EAdults often lie to little children. They say there is no more chocolate, instead of saying that the children are not allowed to eat any more. They say it’s too late for the kids to stay up instead of saying they’d rather spend their evenings alone.
Adults do this to make their lives easier and because they think they can get away with it with kids. They know their lies are socially acceptable.
They do it the hardest with Santa Claus. Every year, millions of parents in this country tell their children about someone who doesn’t exist. And to forestall the argument that this isn’t a lie, but appropriate for the age because it’s full of imagination: Not everything that doesn’t exist is immediately fantastic. Today’s Santa Claus is a downright clumsy character, commercially designed, completely composed and marketed. It raises no questions, it hides no secrets. Everything has been answered: an old white man with a bushy beard and a red coat who rewards socially adjusted children and punishes naughty, untameable outsiders, lives in Lapland, rides through the sky on a sled, a few reindeer in front, also has an address in Germany: Christmas post office, 16798 Heaven’s Gate.