What annoys you?

That’s fair.
But having worked in the prison system, with child sex offenders in the past… perhaps I’m over the top about it. But Im focussed on encouraging protective behaviours in children.

There has been a significant amount of research about the importance of teaching protective behaviours in children, as it significantly decreases the likelyhood in child sexual abuse in those children.

Anyway, It’s just my experience.

Its a challenge you and your wife have set yourselves, but absolutely your right to do so. Perhaps a unique opportunity to teach inclusiveness and the importance of respecting others beliefs.

Best of luck.

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abc.net.au

Should you tell your kids the ‘truth’ about Santa?

By Ben Pobjie

6-8 minutes

Opinion

Updated 27 Nov 2016, 11:01amSun 27 Nov 2016, 11:01am

Is Santa a damaging or wonderful lie? Do yourself and your kids a favour and drop the “Santa charade”, writes Ben Pobjie. You don’t have to be a Grinch about it — just tell them the truth.

I was 10 when I found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real. 10. As in, double digits.

What made it worse was that I hadn’t just believed in Santa, I had defended him.

At school, all my friends had stopped believing long ago; they told me Santa was just a fantasy, a story for babies, and I was a fool for believing in him at such an advanced age.

But I knew they were wrong. My mum and dad told me Santa was real. They had assured me the legend was true, and that magic existed. I would never disbelieve, because I knew my parents would never lie to me. I felt sorry for the other kids, whose parents had let their scepticism go too far.

Then the bombshell dropped. My mother told me. In fact, she didn’t really even tell me — she just casually said one day, “You know about Santa, right?”

She just assumed I already knew, because of course she did — who the hell still believes in Santa when they’re 10?

I guess it was a disillusioning day for all of us. I learned that Santa wasn’t real, and my parents learned that their son was an idiot. Of course I learned that I was an idiot, too: I’d been an idiot for 10 years, and the two people I trusted most in the world had worked assiduously to keep me that way.

‘There is potential for children to be harmed’

This is exactly why parents are being urged to reconsider, in the lead up to Christmas, what impact lying about Santa has on children.

In an article published this week in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, two psychologists suggest lying to kids — even about something as fun and seemingly harmless as Santa — could undermine their trust in their parents later on, and leave them open to experiencing “abject disappointment”.

“The Santa myth is such an involved lie, such a long-lasting one, between parents and children, that if a relationship is vulnerable, this may be the final straw,” writes Kathy McKay, a clinical psychologist at the University of New England.

"If parents can lie so convincingly and over such a long time, what else can they lie about?

“There is potential for children to be harmed in these lies.”

Which is why my kids, aged seven and 11, don’t believe in Santa Claus. We told them Santa was pretend when they were about three or four — when they were old enough to start asking questions about it.

He was just a story like the ones in books and movies, we said, a bit of fun at Christmas. They took it well; there was none of the shock or anger I recalled experiencing as a kid, probably because we were just conveying information, not shattering a long-cherished belief.

And if I’m unsure of pretty much every other parenting decision I’ve ever made, I am absolutely certain that I was right on this one.

How does lying make Christmas merrier?

After all, Christmas is such a wonderful time of year. A time of wonder, of giving, of love and togetherness that can make the world seem a little more bearable for a few weeks.

Does the knowledge that we are deliberately and systematically deceiving our offspring somehow intensify the joy we wring from the season?

The argument against telling kids the truth, of course, is always, “Oh, let the little ones have their fun”. We say, “Don’t spoil the magic for them” or “Let them have their childhood”.

But who decided that believing in nonsense was a vital part of childhood?

Sure, it is great for kids to have a sense of wonder, but we don’t need to lie to give it to them. You can enjoy Harry Potter without believing owls actually deliver mail.

You can enjoy The Princess Bride without believing that Billy Crystal can re-animate corpses.

So you can certainly enjoy Christmas without believing in the annual suspension of the laws of time and space to allow a global delivery run by an ageless man with an over-active generosity gland.

Indeed, if it’s immoral for adults to take advantage of their kids’ credulity, it’s also demeaning that we do it with such a patently ridiculous story.

Does it really seem like a constructive use of time to keep holding together this tissue of imbecility? Some parents even tell their children that the Santa at the shops is the real one.

