My ten year old daughter found out about Santa. It was somewhat anticlimactic, actually. We have a podcast about the intersection between religion and video games, and we had a rabbi as a guest. The rabbi was telling us how he had to prepare his own daughter to not “ruin” Santa and Christmas for the Christians she went to school with, but when he told this story, my daughter was in the room. My daughter’s response was, “I kinda already knew.” I guess it was time for her to hear it from adults.

I really enjoyed “playing” Santa for her, and I’m happy that my younger daughter, age seven, still believes in him. I love make-believe, and the idea that our whole culture pretends that there is a magical guy who brings children presents fills me with joy. Our culture can be so rational, almost too rational, so it’s wonderful to see Americans and people in the West just having fun with a make-believe game.

Santa also helps to re-enchant the world. Many people and cultures in the West don’t see the natural world as bearing a spiritual dimension anymore, as our ancestors did or as people in other cultures still do. My personal fascination with Japanese culture is that, even though the Japanese are not the most religious people in the world, they live in a world that is enchanted, that can be filled with creatures or spirits or beings that aren’t animal, aren’t human, but are some thing simply different. Much of what I do when I preach is help people become re-enchanted, to see God in the world and in their lives as a whole, not just when they’re in church on Sunday mornings or when they sit down to pray.

Santa helps all this, I think. He helps us understand that the world is deeper and more interesting and beautiful than a purely materialistic view would have us believe. Santa prepares us for seeing the world this way not only as children but as adults. One of my parishioners says that, as children, we believe in Santa. Then we realize that he’s not real and we disbelieve. But then, when we become adults, we believe again in Santa, but more as a spirit of the holidays, of Christ and the Holy Spirit among us, as hope and reconciliation baked into the reality in which we live. Santa Claus is very good for our souls.

All this said, I think it’s okay that my daughter doesn’t believe in Santa anymore. In a way, she became a little disenchanted with the world when she found out. After talking about Santa not being real, she said somewhat grimly, “I guess magic isn’t real, either.” Poor kid. I hate to “ruin” something as wonderful as enchantment in someone. It kind of breaks my heart.

Living as a Christian, however, is being broken in a good way. As I write this, I wonder what people who aren’t Christian will think when reading such a wacky sentence. Being broken is horrible, and many of us are broken in ways where true healing is a long and painful process. As a priest, I interact with many people who are broken and are seeking help as well as people who are broken and can’t fathom the idea of seeking help. I like to talk about how church is a community of people living out the will of God to heal the world with others who also hear that call in Jesus Christ, but many people come to church because they are hurting and broken and they want to be healed, whether they know this or not. Jesus is the “doctor of the soul” after all.

That said, Christians talk about being broken in a healthy way. We are attached to so many things, be they bad things like our addictions or our vices, or even good things like our health or our family. We put things up on pedestals that really have no reason for being there. We feel that we cannot live without these things. Christianity says, “Yes, treasure the good things and shy away from the bad, but remember that you are a full person even if you are separated from any of them.” In other words, we find our wholeness with God, and God through the good things in the world, not in anything in this world where things fade away. And sometimes we are so attached to these things that we need to be broken away from them. We need to be separated, and sometimes that separation is a rupture and it is painful. But it is all for the good.

Sometimes, however, Christians think that all of our attachments need to be stripped from us with quite a bit of violence. We talk about it as “bearing our cross” or “crucifying our idols,” and what we mean is that we have to go cold turkey on the things we are attached to, good and bad, and that we need to take drastic methods to do so. That’s not always the case, though. Jesus’ yolk is easy, as the man himself said, and there is a lot of grace is parting from our idol worship. God can be gentle. He (or she) often is. God knows which we need in the end.

My daughter stopped believing in old St. Nick in a very graceful way. She was with family, we talked about it, and the discussion opened up a conversation about belief and truth. We were there to walk her through it, even as she didn’t really need us to walk her through it (though we were there with her anyway). Her ability to believe wasn’t shaken, and I think it was strengthened. You can think of it like a belief muscle that was strengthened by living in the imagination for ten years. Her spirit is stronger, her mind is broader, because she spent time thinking that something amazing could happen, that a magical being brings gifts to children for no good reason other than that he is deeply good. And, further, that story is attached to her faith and what she does each and every Sunday at church. That’s a really beautiful thing.

I enjoyed “playing” Santa Claus with her, but I’m okay with the game being over for her. I’m okay, because now we can build on her ability to believe crazy things, like that peace is possible and wars can end, that women and brown folks can have the same social realities as white men, that we can defeat hunger, that kids in school don’t have to have lock-down drills anymore because gun violence disappears. Those are some wild dreams, but believing in the impossible story of Santa helps us believe in other impossible things. May all children be able to believe and work for what we think is impossible with our most limited vision.