Santa Claus Is Real!

 

Photo by Artem Maltsev on Unsplash

When I was six years old, my older brother and I were determined to see Santa Claus in action, putting presents under our tree. We sat awake in our dark bedroom, listening intently for any sounds that might tell us Santa was there.

Just after 11:00 pm, we heard shuffling on the floor above us. With all the stealth our excitement-filled little bodies could manage, we crept slowly up the stairs. Our house — a split-level entry — had stairs that went to our bedroom in the basement and stairs that opened up right to where the Christmas tree stood. We inched up the stairs until we were just high enough to peer over the remaining steps.

We quickly recognized our parents, kneeling by the tree, organizing gifts.

No red coat. No round belly. No boots. No sound of reindeer on the roof.

Just our parents.

Of course, when you’re little, that kind of discovery can be soul-crushing. As I got older, the sting of that moment faded, replaced by a deep appreciation for the memories my parents worked so hard to create. As my wife and I have seen our own children grow up and stop believing, I’ve reflected back on my parents’ efforts and our own. And lately, I’ve been struck by how easily the world around me reinforces the story of Santa Claus. The twinkling lights, the movies, the songs — all of it paints a vivid picture that felt impossible to question as a child. And I wasn’t alone in this experience.

Experts point out that there’s a tremendous amount of cultural reinforcement of Santa’s existence. During the holiday season, you’ll see depictions of the jolly old elf in many countries around the world. He’s in movies and on TV. Reporters cover him on the news. Google has a Christmas Eve Santa tracker. Even though it seems implausible that one man delivers presents to every child on the planet from a flying sleigh pulled by magic reindeer, kids hear that it’s true from nearly every adult in their lives. In fact, pointing out evidence that suggests Santa might not exist while in a child’s hearing is practically taboo.

With all that, it’s no wonder kids go along with the story.

The Origins of St. Nick

In 2nd Century BC Rome, the festival of Saturnalia was celebrated from December 17 to 23 in honor of Saturn, the god of, among other things, abundance and wealth. This was a time of feasting, merrymaking, and gift exchanges among Roman citizens.

Of course, the Christian adaptation is most commonly cited as the origins for gift-giving, which was reimagined to reflect the Biblical Wise Men, who presented the baby Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, reinforcing the exchange of gifts during the celebration of Jesus’s birth.

The idea of Santa Claus, however, rose from the real 4th-century bishop Saint Nicholas who was famous for his generosity and secret gift-giving. He even had a feast day on December 6th that became associated with distributing gifts, especially to children. Over time, this persona evolved into Santa Claus.

By the late 18th century, the practice of giving gifts to family members at Christmas was firmly rooted in hundreds of cultural traditions. With it came a desire to commemorate the spirit of giving associated with the holiday.

The Over-commercialization of Christmas

Black Friday is an idea that emerged in the 1980s as the approximate day each year when retailers went from being in the red to being in the black — that they were finally making a profit on the sales for that year.

It was in the early 2000s when stores started opening early in the morning with “door-buster” sales that the lunacy of Black Friday really started to take hold.

• Since 2006, there have been at least 17 deaths and 125 injuries associated with Black Friday shopping in the US. These include stampedes, shootings, stabbings, and fistfights among shoppers.
• About 44% of those injuries resulted from people fighting over discounted products.
• In 2008, a Walmart worker died after being trampled by a crowd of shoppers who broke into the store.
• In 2011, a woman used pepper spray to control other shoppers which resulted in 20 people being injured.
• The US Department of Commerce reports more than $112.1 billion lost in retail theft in 2022 with a large portion attributed to Black Friday sales.

I might be out of school here, but I don’t think tramping each other to get to the last boxed item is what Saint Nicholas had in mind when he started giving gifts to people, and that kind of behavior is completely at odds with the hushed reverence that surrounds the Christian Christmas tradition.

Return to Santa

Somewhere along the way, probably circa 1980, we lost sight of what Santa Claus really represents. The spirit of giving that Saint Nicholas embodied wasn’t about extravagance or checking off a wish list of gadgets and baubles destined to gather dust or be replaced by next year’s model. It certainly wasn’t about sales quotas, obnoxious advertising, or trampling each other to grab a discounted TV. It was about meaningful gestures, small, thoughtful acts of kindness, and sharing joy with the people who matter most.

