Gerry Bowler teaches at the University of Manitoba and is working on his third book about Christmas. His previous books include Santa Claus: A Biography and The World Encyclopedia of Christmas. He arranged for Maclean’s to speak with Santa.
Q: All we’re hearing is bad news about people losing jobs and offices cancelling Christmas parties. Should we just write off Christmas this year?
A: Oh, not at all, no. It’s actually in the times of economic depression and social turmoil that we need magic.
Q: But how can we afford the magic?
A: Santa Claus always operates in conjunction with parental resources, and the prime directive of Santa is that he never outstrips the ability of parents to provide. The important part of my job is to deliver things magically, and it’s the magic that’s more important than the particular gift.
Q: So is the magic in figuring out ways to still give kids what they want, or is it finding other ways to satisfy them?
A: There are all kinds of ways of expressing love at Christmas that don’t involve material things, and children are remarkably flexible in accepting and expecting and, if they’re talked to in advance, I think they’re seldom disappointed with what they get.
Q: Does Santa himself have to cut back during these downturns?
A: It has happened. If we look at my experience during various wars there have been places that, because of conflict and blockades, I haven’t been able to get into. During the American Civil War, for example, southern children were deprived of much that I would usually have brought them, but parents were able to encourage kids to defer their expectations to the time when the war was over. They were told that General Lee had asked me to take the toys and convert them into supplies for the injured troops.
Q: But we’re not in that bad of a situation at the moment.
A: Oh, certainly not, but you can look at similar things in the Great Depression in the 1930s where things were scaled back. But the belief in Santa was even more important then—and this was one of the golden ages of Santa Claus, with appearances in department stores, for example, that would eventually lead to depictions such as Miracle on 34th Street.
Q: Is it of any consequence to Santa that office parties are being cancelled? Does Santa have a place in the office?
A: No, he doesn’t. Cheap imitators show up there, and I’m often sorry to read about what these counterfeits have gotten up to under the influence of too much eggnog.
Q: Is there any concrete evidence that Santa’s going to be less of a presence this year? Are sales down?
A: I’m hearing mixed news. I know that personally—travelling incognito in malls and their parking lots—there doesn’t seem to be any kind of reluctance of parents to hit the shopping precincts, at least not yet.
Q: Is Santa himself any less visible in the places we see him before Christmas, on TV pitching products, or in movie theatres?
A: Not that I can tell. Remember that this is not me, these are merely the ghosts, as it were, that are conjured up by Madison Avenue. There’s no sign my image is any less important to the economy than it has been in previous years. Where it’s in retreat is thanks to the umbrage industry, those people whose job it is to be offended on behalf of others who see in me a threatening religious figure and thus a sign of exclusivity and bigotry.
Q: Are those the people who lynched you in Florida a few years ago?
A: That’s one branch of it, certainly. There’s always been a tendency inside the Calvinist wing of Christianity to cast a jaundiced eye on Christmas and on me, but the stuff that I’m seeing tends to come out of government offices, school systems. England is particularly under siege by these characters.
Q: And who are these characters?
A: Well, the other day in England a woman was told by an employee of the local city council that she had to take down her Christmas lights because Christmas lights were by definition an act of exclusivity that might offend her neighbours, and when she complained she discovered that the local council had no such policy in place at all, but we see here the tendency to self-censor, to have minor officials feel they’re empowered to ask for Christmas trees to be removed or for kids dressed in Santa Claus outfits not to be allowed at costume parties.
Q: It’s one thing to object to a nativity scene or some Christian symbol, but Christmas lights?
A: It’s getting worse and worse every year.
Q: There’s another group of anti-Santa types out there who simply see Christmas as a capitalist plot, who take an anti-consumerism view of you and the season. Are they still out there in force?
A: Oh, they’re certainly in Winnipeg, where this is the world headquarters of the Buy Nothing Christmas, and in Victoria.
Q: That’s right in your backyard, right?
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