I feel blessed mine at least respected my intelligence enough to not take it that far: telling your kid that an omniscient physics-bending man-god not only exists, but likes hanging out next to Big W, is just depressing.

What to do when your kids’ friends still believe?

Some parents also use Santa as blackmail, and threaten an empty stocking if their children misbehave.

But, as the Lancet Psychiatry article’s co-author Chris Boyle points out, “It’s potentially not the best parenting method. You’re talking about a mythical being deciding whether you’re getting presents or not”.

The only really tricky bit is that, unfortunately, many of our kids’ friends have persisted in Santa-belief long past our family’s Age of Enlightenment.

But all it takes is a little tact, and an instruction to not go around bursting anyone’s bubbles.

As Dr Boyle argues, you don’t have to be a Grinch about telling your children the truth: “I’m not planning to go through the streets of Exeter dropping leaflets through doors,” he says.

And so we’ve explained to our kids that not everyone knows the truth about Santa, and it’s not our job to correct them.

Of course they get it: it’s amazing how smart children can be when you don’t treat them like idiots. And that’s a habit you start early, if you drop the Santa charade.

So do yourself, and your children, a favour: stop telling that tale. Free your family from the shackles of Yuletide myth, and breathe the fresh air of reality.

I promise you’ll be merrier for it.

Topics: children, parenting, national-days, religion-and-beliefs, offbeat, psychology

First posted 27 Nov 2016, 9:15amSun 27 Nov 2016, 9:15am

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psychologytoday.com

In Defense of Parents Who Don’t Lie About Santa

13-16 minutes

David Kyle Johnson

Source: David Kyle Johnson

I’ve become a bit (in)famous for arguing that parents shouldn’t intentionally trick their children into literally believing that Santa actually exists. In the wake of the publication of my book The Myths That Stole Christmas , I’ve done numerous interviews on the topic. (See the Point of Inquiry, Rationally Speaking, Humanist Hour, Childhood Institute, Brave Hero Radio and RaMen podcasts). My articles include those on my Psychology Today blog (here, here, here and here), one for The Ethics Centre , another for The Electric Agora , a chapter in Christmas and Philosophy and my original 2009 article for the Baltimore Sun . I was even on Huffington Post Live a couple years ago. So each year, as Christmastime approaches, I get an increasing number of emails. Usually it’s vitriolic hate mail. But this year it’s been mostly friendly—parents who have rejected the practice and are thankful to finally find someone publicly taking their side.

You’d probably be surprised to find out how many supportive emails I get. In fact, I think we’d all be surprised to find out how many parents don’t lie about Santa. Although I know of no reliable poll on the topic, I suspect such parents are actually everywhere—they just have to lay low because of the backlash they’d suffer if they revealed that they don’t lie to their children. Almost every such email I receive contains a cringeworthy story of family and/or friends berating a parent for not lying to their children about Santa—marital woe, parents vs. grandparents, fights with friends…the list goes on.

So I’d like to take this opportunity to defend such parents. My intention is not to convince those who do lie about Santa to stop lying; but I do hope to convince them that they should cease scolding those who don’t. Whether the non-lying parents be your friends, your spouse, or even your own children (who are refusing to lie to your grandchildren), they probably have pretty good reasons—reasons that you should respect. It’s not immoral or crazy to want to avoid lying to your kids about Santa. In fact, it’s pretty good parenting. You should be proud of them for being willing to buck tradition, and suffer through ridicule, for the sake of their children.

Below are what I take to be the best reasons parents offer for avoiding the Santa lie.

It’s Wrong to Lie

The reasons parents avoid the Santa-lie are often straight forward. Many simply think it’s wrong to lie to their children—and they have a good point. Although few philosophers (besides Kant) maintain that lying is always immoral, they do suggest that justifying consequences are necessary—a lie has to do a greater, justifying, good. But what justifying good does the Santa-lie produce?

A sense of wonder? Perhaps, but I could create wonder in my kids by tricking them into thinking that events of Star Wars actually occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…but would we call that a moral lie?

It’s fun for parents? I know I’d have a blast convincing my son that The Doctor (from Doctor Who ) delivered presents on Christmas Eve using his TARDIS. But I won’t ever do that because my own enjoyment is not more important than not deceiving my son.