Let’s look at the symbol Santa Claus is as a reminder of heartfelt generosity. What grandparent doesn’t love receiving a handmade drawing from a child, a neighbor dropping off a home-made treat, or making time to connect with loved ones? Those are gifts that hold far more value than anything store-bought; the kind that don’t fade after the wrapping paper is thrown away.

The commercial frenzy surrounding Christmas is a complete contrast to Christmas’s deeper meaning. We’ve allowed ourselves to be swallowed up by a culture that equates love with the size of a price tag. All that does is leave us feeling exhausted, anxious, and unfulfilled. Fortunately, we don’t have to let that kind of chaos define the holiday.

It’s time to reclaim Santa Claus as a symbol of thoughtful giving. Instead of focusing on how much we spend, we can focus on the meaning behind our gifts. A heartfelt letter to a friend, a memory captured in a photo, or even giving the gift of our presence can be far more valuable than any item from a store.

When we embrace the spirit of giving as Saint Nicholas intended, we honor the best parts of the holiday season — joy, connection, and helping others feel loved.

Forty years ago, I learned Santa Claus wasn’t who I thought he was. It took getting a little older and a little bit wiser to realize that Santa is and should be something more enduring. For me, he became a symbol of my parents’ love, their sacrifice, and their desire to create a bit of magic in my life. Now, as I look at Christmas through the eyes of my children, I realize that Santa is real — but only if we choose to make him real. Let’s make this holiday season about the gifts that truly matter, the kind that leave their mark long after the tree comes down.

Don't Confuse Frenzy with Efficiency

 

Image by DeepAI

One morning, I arrived at my office at 3:45 am to continue working on a project that has been a thorn in my side for a long time. For 14 hours, I labored on the project. Several times during the day, I found myself struggling to stay awake.

It’s a bad habit I’ve had for a long time: going way too far above and beyond to “do my job.” The funny thing is, that project isn’t even my job. It belongs to someone else in the company but because it was ignored for so long, their lack of preparation became an emergency on my part. Nice guy. Hero complex.

Some days, my interrupted interruptions get interrupted. My professional life resembles whack-a-mole most days where I dart from one thing to the next, trying to put out as many “fires” as I can.

Many days, I go home after working for too many hours, wondering what it is that I’ve accomplished that day.

Maybe getting to the office at 3:45 am is somewhat unique to people with my kind of hero complex, but the story isn’t just mine. My story is just an example of a pervasive culture that rewards visible activity over meaningful outcomes. How many of us wear busyness like a badge of honor, even when it leads to burnout?

Gloria Mark from the University of California, Irvine, who specialized in digital distractions, claims it takes 23 minutes to regain focus after an interruption.

As one whose professional life has been governed by chaos, I can’t get behind Gloria’s number. It seems inflated to the point of being sensational. However, I won’t argue that interruptions break focus and make it harder to get things done, especially when those things require deep thinking.

The daily frenzy that many of us experience often extends outside of work either because we always take work with us or because other areas of our lives are as hectic as our work ones.

How did we get here?

The idea of always being on isn’t necessarily new. The Industrial Revolution birthed this idea that “time equals money,” where productivity was measured in tangible outputs. While it may have started in a more “blue collar” environment, over time it permeated just about every work sector. In short, success became tied to visible effort, creating a culture where overworking was and is seen as a virtue.

Competitive capitalism, particularly in “hustle culture” — where working nonstop is framed as the path to success — has been promoted, even glamorized, especially in entrepreneurial and corporate environments.

Related to the idea of hustle culture, there’s been a general shift toward individualism where personal achievement is a defining characteristic — perhaps the defining characteristic — which is often connected to self-worth. It create pressure to constantly prove your value. I’ve personally used the phrase, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” which has been far too common a motto that creates an almost heroic view of exhaustion as a badge of honor.

Of course, no dialog about how we ended up in our current predicament would be complete without discussing technology’s role in all of this. Before people walked around with computers in their pockets all the time, a home phone was the only way to be reached outside of work hours, and a sense of propriety (mostly) kept that from being a problem. Now, we can be bothered at any time during the day with text messages, Teams Messages, and Slack chats which we’ve been conditioned to respond to as fast as we can. Get that dopamine hit!

How do we get out?

So, we’re here. Now what? How can we undo what has been quietly creeping into our lives for the last 25+ years?

It’s not an option for most people to quit their job and live a monastic lifestyle. For most people, taking two weeks off during the year is a tall order.

