Finding Santa Claus In Ireland

(Not Ireland…obviously. I took this in Finland. But it looked pretty so just let me have this one.)

If you ever find yourself in Dublin, I highly recommend a visit to the National Leprechaun Museum.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

"Um, no."

I get it. Honestly, I only signed up to go because I thought it would be a nice break for our kids between visits to the museums and historical sights they love so much.

Sorry, I meant love to complain about so much.

Turns out it was nothing like I expected and, in an admittedly round about way, taught me a thing or two about Santa Claus.

Santa Claus isn’t anywhere to be found at the National Leprechaun Museum. His name never even came up even though it was just a handful of days before he was due to arrive. But he was certainly there in spirit because the myth of Santa Claus is a good story and that’s what the National Leprechaun Museum is all about: good stories.

There are no dioramas or cheesy videos or fake history being painfully passed off as true. In fact, there were hardly any little people in little green hats at all. As we learned, that’s because the iconic green outfit was actually an invention by Disney for the movie Darby O’Gill and The Little People for the simple reason that green looks better on celluloid than the traditional leprechaun colors of brown and red.

Though there was no pot of gold at the end of our tour either, what we did find were stories, rich, colorful, fascinating stories told by a gifted storyteller that left parents and children alike enraptured. Which is the point of all folklore regardless of the culture. After all, boring stories and dry facts don’t get remembered and it’s that remembrance that’s key to folklore, why it matters and why it’s more than just fairy tales.

We were told stories about leprechauns and fairies, giants and tricksters, ugly babies and warrior heroes, but what we were really hearing were stories about life, practical information for everyday life, morality lessons and cautions that are best remembered through story telling.

We learned about the role of copper in stories to pass on knowing about its unspoken antibacterial properties. We discovered how families dealt with the ever present reality of sick and dying children through the myths about changlings. A story about an evil landlord and a lucky farmer who crossed paths with a leprechaun taught us about greed and the plight of the poor while offering not so subtle social commentary on the exploitation of the Irish workforce. And we heard a wonderful tale about a mighty warrior who ignored the warnings of his father to run off with a fairy princess and then ignored her warnings when he returned home to discover hundreds of years had passed, his friends and family were long gone, and when he set foot on the soil of his homeland he was forever banished from the kingdom of the fairies, losing his bride and children in the process because not listening to the wisdom of both wives and elders only ever leads to trouble.

Ireland, of course, isn’t the only country with folklore. Every culture across the world and throughout time has their own folklore, including Scotland where we headed next after we making a quick detour to Belfast.

In Scotland we learned about the Kelpies and sampled delicious meat pastries that were basically meat pop-tarts which I know sounds gross, it certainly wasn’t a pitch that had me eager to try them, but good lord I’m glad I did. Absolutely delicious.

Where was I? Oh right, the Kelpies. Sorry, I get easily sidetracked by food, especially cheap delicious, flakey pastries.

See? I did it again.

Unlike the leprechauns in Ireland, we got to see the Kelpies in the flesh. Well, not flesh so much as enormous illuminated steel sculptures that look gorgeous light up at night. Actual Kelpies are part of Scottish folklore. They’re mischievous river spirits known to snatch children who get too close to the river, dragging them down underwater where they’re lost forever. The culture doesn’t matter matter. Kids never listen to what their parents tell them to do, but a scary story about mythical river spirits just might keep them from drowning.

We have our own bit of folklore in the States too.

We teach children the importance of honesty with the apocryphal story about George Washington cutting down a cherry tree and not being able to keep his mouth shut about it.

Paul Bunyan and his might ox Blue speak to how hard lumberjacks had to work harvest the wood that built a nation.

And the parable of John Henry pushes us to do our best while cautioning us about the dramatic effect mechanization would, did, and continues to have on the American workforce.

For most of us, stories about Paul Bunyan, Kelpies, and leprechauns are nothing more than quaint children’s stories to be ignored or at least not taken seriously by sophisticated people.

This is something we should lament because stories and myths can communicate truth in ways cold, stark history never can. History is bound by time and context leaving outsiders to miss importance nuance and children to forget it altogether when it’s reduced to names and dates. But myths and folklore transcend space and time, culture and context to convey truth to people everywhere.

The problem is most of us have been conditioned to believe myth and history are opposites, stand ins for true and false. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Truth is much more than cold dead facts. Truth is alive, always informing and shaping our lives as the stories we live out find themselves inextricably intertwined with everyone around us and all those who have come before. Truth isn’t something to be memorized, it’s something we incarnate. It’s our story come to life and it’s why myths can be true whether they really happened or not.

Take, for example, the story of Icarus. There never was a historical figure named Icarus who built wings and flew too close to the sun. But the story is still true because the truth it teaches about the dangers of pride and hubris are true regardless of culture or time or context.

Which, at long last, brings us to Santa Claus.

I got to meet him yesterday after a magical sleigh ride to his house up here in the far north of Finland. Nice chap.

Was he the really really real Santa Claus? The one we see in the movies and read about in children’s stories?

Absolutely.

Because Santa Claus isn’t a real person. He’s folklore. That’s why his story crosses borders and cultures, contexts and time, even religious boundaries. Even if we don’t still believe in Santa, we still believe in the truth his story conveys: lessons about the importance of kindness and generosity and welcoming everyone regardless of who they are, where they come from, or what they believe.

That’s why my wife and I choose to tell the tale of Santa Claus to our children.

Because that’s the kind of people we want them to grow up to be: kind, generous, and welcoming.

I know many parents don’t and I’m not here to tell you how to parent. You do you. Seriously.

As for me and my house, we will continue to tell our children stories because I worry that if we buy into the increasingly popular notion that telling the story of Santa Claus to children is lying to them or some sort of cruel manipulation, I fear we will miss out on the rich wellspring of wisdom and character formation the folklore of Christmas has to offer. It’s a rich, colorful, easy to remember story for children that can help shape them into the sort of adults we want them to become.

Santa Claus, kelpies, and leprechauns might not be real, but they teach truths all of us, regardless of age, would do well to learn from.

As C.S. Lewis once wrote to his goddaughter after the publication of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, “I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”