Lying about Santa Doesn’t Promote Imagination

Defenders of the Santa lie like to argue that it’s actually beneficial. Lynda Breen argues (in the Psychiatric Bulletin) that Santa promotes “family bonding and pro-social behavior [like] sharing” (p.455). But, of course, it’s not the lie or literal belief in Santa that does this—it’s the mutual gift giving.

In the same vein, she also argues that Santa belief encourages “enhanced fantastical thinking, expansion of the internal object world and purposeful play,” (p. 455) Or, as Slate’s parenting advice columnist Melinda Moyer puts it, “What Kris Kringle does…is feed the imagination.” This, in fact, is one of the most common arguments I hear in defense of the Santa Lie.

But while non-lying parents certainly wouldn’t deny the benefits of imagination, they would deny that the Santa-lie promotes it. Indeed, it can stifle imagination. As Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry puts it, “You’re not asking kids to actually imagine anything, you’re feeding them beliefs… If believing in Santa was an exercise in imagination, every kid would believe in a different Santa.”

In other words, to imagine that something is true, one has to know it’s not but pretend it is anyway. By tricking our children into believing Santa literally exists, we’re actually robbing them of the opportunity to imagine he exists.

The Santa Lie Isn’t Necessary for Christmas Magic

Those who lie about Santa often think those who don’t are robbing their children of the magic of Christmas. But in no way does producing a memorable and awe-filled Christmas require you to lie to your children. I can’t put it better than one emailer did—a parent who, not surprisingly, requested to remain anonymous.

“[W]e have ‘played the Christmas game’ with [our children] every year. My husband and I purchase the gifts and wrap them in secret, and we place them under the tree on Christmas Eve when the kids are asleep. We talk about Santa coming and what he’ll bring… Heck, we even have an Elf on the Shelf that the kids adore. We try to think of different (crazy!) ways that Santa and the Elf come into the house, or cover the whole world in one night. Maybe they have a spaceship? Maybe Santa multiplies?.. We visit Santa at malls and the kids just LOVE telling him what they want for Christmas. But the kids know the truth 100%. That is very important for us. They know it just like my husband and I do, they just enjoy PRETENDING that they don’t. [As my] daughter, who’s 7, said "I know Santa isn’t real but I like believing in him.” [Christmas] Magic is whatever you want it to be….My kids don’t miss out on ANYTHING…

In short, you can pretend alongside your children that Santa is real, while still making clear that he is not, and produce just as much “Christmas magic” as you could by lying to them.

Besides, isn’t most of the excitement about the presents? Convince your kids that Santa is real but have him only bring new socks every year, and see how excited they get.

Santa Steals Your Thunder

Parents are also concerned about how Santa robs them of appreciation; when kids get gifts from Santa, they thank Santa, not their mom and dad. Yet, as psychologist Carl Pickhardt points out, parents need all the help they can get when it comes to their kid’s appreciation.

And not only is that appreciation deserved, but children need reassurance of their parent’s love… not Santa’s. As my friend and colleague, theologian Joel Shuman, recently reminded me in correspondence: “From the beginning we made clear to our kids that whatever gifts they received were from my wife and I… [this reflected] certain convictions we had about the ‘economy’ of gifts…They are the giver’s way of showing the recipient that he or she has worth and is beloved [by the giver].”

Tricking children into thinking that some of the gifts they receive are from Santa negates the function those gifts are supposed to fulfill: to let a child know that they are loved by their parents.

It’s A Dysfunctional Disciplinarian Crutch

Many parents avoid the Santa lie because they think it is bad parenting. A primary function of the lie is to keep children from misbehaving. “Stop hitting your brother or Santa won’t bring you anything.” But not only should children embrace good behavior for its own sake, but rewarding a lack of misbehavior gets things backwards. I don’t give my students bonus points for not cheating on an exam; extra rewards are saved for exceptional efforts and behavior. “So too should it be with children,” say many non-lying parents.

Even defender of the Santa-lie Melinda Moyer agrees that Santa shouldn’t be used as a disciplinary threat. “Though lying [about Santa] can be an awfully convenient parenting crutch… it’s generally best to keep it to a minimum, both to develop trust… and to lead by example.” Yet that is how Santa is most often used.

