The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-12-06
FAVOUR CHILDREN By Olivs Roberts bsrton
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It isn't long until Christmas now and a question has to be decided in many families.
 Shall the myth of Santa Claus be kept up with the children?
 There is so much talk today about it being silly and even wicked to let children go on be- lieving that a fat jolly fellow in red gets in somewhere and turns the house into a veritable store.
 Why have to lie and invent new ways of admission now that chim- neys are thinning and even disap- bearing? Why cook up all that nonsense about reindeer and a sleigh - what's a sleigh anyway? or an airplane and all the rest of it?
 After all Christmas is holy day, say many mothers. Isn't 1t better just to accent this side of it, tell the children that on Christ's Birthday people must feel kind and generous and give gifts to thelr friends, bury old hates and rejoice?
 Explaining Santa
 This part of it is, agree, far and away the most important part of Christmas. The loveliness of it all is too often overlooked or completely forgotten even in the mad scramble of buying, wrapping and giving presents. Children should be impressed with the sweetness of the season, and a sympathetic reverence for the day and the event it symbolizes.
 But cannot see, on the other hand, that any figure as mysteri- ously kind and exciting as Santa Claus needs to be left out. He too is moved by the general happiness of the times, we may say, and wants to do something for every body. Just another friend, the great friend of all children.
 The other argument against the poor fellow is that we upset the good sense and intelligence of children by stuffing one more fairy down their throats. Why fairies at all? Why anything unreal and fantastic? Why deliberately lie against our. own better judgment? Well-for one thing, there is less danger to child's intelli- gence than we think. Little peo- pie just growing into a great and wonderful world would have diff ficulty in separating the real from the unreal. An airplane, even a sleigh in the air is no miracle to a child for to him there. is nothing impossible. If the park fountain were, to raise itself aloft and spout gold pieces a small child would accept it as completely as he does an airplane dropping cards. Symbol of Love
 If we refute Santa Claus, we could have refuted people flying, for instance, thirty years ago. The only difference is that one could and did come true and the other could not-or couldn't it if we set our minds to it? Our ideas of mir acles change with our age and with the times. A child's imagination stabilizes later on. He himself separates the mystical from realism. He | measures chimneys with his eyes, lerans that Santa's mole corre- spends with the chauffeur's, and says, "Ho, ho, I knew 1t all the | time," and is satisfied.
 If Santa Claus is worrying any mother on these two scores I should let him rest. The children need him, we all need him, he is tradition in the flesh, our hopes encased in whiskers and tunic, an old love for everybody. We all tie to him and we interpret him as we ned. What the world needs | today for twelve months a year is great and good Santa Claus to make us children again and be- lieve in things without too much questioning.