You can’t go around shooting your guests you know whatever you might think of them. ibid. Neville
In recent years this uniquely British tradition has been monopolized by TV talent shows. But the backlash is well under way. And the great race for the Christmas No.1 is back. The Christmas No.1 Story, BBC 2012
1952: Al Martino: Here in my heart. ibid.
1955: Dickie Valentine: Christmas Alphabet. ibid.
1957: Harry Belafonte: Mary’s Boy Child. ibid.
1963: The Beatles: I Want to Hold Your Hand. ibid.
1969: Rolf Harris: Two Little Boys. ibid.
The Christmas Top of the Pops was the perfect arena for this gladiatorial glitter-off. ibid.
1973: Wizard: I Wish It Could Be Christmas v Slade: Merry Christmas, Everybody. ibid.
1976: Johnny Mathis: When a Child is Born. ibid.
1978: Bony M: Mary’s Boy Child. ibid.
1981: The Human League: Don’t You Want Me. ibid.
Wham: Last Christmas: the highest selling single ever not to make it to Number One. ibid.
1984: Band Aid: Do They Know It’s Christmas? ibid.
1985: Shakin’ Stevens: Merry Christmas, Everyone. ibid.
1988: Cliff Richard v Jason & Kylie. ibid.
1990: Cliff Richard: Saviour’s Day. ibid.
The big ballads took over. ibid.
1994: E17: Stay Another Day. ibid.
2000: Bob the Builder: Can We Fix It? ibid.
2009: Rage Against the Machine. ibid.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more! Dr Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
‘One can never have enough socks,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.’ J K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sourcerer’s Stone
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. George Carlin
A female Santa? Where does it stop? The US Office s6e13: Secret Santa, Michael to Jim, NBC 2009
With two Santas in the room things get ruthless. ibid.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Francis Pharcellus Church, 1839-1906, American journalist, letter to eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon
John Lennon once said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ. He was wrong. That honor belongs to Santa Claus. An estimated 85% of American four-year-olds believe in Santa. Only 82% of adults in a recent poll told Gallup that they were Christians. Among their respective target audiences, Santa out-pulls Jesus by a nose. Tom Flynn, The Trouble with Christmas
During World War II, labor leader John L Lewis called a coal miners’ strike just before Christmas. NBC opened its radio newscast with the words, ‘John L Lewis just shot Santa Claus’. In the next hour, thirty thousand calls inundated the network’s switchboards. A Texas boy despaired and downed a bottle of castor oil. So frightening was the reaction that NBC hurriedly staged an ‘interview with Santa Claus’ to reassure Americans that the jolly old elf was still alive. ibid.
Reason #1: To Teach and Perpetrate the Santa Claus Myth, Parents Must Lie to Their Children. Reason #2: The Santa Claus Myth Exploits Characteristic Weakness in Young Children’s Thinking, Perhaps Obstructing Their Passage to Later Stages of Cognitive Development. Reason #3: To Buoy Belief, Adults Stage Elaborate Deceptions, Laying Traps for the Child’s Developing Intellect. Reason #4: The Myth Encourages Lazy Parenting and Promotes Unhealthy Fear. Reason #5: The Number of Characteristics that Santa Claus Shares with God and Jesus Verges on the Blasphemous. ibid.
What price are we paying for lying to children about Santa Claus? It may be steeper than we think. Because the myth panders to childhood credulity, some have implicated it in the rising incidence of scientific illiteracy among the young. Because it encourages children to build their world views on authority, not on independent thinking, others have related it to the abysmal judgment supposedly displayed by young adults. Can parents honestly be surprised when children do not consult them before experimenting with sex, drugs, crime, or destructive relationships – so soon after their parents have made it clear that children cannot trust them to provide accurate knowledge of the world? A Christian parent put the issue clearly in a letter to the editor:
‘Certainly we can’t get away with lies for seven to ten years and then expect children to ‘outgrow’ Santa ... then suddenly expect them to believe us when we mention high intensity moral issues.
‘Simply being honest with our children, in my opinion, would outweigh anything Santa ever brought’. ibid.
The fairies are gone ... the witches are gone ... the ghosts are gone. Santa Claus alone still lingers with us. For heaven’s sake, let us keep him as long as we can. Gamaliel Bradford, cited Flynn
[A]ny adult who dares tell a child the objective truth on the matter is considered worse than blasphemous. Renzo Sereno
He who would destroy a child’s faith in Father Christmas, and thus annihilate the exquisite poetry of childhood, should be kept chained up beyond the reach of his fellow man. W J Locker
A priest who told youngsters that Santa Claus is dead and that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer doesn’t exist was acting on his ‘zeal to emphasize the spiritual dimension’ of Christmas, church officials said Tuesday.
The Diocese of Metuchen issued a statement to clarify comments by the Reverend Romano Ferraro at the St John Vianney Roman Catholic Church in Colonia [New Jersey] on Saturday.
Ferraro also had said that parents who tell their children Santa exists are liars.
‘He tried to kill Santa,’ said Joanne Apolonia, a mother who attended the weekend Mass at the Church with her ‘Confraternity of Christian Doctrine’ class. ‘That’s how the kids took it.’ Associated Press article, ‘Christmyth: Priest Says Parents Lie, Santa Dead’, reprinted The Arizona Republic 10th December 1986
David Henry – a PE teacher at Fairwood Elementary School in Kent, Washington – landed in hot water when parents of five- and six-year-old students said it wasn’t ‘his business ... to put away their visions of sugar plums and view the world with Scrooge-like realism’. News article, ‘Truth Hurts: Gym Teacher Gives Lowdown on Santa’, reprinted Phoenix Gazette 1st January 1994
Santa Claus handed a book with a singularly blunt message to the suburban Virginia tots who sat on his lap at Tyson’s Corner Center last week: There really is no Santa. News article The Washington Post, reprinted The Arizona Republic 26th November 1989
Outrage After Teacher Tells 7-Year-Olds Santa Is Not Real. Fox News 11th December 2008
Calvin: This whole Santa Claus thing just doesn’t make sense. Why all the secrecy? Why all the mystery? If the guy exists why doesn’t he ever show himself and prove it? And if he doesn’t exist what’s the meaning of all this?
Hobbes: I dunno. Isn’t this a religious holiday?
Calvin: Yeah, but actually, I’ve got the same questions about God. Bill Watterson
In the old days it was not called the Holiday Season: the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!’ Dave Barry
Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice. Dave Barry
Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. Norman Vincent Peale
The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington D.C. This wasn’t for any religious reasons. They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin. Jay Leno
Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. Calvin Coolidge
Always winter but never Christmas. C S Lewis, ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’