To get out of where we are, small steps will have to be taken by large numbers of people for society to shift back the other direction.

1. Redefine success. It’s time to shift our focus from being busy to achieving meaningful outcomes. Asking a question like “What really matters, and how can I contribute to it?” might help set the stage.
2. Set boundaries. If you have a demanding employer, you know this one’s not easy. We’ve forgotten that we trade some of our time for money and it’s okay to say no sometimes.
3. Push for systematic change. This is where the small steps taken by large numbers of people will have the greatest impact. We can individually and collectively advocate for policies that value team accountability over individual heroics.
4. Use technology wisely. It’s hard to beat the dopamine hit that comes from clearing that notification, and checking another thing of the digital to do list. We have to set boundaries around technology to help us remember that it’s a tool to help us not enslave us.
5. Normalize rest. Research abounds supporting the idea that downtime is a critical part of productivity. Real rest fuels creativity, decision-making, and overall well-being.

We didn’t end up where we are overnight, and it won’t change that quickly either. But every small step we take creates a ripple effect. The more we do individually and collectively, the faster change can happen.

Imagine what life could look like if we stopped confusing frenzy with efficiency. Meaningful progress sounds a lot better than whack-a-mole workdays and burned out nights.

Just like accomplishing anything, it starts with a decision: to question the habits that keep me in chaos or to adopt a calmer, more intentional way of working.

Which way will you go?

The Opportunity in Opposition

 

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

I’ve spent nearly my entire life living in Utah, USA, where the winters are cold, so when I stepped off the plane on February 19, 1998, in Guatemala City, the warmth immediately told me I wasn’t in Utah anymore.

I was almost a head taller than everyone around me, and they were speaking a language that was supposed to be Spanish. I didn’t understand a word, even though I studied Spanish for five years prior to getting off that plane.

I arrived at the house where we would stayed that first night. There were two seasoned volunteers that shepherded the newcomers. They told us story after story of some of the terrible things they had experienced.

I lay awake late into the night wondering what I had done. A large spider web in the corner of my room held, I was sure, some creature that would descend in the night and suck me dry.

Funny thing, though. I didn’t get sucked dry that night. The sun came up like it always did, and I spent the next nearly two years serving and teaching the people in Guatemala.

While I was there, Hurricane Mitch swept across Central America. Guatemala wasn’t devastated like some other countries, but because large communities were built from little more than sticks, tarps, and corrugated material, thousands of structures were destroyed, leaving those who were already destitute homeless.

We were privileged to have a safe place to sleep every night and never went without food. Hundreds of thousands of people struggled to meet their most basic needs.

It’s hard to watch the suffering of others and not want to do something, anything, everything, to lessen their burdens. While suffering is a part of life, I also acknowledge the privilege I enjoy when I can walk to a cabinet in my home and get Ibuprofen when I have a headache.

Stating the obvious: every person will, at times and seasons, suffer. Some suffer little and some intensely. In my opinion, it’s nobody’s place to offer unsolicited advice to someone who suffers.

Even so, Dan Pedersen said something thought-provoking in relation to suffering:

I think there’s a message in suffering. That as real as suffering may seem, it’s actually an illusion. Or that it’s a temporary means to a better end. In other words, the suffering still occurs — we experience the pain, but it’s not the ultimate reality. That it pales in comparison to the ultimate reality.

The “ultimate reality” he’s talking about comes from the lessons that we learn from suffering. Introspection can be hard during and following the suffering. Sometimes, the only lesson we learn is that we want to put the experience behind us.

However, there are times when intentionally looking for lessons can be eye-opening. Often, the lessons learned in the “furnace of affliction” are far more impactful than the lessons that come from sunshine and roses.

I’m not sure anyone welcomes suffering, but it’s one of those things that can be a profound teacher. I didn’t know what I would find when I went to Guatemala — either in the world around me or inside myself. Being there taught me to look past the immediate discomfort, past my fear of blood-sucking spiders in the dark or the helplessness I felt witnessing immense poverty. On some level, witnessing that kind of difficulty helped me begin to understand how resilient people really are.

Dan Pedersen’s words ring true because they highlight a paradox: there’s no question that suffering is real, yet it’s never permanent. Suffering forces us to acknowledge that life is fragile and strong, perhaps in equal measure.

The “ultimate reality” is not the suffering but what’s beyond the horizon: the growth, empathy, and clarity it can bring.

