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I Feel You by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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In this video, I'd like to talk about old Saint Nick, Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas himself.
Now, I should start off, premise this video, by saying this is a video for the adults out there.
So if your children are listening in the background, you might want to shut it off right now, and we can have a private chat, mano i mano.
So with that said, I think you understand the topic of this video.
From Santa Claus to St. Nicholas.
That event that we all experience growing up, the first Christmas where we realize that there is no Santa Claus, there are no magical reindeer, and that it's been our parents putting presents under the tree all of this time.
You know, this is a big debate that you get in the skeptic circles, in the atheist circles, is should you lie to your children about this?
Is it appropriate?
Because I think for a lot of us, there's quite a bit of heartbreak connected to this discovery, this realization, even a sense of foolishness.
Because for most of us, for all of us probably, by the time we figure out that Santa Claus is our parents, we should have known it quite some time before.
It's not just some kid telling us on the playground that made us realize it, but the fact that he told us and it made perfect sense, making us feel foolish, making us feel tricked, making us feel betrayed.
And so in the atheist circles, they ask that question, is the magical joy of Santa Claus worth the inevitable heartbreak, the demystification of the world which occurs when you find out that he's not real.
And so what should we do about this?
Because a world without Santa Claus is a much grayer world, isn't it?
It's one much less colorful, much less welcoming, much less heroic.
Well, what I would say, I would say what I would do with my children, when they are old enough to figure out for themselves that Santa Claus isn't real, is to sit them down and explain, no, no, the guy in the red outfit that comes down the chimney, that's not real.
That's a simpler version of the truth, which we told you when you were very young.
Now, I'm going to tell you about the actual Saint Nicholas.
Now, I'm not going to delve into an entire hagiography right here.
You know, I'm sure you know about the time that Saint Nicholas punched out the Aryan heretic at the Council of Nicaea.
But you might not know that of the many miracles that he performed, one of them is still ongoing at the basilica of San Nicola in Mira.
Every year on December 6th, the local monks harvest from his burial tomb the manna that seeps out of it.
It's a liquid that has a, it smells like rose water.
Every year it's still seeping out.
And they harvest it, and there's apparently many miraculous properties connected to it.
So even, what was he?
He lived 270 to 343, I believe.
Even 17 centuries after his death, he's still performing miracles.
He was the one that originated the trend of anonymous gift giving.
Supposedly, it started off with three young girls that the family could not afford a dowry for them, and this would result in either possibly them being forced into prostitution or, at the very minimum, everybody assuming they were prostitutes because they were unmarried.
And so Saint Nicholas went to the house at night, and the legend varies a little bit.
Some of them say he went every year as one of the daughters came of age, and he threw a sack of gold through the window.
When the father of these girls finally caught him on the third year, he said, No, don't thank me.
Thank God, I had nothing to do with it.
And thus the Christmas tradition of giving one another presents anonymously.
So this story of Santa Claus that we tell to young children about the magical reindeer coming down the chimney, all of that, it's not false.
It's just simplified.
And when the children become old enough that they figure it out or they hear that, no, it's not really happening, we say, well, yeah, you are old enough to understand now.
That was the simple mystery, the mystery for children.
Now, let's tell you about the deeper mystery.
Let's tell you about the Saint Nicholas who actually lived and who did all of this.
Let's tell you about the saint who continues to perform miracles to this day.
Let's tell you about the beauty of generosity.
You see, the Christmas spirit, it's not something on a Hallmark card or on an old black and white movie, but it's a very real and very present force, a grace that exists in our world right now that all of us can participate in.
And so instead of letting the magic fade away as your children grow into teenagers and young adults, teach them about the real magic, the real heroism in this world, embodied by men like Saint Nicholas.
Merry Christmas to all of you folks out there and have a happy new year.
