reindeers except for at a zoo. How could I believe in Santa Clause in Tokyo?

And I don't understand why some parents want to make their children believe in Santa Clause. It was happy enough to be given a Christmas present not by Santa Clause but by my parents.

2 comments:

  1. I never believed in Santa either. I thought the whole thing was a very silly story, but we were supposed to pretend to believe in him to please our parents and make them happy.
    I didn't know parents thought it was the other way around.

    But my brother always believed in Santa and was heart broken when he found out it was just a story.
    So he's against 'lying to children.'
    I also see no point in it.

    And to this day I don't understand why children believe such a story anyway.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. > we were supposed to pretend to believe in him to please our parents and make them happy.

      I guess that many children did so...

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