And speaking of trust….

It Threatens Parental Trustworthiness

There is no shortage of stories in my inbox about the moment children learned that Santa wasn’t real. For many, it sticks; for some, it’s traumatic. As adults, many recall with vivid detail the moment they found out—and remember all too well the feeling of betrayal that accompanied it.

Most heartbreaking are the stories of children who defended Santa to the bitter end, to their friends and classmates, declaring “I know that Santa is real because my mom told me he was, and my mom would never lie to me.” The moment you realize the people you trust most in the world would, indeed, lie to you—for years—can permanently damage your view of them.

Indeed, I’ve encountered more than one person who is an atheist today because, they reasoned, “If they’re lying about Santa, they’re probably lying about God and Jesus too.”

Of course this doesn’t happen to everyone, but it is a risk—and it’s a risk that some parents are not willing to take. And hopefully you can understand why. You may not agree and take the risk yourself, but if it doesn’t actually have the benefits many profess, it’s not crazy to think the risk of lying about Santa isn’t worth it.

As author and parent educator Alyson Schafer put it to Allison Klein, little lies can cause big harm.

“Kids globalize and say, ‘My parent is a liar. Are they also lying about loving me?’ The security system of the child is undermined. Kids need a lot of stability…We’re modeling that lying is acceptable.”

Interestingly, the risk is likely higher in autistic children. Although I know of no study that looks at the effect of the Santa lie on autistic children specifically, studies do show that they have difficulty keeping track of their own lies. They also have notorious issues with trust and letting go of past betrayals, tend to take things literally, and of course have difficulty ascribing mentality to others. Would it be surprising, then, to find out that they have trouble understanding why your little white lie about Santa doesn’t entail that you are likely lying about a great many other things? Since autism is a spectrum disorder, and not always diagnosed, it makes sense for parents to want to avoid lying about Santa altogether. You just never know.

It Encourages Lazy and Credulous Thinking

In my opinion, the worst aspect of the Santa-lie (and many parents agree) is how it promotes credulity.

Although Vicki Hoefle (another author and parent educator) is not completely opposed to the lie, she does admit that when children start having their doubts, it’s probably best to fess up. Yet when this day comes, parents usually aren’t willing to give in. To keep their children believing for as long as they can, parents often encourage them to embrace magical explanations, stifle doubt, be convinced by bad evidence, and "not question and just believe because, you know, it’s fun.” Yet, each of these is a habit of lazy thinking, the encouragement of which risks making our children credulous thinkers.

Since such thinking is harmful to society and can even be harmful to our children—encouraging a kind of gullibility that can promote poor life decisions and make them susceptible to things like alternative medicine scams, Ponzi schemes, and anti-vaccine rhetoric—it’s something we should avoid. (For more on this, see my article for The Electric Agora .)

Of course, telling the Santa-lie doesn’t guarantee your child will be credulous, but it increases the risk. And we need all the help we can get. As S. A. Lloyd paraphrased the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, “People are…naturally credulous, and easily manipulated” (p. 134). In the same way that we should model and encourage good language skills to our children from the beginning, we should model and encourage careful and critical thinking in our children too.

Please Cease and Desist

Now, not all parents who lie to their children about Santa harass those who do not. But clearly some do. If you have, I hope the arguments I have presented have convinced you to stop. I’m not asking you to stop lying to your own children about Santa, but please stop thinking those who don’t are bad parents. Stop trying to convince them to lie like you do. Respect their decision and realize that they likely have some pretty good reasons for avoiding the Santa lie.

As I try to make clear in my book, The Myths that Stole Christmas , Christmas doesn’t belong to anyone. As its history and the way it has been celebrated through the years make clear, it’s a human festival—a natural human reaction to the changing of the seasons. Anyone can celebrate just about any way they want. Others don’t have to celebrate Christmas just like you do to get it right—and that includes parents who choose not to lie to their kids about Santa.

David Kyle Johnson is an associate professor of philosophy at King’s College, a professor for The Great Courses , and author of the book The Myths That Stole Christmas: Seven Misconceptions that Hijacked the Holiday (and How We Can Take It Back) .

