Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.01.2017, Page 6

Inner Workings
Figures
Don't
Lie
Like parents all over the world, I spent
my December this year spinning an
elaborate web of deception. I am a two-
faced swindler who in the same breath
tells my six-year-old daughter that it
is wrong to lie and that, yes, Santa can
still get into our house even if we don’t
have a chimney, because he is magic.
Before they were born, the Icelandic
father of my children turned to me one
Christmas and said, “We aren’t going
to lie to our kids about the whole Santa,
reindeer, North Pole business, right?” I
replied, “Well, let’s decide what kind
of lies we tell. Will we tell them that
if they are good, a jolly happy elf-man
will bring them presents, or do we tell
them that if they don’t get clothing for
Christmas, a giant cat will steal and
eat them?” Thus began my adventure
in raising bicultural children. As it
happens, my kids get double lies at
Christmas. Their December is full of
shoes in windows for Yule Lads, and
wish lists to send to the North Pole.
Christmas lies are the best lies.
There are few stories in our culture
that are as thoroughly fantastic as
the tall tales we tell at Christmas. The
holiday brings with it a whole set of
backstories, songs, rituals, and gran-
diose lore built up around our myths.
As we tell these stories to our chil-
dren, singing songs about Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Grýla and
the Christmas Cat, we play with their
imaginations.
Lying to children
is good for them
Lying results in the two important
gifts we give children over the holi-
days that can’t be wrapped up with
shiny paper: magic and critical think-
ing. Do you remember what it felt
like to believe the Christmas lies? It
is extraordinary. A vibrant magical
imagination is one of the most pleas-
ing things about being human, and it
doesn’t stop at childhood. We get sto-
ries about a wizard boy who goes to
a special school, or hobbits, dragons,
Jedi, and robots with human feelings,
all born from the minds of adults with
vivid magical imaginations.
Young people are constantly puz-
zling out the world. When we are
small, it is unclear how much magic
actually exists in the world, and we
are ready to believe what we are told.
My children are five and six, and a lot
of my job as their mother these days
surrounds explaining the earth, hu-
mans, history, and biology. The truth
is sometimes so fantastic and wonder-
ful it seems like magic. If you have ever
spent an afternoon with a five-year-
old explaining what dinosaurs were,
or flying fish, or how people used to
believe the world was flat until they
built large ships (because there were
no airplanes) and set out on the vast
open ocean with only the stars at night
to guide them, you know what I mean.
A city full of elves isn’t all that unbe-
lievable.
Kid logic is wonderful
Which brings me to critical thinking.
As I lie to my children about Christ-
mas over the years, they are devel-
oping logical mechanisms to prove
what is real, and what is imaginary,
and determining on their own what
must be true. Kid logic is wonderful!
Sometimes, evidence leads to exactly
the wrong conclusion. As a child grow-
ing up on a small hobby farm, I applied
fierce logic to the evidence at hand
each Christmas, and found compel-
ling results. Item one. Cookies we left
for Santa were eaten in the morning.
Item two. The note for Santa was al-
ways answered. Item three. We left hay
for the reindeer, and in the morning,
it was all mussed up, because obvi-
ously, the reindeer had needed to fuel
up for their long journey. At that point,
it seemed that the whole Santa thing
must be real. I don’t remember the
moment I realized there was a much
simpler and more likely explanation
for all these occurrences, but at some
point my brain developed the ability to
analyze the facts at hand and land at a
more realistic conclusion. I wasn’t told
that Santa isn’t real. I didn’t need to be
told, because I had practiced the skill
of critical thinking and formulating
my own ideas.
As we grow up, and even as adults,
there are a lot of authority figures
telling us what is true. Advertisers,
politicians, and religious leaders are
all selling their versions of reality to
humanity. The Christmas lies are the
first practice we give our youngsters in
thinking independently and question-
ing authority. Given the current state
of political rhetoric and the constant
bombardment of modern advertising,
we could all use a bit more of that.
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Words
MARY
FRANCES
DAVIDSON
Photo
GÚNDI
OPINION
Christmas
Is A Lie
And you must be a
two-faced swindler
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 01 — 2017
6
662
The number of tonnes of
fireworks exploded over
Iceland on New Year’s Eve.
6
The number of fireworks-
related injuries this year.
2,500
The number of parts per
million per cubic metre
of pollutants in the air
at half past midnight on
New Year’s Eve.
9%
Percentage of the Icelandic
population who are Geminis;
the largest portion of the
country attributed to one
astrological sign.
3
The number of minutes
which had passed in
2017 when the first
Icelander of the year
was born.
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