It's that time of year again. The season dreaded by every writer of time-dependent media content: Christmas. Oh, yes, we call it the 'holiday season'. We nod in the direction of diversity. But let's call a snow shovel and snow shovel, and admit it's all about that most sacred of icons, the foundation of western civilisation, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

I am referring, of course, to Santa Claus.

All of us, believer and non-believer alike, are saddled as writers with the burden of Virginia O'Hanlon, the Right Reader for the 1897 New York Sun¹. The fact that the Sun's Right Reader was eight at the time will tell you a lot about the depth of this paper's coverage. Anyway, Ms O'Hanlon asked her dad, a coroner's assistant, if Santa Claus existed. Her dad told her to write to the newspaper, because 'if you see it in the Sun, it's so.'² Virginia wrote, former war correspondent Francis Pharcellus Church answered, and the rest is media history.

We might regard this story as merely an amusing footnote, were it not for a couple of ancillary facts. One, 'Yes, Virginia' is the most-reprinted editorial in history. Two, it is the only newspaper editorial ever to have been set to classical music. What do we learn from this? That readers are crying out for verbal inspiration, no matter how loudly they claim otherwise.

The 'Yes, Virginia' phenomenon tells us something else. As writers, we need to come to terms with the difference between truth and mere fact.

The Place of Myth in the Well-Ordered Mind

Facts are the enemy of truth.
– Dale Wasserman

Did you think that quote was by Miguel de Cervantes? That's because you've heard Cervantes say it – in Man of La Mancha. It's a great statement, made by a great playwright. That statement goes to the heart of why 'Yes, Virginia' works. Do I believe in the jolly fat elf? I do not. Is my objection to the jolly fat elf's hegemony over a month out of twelve based on my belief that there is not a man in a silly red suit living at the North Pole? It is not.

My objection to the Man In Red is that, to most people, he symbolizes, not the spirit of giving, but the spirit of getting. Children don't write Santa to ask what they can do for the world. They write to ask for the latest games and toys. Oh, yes, they probably start their letters with 'please bring something to all the deserving poor kids in Africa…', but they quickly follow it with a list of must-have DVDs. Kids are fast learners in the social department. Like beauty pageant contestants, they know the answer to 'What is your goal in life?' They memorise the facile lie in order to get the tinsel crown. Then, they go back to looking out for Number One.

No, Virginia, my objection to Santa isn't based on his non-corporeal nature. It's based on what he stands for: material greed. Greed is wanting something you don't need. You don't really need all those DVDs. You just want them. There's nothing wrong with that, but it isn't a particularly inspiring thought.

But back to Cervantes. Cervantes' character, Don Quixote, was an old, deluded anorak who'd read too much LOTR, and thought it was real. He was a card-carrying Trekkie, was Señor Quijana. He decided it wasn't enough to collect all the tchotchkes and learn the movie scripts by heart. He got tired of composing crackvids. So, he donned his suit of armour, got on his broken-down horse, and set out to make that fantasy world come true.

Yeah, he got knocked down by a windmill. Big deal. In the world that counts – the one Quixote was honouring – it wasn't a windmill. It was a honking big giant, and the Knight of the Woeful Countenance would keep trying until he conquered it.

They say that Franics Pharcellus Church was inspired to write his editorial because of the suffering he had seen in the Civil War. In other words, realising how bad it can get often brings a writer to the point of recognizing the value of a good, non-solid myth. Fair enough. To Church's everlasting credit, he wrote that editorial anonymously, and never took responsibility during his lifetime, although the text became famous. We'll give him his props for that.

Cervantes, too, had seen a lot of suffering. Dale Wasserman, his best biographer, gives the great author these lines in his play:

I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is. Pain, misery, hunger ... cruelty beyond belief. I have heard the singing from taverns and the moans from bundles of filth on the streets. I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle ... or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no gallant last words ... only their eyes filled with confusion, whimpering the question, "Why?"

I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!

Now, before you say that's escapism, stop and think. What do we write for? Especially, what do we write fiction for? We write in order to build thought experiments, to make imaginary spaces. Within those imaginary spaces, our minds can work out the answers to problems. A good imaginary space is worth its weight in fairy gold.

Which is why it's so important to build our imaginary spaces wisely. Ask yourself: how is the North Pole different from the inn in Man of La Mancha? Which character is going to get us where we wanted to go – Santa, or Don Quixote? Do you begin to see the challenge inherent in myth?

Personally, I'd rather think about Don Quixote. I'd rather be a mouse in that courtyard, watching his vigil than working as an elf in a sugarplum factory.

We all have access to that gossamer ectoplasm out of which imaginary worlds are made. What will you spin out of your share of it?

P.S.

To all of you who thought I was going to talk about religion..tee hee, fooled you. Or did I?

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Dmitri Gheorgheni

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