It’s not always easy — or even possible — to find meaning in pain, but the effort to seek it can shape us in profound and unexpected ways.

Just Make the Lasagna

 

Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash

In High School, my best friend and I knew that in order to increase the likelihood that girls would want to go out with us we needed to do two things: learn to cook and watch all the Anne of Green Gables movies which were hugely popular when I was in my dating years.¹

It was in a Tenth Grade foods class that we learned to bake lasagna from scratch, including making our own noodles. We worked on mastering the recipe as it was often tricky to avoid making noodles that were either too hard or too rubbery.

But, it wasn’t until just after we graduated from High School that we got to try that recipe out on a few young ladies who agreed to enjoy an evening with a home-cooked meal, some games, and Disney’s Hercules.

Of course, I couldn’t have known at the time that the lovely young lady I invited on that date would someday be my wife. I am certain, however, that my ability to cook was one of the things that won her parents over when she was still on the fence about me.

Back then, I rarely hesitated in making a decision about something. I was either going to do it or I wasn’t. When several of my friends decided to go cliff jumping at a lake not too far from home, it was easy for me to recuse myself. I didn’t care that they called me “chicken” for not wanting to do it. My fear of heights at the time made it an easy decision.

As I got older, certain doubts crept in. Indecision became the norm in many difficult circumstances.

Decision paralysis is something that impacts a lot of people. It’s when you’re stuck in a mental loop of overthinking, weighing options, or fearing the wrong choice to the point where you can’t actually make a decision. It’s like having too many tabs open in your brain and not being able to click on any of them.

While it’s important to weigh options when making tough decisions, spending vast amounts of time exploring all the options often won’t lead to a differentiated outcome. It’s a bit like reading 100 lasagna recipes then expecting to make the best lasagna ever on your first try. Making a great lasagna requires a lot of effort, especially when you’re making some of the ingredients yourself.

Sometimes, you make decisions that are part of an iterative process. If you try something and it doesn’t work, you can back up a few steps and try again. While some of those mistakes made can be costly, it’s important to remember the value of what you learn along the way. As the adage goes, you learn more from your mistakes than your successes.

What about big, life-altering decisions that don’t have an iterative process, like getting married or deciding to bring children into the equation?² Many times, these can be really hard decisions, and I don’t want to diminish the struggle that sometimes takes place in making those decisions. However, there does come a time when you have to make the lasagna. Of course, that metaphorical lasagna might also be a decision not to make the lasagna.

You might decide to take the new job or you might make the decision not to take it. Both are decisions with different outcomes. The important thing is to make the decision.

Here are some practical tips on getting out of decision paralysis:

Embrace Imperfection

The first time I made lasagna noodles from scratch, they ended up harder than the countertop where I rolled them out, but I had to start somewhere. Not every decision will lead to a perfect outcome. Another adage is that mistakes are part of life. It’s important to focus on progress rather than perfection. As the wise Rafiki once said, “Ah yes! The past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it.”

Narrow Your Options

Sometimes, when the decision is among several things, it’s good to begin with an exercise of limiting the list by asking the question, “Which one of these would I have the hardest time living without?” then eliminating the options that don’t hold as much value to you. Getting the list down to two or three options improves the chance of avoiding decision paralysis early on because this forces you to evaluate the merit of each option.

Ask What You’ll Learn

Frame the decision as a learning opportunity. Instead of obsessing over the “right” or “wrong” choice, ask yourself: What will I gain or learn from this step, even if it doesn’t work out like I planned? This’ll shift your focus from fear to growth.

Take One Small Step

For decisions that feel overwhelming, start with one small action. Maybe you’re not going to make the whole lasagna today, but you’re just going to work on the noodles. You might spend a little money experimenting, but that’s better than spending a lot only to find out it was a bad choice. Each small step builds momentum toward the big decision or helps you see the flaws early on in your plan.

Decisions — big and small — are like making lasagna. You can spend endless hours perfecting the recipe in your mind, but at some point, you’ve got to roll up your sleeves and start cooking. Most of the time, the noodles won’t be perfect, and that’s okay. Remember, progress is more valuable than perfection, and even the less-than-ideal outcomes are opportunities to learn and grow.

At the end of the day, the only bad decision is refusing to make one. Action, however imperfect, will always move you forward.³

¹ I still date my wife regularly. My personal philosophy is that is incredibly important for maintaining a strong, healthy relationship, especially where there are five kids involved.