Copyright 2015, David Kyle Johnson

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Yep, Absolutely.
It’s an opportunity to talk about different cultures. It’s about learning. As I said, we go to family gatherings because it’s what they believe in.
But we’d also love the opportunity to introduce other cultures and celebrations, aswell.
The importance of Travelling!

We all know the majority of people in the World don’t do Santa, right??

Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, etc etc, …

Even a shitload of actual Christians don’t do Christmas at all, … so no Santa.

1 Like

We still do the Santa thing. My kids know that if they play along they get a present from Santa. They’re 18 & 21 :laughing:

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Also,…Atheists, …(which so many purport to be these days) doing Christmas at all is really somewhere near the height of Hypocrisy if you think about it, … :thinking:

And that’s not even mentioning that decorated Trees and gift giving, … as well as Bunnys and Eggs etc, are the product of Pagan celebrations co opted by Christianity in the first place…

1 Like

A couple of things about those two articles.
First and foremost, children absolutely believe in fantasy.
Even when they don’t, they do.
They could quote rationally say they know Harry Potter isn’t real, but give them a letter from Hogwarts saying to be at their letterbox at a certain time, see what they do.
I’ve got a hundred bucks says they’re there waiting for friggin’ Hagrid.

And yes, believing in Santa might be harmful.
So might Not believing in Santa too early in a society where very nearly all kids do.

2 Likes

Or not, if you believe the Christians co-opted the celebration.

You might also want to include in your talks (since you’ve had so much experience dealing with offenders) that ‘strange men coming down the chimney’ may not be a great thing - and won’t ever likely happen. But people they know and love are far more likely to hurt and abuse them, so to be vigilant about family and friends. After all, why lie to them? Will you do that? Or will you keep that fact from them? Maybe they are too young?

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Not aa belief that one wim. Tis fact.

But Santa only exists as an extension of “Christmas” being a “Saint” & all, … and Santa only as we know him because Coca Cola decided this is who he would be from now on …

Then where’s the hypocrisy?
Santa has nothing to do with Christianity.
You can look for Santa in the bible ‘tIl the cows come home.

Not true …*see edit

Are you a caricature?

1 Like

He comes from lots of cultures.
The fatness certainly comes from the US, how apropres.
But Australian tradition is Australian.
And he’s still not in the bible.

Neither are most Saints, … or Martyrs etc. Most are post bible.

Still based and stems from Christianity.

Hmmm.
I’ll take your word for now that gifts at winter solstice are a Christian thing.

1 Like

You mis read me, …I actually said it was a co opted Pagan thing mate.

Also, … this is the Coca Cola story, … he wasn’t Red and White, or as you say (fat) until Coke said he was, …

history.com

Santa Claus

7-9 minutes

The man we know as Santa Claus has a history all his own. Today, he is thought of mainly as the jolly man in red, but his story stretches all the way back to the 3rd century. Find out more about the history of Santa Claus from his earliest origins to the shopping mall favorite of today, and discover how two New Yorkers–Clement Clark Moore and Thomas Nast–were major influences on the Santa Claus millions of children wait for each Christmas Eve.

The Legend of St. Nicholas

The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. One of the best known of the St. Nicholas stories is that he saved three poor sisters from being sold into slavery or prostitution by their father by providing them with a dowry so that they could be married. Over the course of many years, Nicholas’s popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6. This was traditionally considered a lucky day to make large purchases or to get married. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe. Even after the Protestant Reformation, when the veneration of saints began to be discouraged, St. Nicholas maintained a positive reputation, especially in Holland.

Sinter Klaas Comes to New York

St. Nicholas made his first inroads into American popular culture towards the end of the 18th century. In December 1773, and again in 1774, a New York newspaper reported that groups of Dutch families had gathered to honor the anniversary of his death.

The name Santa Claus evolved from Nick’s Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas). In 1804, John Pintard, a member of the New York Historical Society, distributed woodcuts of St. Nicholas at the society’s annual meeting. The background of the engraving contains now-familiar Santa images including stockings filled with toys and fruit hung over a fireplace. In 1809, Washington Irving helped to popularize the Sinter Klaas stories when he referred to St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York in his book, The History of New York. As his prominence grew, Sinter Klaas was described as everything from a “rascal” with a blue three-cornered hat, red waistcoat, and yellow stockings to a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a “huge pair of Flemish trunk hose.”

