The Father Christmas Story

As we approach the festive holidays, our newly appointed Research Fellow Dr Theodora Papatheodorou, revisits her previous research into the Father Christmas story.
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For almost six weeks before Christmas, the story of Father Christmas dominates the lives of children and adults. For many, the story remains highly controversial and questionable. Introducing children to deception and lying, over-commercialisation and the accentuation of differences in diverse and multi-faith societies are some of the concerns counting against the perpetuation of the story. On the other hand, tradition, the values that the story may convey, and the powerful magical experience it creates for young children are some of the arguments put forward for continuing to tell the story.

It was some of these issues that my colleague, Janet Gill, and I had been debating – as a parent and grandparent respectively – which led us to conduct research about Father Christmas two decades ago. 

In its initial phase, our research focused on parental attitudes and experiences with the Father Christmas story (a second phase focused on early years professionals attitudes and practices, and a third phase of the research looked at children’s experiences).

The research was conducted among parents of young children, four to eight years old, in Suffolk and Essex. A questionnaire was distributed via a network of schools that showed an interest in our research. 318 completed questionnaires were returned (representing a 53 per cent response rate) and eight follow-up interviews were conducted with parents who volunteered to be interviewed.

Although aware of a number of issues clouding the Father Christmas story, most parents in our research said that they did keep up the story as a means to transmit personal and family values. They changed, modified and appropriated it to pass messages about caring, giving, generosity and relationships with others on to their children. Despite the acknowledgement of its obvious commercialisation, for the families in our study the Father Christmas story was mainly associated with a sense of magic, awe, wonder and excitement and, as such, held a special place in their children’s lives.

For our respondents, the Father Christmas story portrayed a kindly old man who existed outside of the competitive economic reality instead embracing an alternative set of values: benevolence, happiness, co-operation and generosity. It was this kind of ‘magic economy’ that parents introduced to their children to gradually instil self-awareness and awareness of others, and their capacity for spiritual development. 

For parents, the Father Christmas story has many versions, demonstrating its potential to embrace everything and everyone. Parents constantly change and modify the story to make incongruent information congruent, to transmit personal, family and social values, to express the need for a sense of universal generosity and benevolence, and to nurture imagination and magic thinking as well as rational thinking. It is a story that enriches children’s lives with a sense of awe, wonder, magic, curiosity, imaginative potential and, over time, questioning and reasoning about its unexplained aspects. With time and when the story is sensitively handled by parents, children may put together its incongruent elements to realise its actual nature, true meaning and its reflection of family values and beliefs.

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It can be argued that children’s cognitive abilities may support the perpetuation of the story, as young children do not have the acquired knowledge from which to divide the world phenomena as real or unreal and their capacity for belief is infinite. However, as children grow older and seek out more evidence-based knowledge, they become sceptical and suspicious about the incongruent elements of the story. Inevitably ‘finding out’ becomes a rite of passage from the infinite belief in the story towards scepticism to finally finding out or working out the true nature of the story!

The respondents of our research indicated that they kept up the Father Christmas story in a playful, interrogating and questioning manner, appearing willing to ignore the story’s obvious fantasy elements. By living the ‘magical reality’ of the story and retaining a ‘suspended belief’, parents acknowledged that, while children may gradually lose literal belief in Father Christmas, they could retain belief in the visionary powers of the story that provides them with sanctuary and meaning.

Should parents keep up the Father Christmas story? This is obviously a matter of personal choice, dependent on each family’s own values. Should parents do so, they should emphasise its awe and wonder inspiring elements, transmitting the universal values of benevolence and generosity. More importantly, parents should be mindful of keeping up the Father Christmas story, not Father Christmas as a real person, for it is the narrative of the story that matters!

The research is now dated but conversations with a younger generation of parents and grandparents still echo similar arguments that my colleague and I had two decades ago. Perhaps some new research may provide new light and insights about their attitudes and practices.