² There’s a growing sentiment which I vehemently oppose that marriage is an iterative process. . .just keep trying until you find “the right one,” also that kids are optional.

³ Unless the decision you made had the potential for deleterious effects on your life and you chose the path of lower intelligence.

The Problem with Overlooking Yourself for Others

 

Photo by Fares Hamouche on Unsplash

I rolled over on the concrete floor where I had been sleeping, the thin bedroll doing nothing to lessen the ache in my hips. It sounds like I was being held against my will, but the truth is I was in my office at work — overworked, exhausted, and neglecting myself for a job that would never really care about me.

That was two jobs and a lifetime ago when I let myself be so overworked that I spent 15 to 20 hours a day on the job for more than 15 weeks. I wasn’t saving lives or fighting for a noble cause — I worked for a fluid power distributor. My tasks? Reconcile the company’s entire inventory and implement a new IT infrastructure. By day, I counted inventory and barcoded shelves. By night, I worked alone on data conversion for the new software.

When we finally hired a system administrator, my workload dropped to only 80 hours a week, which felt like a relief.

One night, after working until 2 a.m., I collapsed into my hotel bed for three hours of sleep before starting a 180-mile drive home. Running on two energy drinks, I made it, but by the time I arrived, I was shaking uncontrollably. Shortly after that, I learned that consuming 40 ounces of energy drink poison and sitting still for hours can be lethal.

I was lucky. But not everyone is. Many of us sacrifice our health and well-being everyday — not out of necessity, but because we’ve been conditioned to believe it’s the price of success.

It took me years to learn that when you sacrifice your well-being to meet impossible demands, you’re always the one who loses.

Eve Arnold, whom I quote a lot, recently wrote, “Most people never discover their best work because they are too busy looking at the scoreboard, too focused on numbers, and too attached to the politics of doing well.

“Really it’s neglect. To overlook yourself for others is missing the only opportunity you ever have.”

Come again?

“Really it’s neglect. To overlook yourself for others is missing the only opportunity you ever have.”

There’s a societal norm that almost ennobles self-neglect, but it’s a sacrifice that never really pays off. Now, that doesn’t mean we should shift toward self-centered focus either. It doesn’t mean that we ignore the needs of others in order to accomplish our own goals and objectives. Life has little meaning when serving others isn’t part of it, but we also have to take time to care for ourselves.

That’s not always easy. I’ve referenced time and again the difficult circumstances so many people face in the world today. For some, it’s nearly impossible to devote more than a few minutes to themselves each day.

But there’s value in those few minutes. Too often, we fill our rare moments of downtime with distractions — scrolling endlessly, consuming noise, and missing the chance to rest or invest in ourselves.

Fifteen minutes a day doing something engaging compounds to more than 90 hours over the course of a year. In 90 hours, you can read about 3,000 pages of printed material. In 90 hours, you can learn the basics of a new language or instrument. You can lift hundreds of people. You can put the phone down and embrace the silence.

Fifteen minutes a day might be all you need to stay grounded in this crazy world we live in with talking heads screaming louder than ever. Mike Duncan once wrote, “The winds may howl, but I will not be swept away.”

That’s what fifteen minutes a day might do for you: keep you from being swept away as the winds seem to howl louder and louder with each passing day.

So many of us live like we’re running a race we didn’t intentionally enter, letting the demands of work and life dictate how we spend our time. When we neglect ourselves, we’re the ones who lose. And for what? A pat on the back? A bigger number on a paycheck? The approbation of people who won’t be there to carry us when we collapse?

Demands will always come. Winds will always howl. But we’re not machines. We can’t let ourselves be swept away by expectations that demand our well-being as their price.

Fifteen minutes a day might not seem like much, but it is. It’s a lifeline. I don’t know who said it but I love the thought that a few moments of self-care are “a rebellion against the noise that tells us we don’t have time to breathe, rest, or grow. It’s a declaration that your life is more than a to-do list or adding to someone’s bottom line.”

Take an appropriate amount of time — even if it’s only a few minutes — to care for yourself. Protect that time fiercely.

• Read something that inspires you.
• Learn something that uplifts you.
• Sit in the silence, letting the world spin without you for just a moment.

Deep down, we all know that at the end of it all, the opportunity to care for ourselves isn’t just an indulgence. It’s a responsibility that we owe to ourselves and those we love.