Who is this Father Christmas guy, and how is it that he exerts such hypnotic power? asks John Matshikiza I don’t know where the whole thing started. But it would be discourteous, in this season of good cheer, to point fingers at any other member of the family.
Suffice it to say that, somewhere between the gentle nest of the home, the mind-expanding pre-school and the intimidating”come hither” of the shopping mall, our three-year-old daughter got caught by the Father Christmas cult. Like the Moonies, the Father Christmas cult has uncompromising rules that its adherents have to obey with slavish enthusiasm, rules that parents are helpless to defy. The first rule is that there can be no doubting the existence of Father Christmas. The second is that (again like the Moonies) adherents have to make ever escalating demands that eventually clean out their good-for-nothing, doubting parents’ bank accounts, forcing them to return to the indignity of the treadmill once the silly season has passed. Who is this Father Christmas guy, and how is it that he exerts such hypnotic power? According to rule number one, of course, the hordes of tiny believers never ask themselves this question. They only question whether or not these big, clumsy parents of theirs have taken the proper precautions so that 1) the Big FC gets their lists of demands correctly, and 2) that the home to which he will deliver said list of goodies on Christmas Eve, while the tiny, grasping mites are sleeping, has been fitted with the correct delivery system.
Our three-year-old lies awake for hours on end thinking about this, and demanding answers to the ever more alarming questions her mind unearths as Christmas approaches. The big one is:”Where is the chimney?” We are embarrassed. We live in an apartment block, a deliberately chosen lifestyle that makes the parents feel a sense of youthful freedom and recklessness all over again. But the Little One is not impressed. The solid, rooted, unbelievably expensive lifestyle of a rambling house, a garden that requires at least two gardeners (one dedicated to fighting with the swimming pool), rotating teams of armed guards, dog handlers, maids, etcetera, represents the minimum of her requirements. It is not that she sees the point of any of these things. This is simply the basic infrastructure it takes, in her opinion, to support a couple of decent chimneys, so that Father Christmas can make his surreptitious, nocturnal delivery and be gone again in time-honoured fashion. Illustrated storybooks, Tiny Tots’ Television Time and the closely observed lifestyles of her newfound laanie friends in the Northern Suburbs simply reinforce this precocious perception. Then there is The Man Himself. At this time of year, small children are treated to a dizzying round of Christmas parties where Father Christmas makes a personal appearance. Sometimes they don’t even have to go to someone’s Christmas party they simply get hijacked in the middle of a shopping mall and dragged off to get photographed sitting on the knee of some old man in a red suit. The mother then has to fork out for the photograph and give something to charity. The Father Christmas goes,”Ho, ho, ho!” and the father, in a much more bitter tone, goes,”Ha, ha, ha” as he closes his wallet. It has been my curious observation that the child never questions FC’s credentials, even though each FC she or he comes across look rather different from the last one one has blue eyes, one brown; one’s beard looks realistic, the other’s simply embarrassing. But all things come to a head. On the last day of term, Father Christmas came to our Little One’s pre-school. It is a modern, liberated, New South African sort of establishment where they sing Nkosi sikelela and such-like. All the kids apparently had a mighty fine time, and all received gifts from the visiting FC.
But when I got home from the office, the Little One did not look her usual carefree self. “How was the party?” “Fine.”
“Did you get a nice present?” “Yes.”
“And how was Father Christmas?” I asked, having long ago decided to play along with the FC myth for the sake of peace in the home. “He was black,” she answered coldly, averting her eyes. “So?” I countered, after pausing to try and hide my shock. Where had she learned about black and white, anyway?”What’s wrong with that? I’m black. Mummy’s black. You’re black …” My voice petered out in stammering disarray, before I could even get to granny, grandpa, and all the proud generations that came before us. The Little One had shut her ears to my reasoning. All through supper, and deep into the middle of the following week, and the week after that, we observed an unspoken agreement not to raise the topic again. I think, in that terrible moment of truth, that she and I both realised why children are supposed to be fast asleep when the old fraud comes sneaking down the chimney (or whatever emergency arrangements you have rigged up to allay the child’s anxieties.) And why, furthermore, kids willingly agree to the pact. Catching mummy kissing Santa Claus would not be half as traumatic as finding out that Father Christmas was not the man he was supposed to be. Whom we wish him to be, of course, is not an issue for discussion so close to Christmas day. There is already too much money involved. I leave it to the African Renaissance Institute, therefore, to come up with a definitive ruling on the subject, so that we can be better prepared the next time it comes around which it surely will, even before the Earth is wasted another 12 moons.