Santa Claus, the Spirit of Giving, the Essence of Charity. Happy Christmas.

Charity is too often dismissed yet it is an essential virtue. Santa Claus - Father Christmas - is the Spirit of the season, the Spirit of Giving.

I once wrote a piece urging conservatives to be more Santa Claus. I drew on that P. J. O’Rourke remark, that God is a Republican and Santa a Democrat, the one that finishes observing that “...Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: there is no such thing as Santa Claus!”.

Of course you and I know better than PJ, even the greatest can be wrong. Santa Claus is real and we shouldn’t listen to the sorts of people who, in their tidy desire to have every reality defined with evidence, lose connection with the idea of transcendence, with the magic of our lives. We are with Paul Gallico’s “Boy who was Magic” in seeing that magic in the cycle of the seasons, in the birth of a child and in the stars that twinkle in the night sky.

Us conservatives need to grasp why feelings really matter, why hope and joy and faith matter, and to move on from that oft quoted statement from Margaret Thatcher:

“Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.”

This attitude may have some value but, in the end, we want our rulers to have some emotional connection with those they rule. Sometime over the Christmas period we’ll probably sing “Good King Wenceslas”, belting out the verse that sees the King drag his hapless page out into the freezing cold to find the poor man:

Bring me flesh and bring me wine

Bring me pine logs hither

Thou and I shall see him dine

When we bear them thither.

Page and monarch, forth they went

Forth they went together

Through the rude winds wild lament

And the bitter weather

I’m guessing that the people who don’t believe in magic and who deny their feelings, would see Wenceslas as an idiot, trooping out in the freezing weather to help just one of his subjects. But the sainted king, for all his foolishness, sent out an important message - his act set us an example of good works, it was symbolic. And the magic of that action is that we still sing about it, see it as the greatest exemplar of Christian charity, remembering one case among, we are told, many:

“His deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God’s churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty.”

Which brings us back to Father Christmas who in P.J. O’Rourke’s words:

“He's cute. He's non-threatening. He's always cheerful. He loves animals. He knows who's been naughty and nice, but never does anything about it. He gives every one everything they want, without a thought of quid pro quo. He works hard for charity and is famously generous to the poor.”

When the grumps and grinches go on about how commercialised Christmas is these days, they miss the whole point. For sure we do a lot of frivolous, sometimes wasteful, spending in and around Christmas but we do this for all the right reasons, we do it because it feels right. Those decorations, rich foods and songs about a baby Jesus we want to believe in even if it is just for the one day, the magic of Christmas. We like to receive presents but, just as importantly, our traditions of gift giving mean we are forced by the spirits of the season into asking what it is that others around us would like to receive. The stern logic of humanism tells us this is inefficient and wasteful, yet we take our children and grandchildren to sit on Santa’s knee, and know that the magic is there, that Father Christmas is the real deal even in a glittering plastic grotto at the local garden centre.

Father Christmas - Santa Claus - is the spirit of giving and connects us to those half-forgotten saints who personify the idea of charity, the idea of giving to others regardless of your own concerns. When I worked at the Children’s Society, I had the privilege of reading many of the letters that people would send accompanying their gift in response to our Christmas appeal. Every day in December would start with a tray filled with these gifts, old ladies would write in shaky copperplate - always proudly stating their precise age; “I’m 83 and 9 months”; in the same manner as a small child, the sort of small child their gift would help - explaining how they could only afford a small donation but felt it important to give at this season. There’d be letters with bigger donations from mums and dads who had adopted their child through the Society, sometimes setting out how well the child had done and expressing gratitude for the great blessing we had brought them.

I remember one, a very large cheque, from someone who had lived for five years in one of the Society’s homes - they were now something grand and successful in The City but in neatly typed copy the emotion just flowed from the page. The charity of those little old ladies made it possible for that man to have a career and make enough money to send a £500 cheque in response to our Christmas appeal. And a donation he hoped would help another child have the chance and opportunity he had gained from the charity of ordinary people.

So enjoy your Christmas wherever it takes you. Don’t feel bad about those little indulgences, the extra glass of brandy or the second helping of pudding, you will be rewarded by seeing the faces of those to whom you’ve given. And, amongst the family rows and the broken toys, you’ll find time to watch one of those Christmas films, listen to some carols, to take in the meaning of the season. The message about being a good neighbour, about how small acts of kindness are as important as grand programmes of government. Above all listen to Santa Claus, absorb the Spirit of Giving and the big, important message of charity.

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