Shopping Mall Santas

Gift-giving, mainly centered around children, has been an important part of the Christmas celebration since the holiday’s rejuvenation in the early 19th century. Stores began to advertise Christmas shopping in 1820, and by the 1840s, newspapers were creating separate sections for holiday advertisements, which often featured images of the newly-popular Santa Claus. In 1841, thousands of children visited a Philadelphia shop to see a life-size Santa Claus model. It was only a matter of time before stores began to attract children, and their parents, with the lure of a peek at a “live” Santa Claus. In the early 1890s, the Salvation Army needed money to pay for the free Christmas meals they provided to needy families. They began dressing up unemployed men in Santa Claus suits and sending them into the streets of New York to solicit donations. Those familiar Salvation Army Santas have been ringing bells on the street corners of American cities ever since.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, an Episcopal minister, wrote a long Christmas poem for his three daughters entitled “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas.” Moore’s poem, which he was initially hesitant to publish due to the frivolous nature of its subject, is largely responsible for our modern image of Santa Claus as a “right jolly old elf” with a portly figure and the supernatural ability to ascend a chimney with a mere nod of his head! Although some of Moore’s imagery was probably borrowed from other sources, his poem helped popularize the now-familiar image of a Santa Claus who flew from house to house on Christmas Eve–in “a miniature sleigh” led by eight flying reindeer–leaving presents for deserving children. “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” created a new and immediately popular American icon. In 1881, political cartoonist Thomas Nast drew on Moore’s poem to create the first likeness that matches our modern image of Santa Claus. His cartoon, which appeared in Harper’s Weekly, depicted Santa as a rotund, cheerful man with a full, white beard, holding a sack laden with toys for lucky children. It is Nast who gave Santa his bright red suit trimmed with white fur, North Pole workshop, elves, and his wife, Mrs. Claus.

A Santa by Any Other Name

18th-century America’s Santa Claus was not the only St. Nicholas-inspired gift-giver to make an appearance at Christmastime. Similar figures were popular all over the world. Christkind or Kris Kringle was believed to deliver presents to well-behaved Swiss and German children. Meaning “Christ child,” Christkind is an angel-like figure often accompanied by St. Nicholas on his holiday missions. In Scandinavia, a jolly elf named Jultomten was thought to deliver gifts in a sleigh drawn by goats. English legend explains that Father Christmas visits each home on Christmas Eve to fill children’s stockings with holiday treats. Pere Noel is responsible for filling the shoes of French children. In Russia, it is believed that an elderly woman named Babouschka purposely gave the wise men wrong directions to Bethlehem so that they couldn’t find Jesus. Later, she felt remorseful, but could not find the men to undo the damage. To this day, on January 5, Babouschka visits Russian children leaving gifts at their bedsides in the hope that one of them is the baby Jesus and she will be forgiven. In Italy, a similar story exists about a woman called La Befana, a kindly witch who rides a broomstick down the chimneys of Italian homes to deliver toys into the stockings of lucky children.

The Ninth Reindeer

Rudolph, “the most famous reindeer of all,” was born over a hundred years after his eight flying counterparts. The red-nosed wonder was the creation of Robert L. May, a copywriter at the Montgomery Ward department store.

In 1939, May wrote a Christmas-themed story-poem to help bring holiday traffic into his store. Using a similar rhyme pattern to Moore’s “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” May told the story of Rudolph, a young reindeer who was teased by the other deer because of his large, glowing, red nose. But, When Christmas Eve turned foggy and Santa worried that he wouldn’t be able to deliver gifts that night, the former outcast saved Christmas by leading the sleigh by the light of his red nose. Rudolph’s message—that given the opportunity, a liability can be turned into an asset—proved popular. Montgomery Ward sold almost two and a half million copies of the story in 1939. When it was reissued in 1946, the book sold over three and half million copies. Several years later, one of May’s friends, Johnny Marks, wrote a short song based on Rudolph’s story (1949). It was recorded by Gene Autry and sold over two million copies. Since then, the story has been translated into 25 languages and been made into a television movie, narrated by Burl Ives, which has charmed audiences every year since 1964.

What the fark do you mean that Santa isn’t real ???

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