Thoughts on NOT spoiling Christmas for children

[Please note, the opinion expressed in this blog post is my personal opinion as a human being, not a library technician, and is not endorsed or approved by the Tumbler Ridge Public Library, its staff, manager, or board.]

I recently heard about the kerfuffle at the Christmas concert last night. For those who are unaware, a man stood up unannounced (and indeed, was not part of the program) and began reciting a lengthy poem describing how Santa Claus is a marketing creation while event organizers tried to figure out who this man was and what he was doing.

This did not occur during an adult conversation of the over-commercialization of Christmas, or during a roundtable discussion about the cost of Christmas. This occured at a Christmas concert where Santa was seeing children down the hall...

Here my response to that man:

*Beginning of extreme sarcasm*

Fantastic! Would you like to kick some puppies for an encore?

*End of extreme sarcasm*

Even if the modern view of Santa was a marketing creation as this man claims, Santa STILL represent an ideal that we can and should aspire to. Santa is an unselfish person who works extremely hard to bring joy to others and asks for nothing in return. That's something we should be celebrating, not denegrating, particularly during this time of year.

Now, I fully acknowledge the rights of this individual to have his own opinion. I also acknowledge his rights to pass his beliefs about Santa and Christmas on to his own family.

However, this man does not have the right to attempt to destroy Christmas for children in Tumbler Ridge. We live in an age when children seem to lose their innocence younger and younger every year. A belief in Santa Claus is one of the precious few things that allow children to remain children for a few brief years, and to try to take that away from these children and their parents is inexcusable.

--Jacob Fehr