The question about Santa is really a question about meaning: is he a historical figure, a cultural myth, a vessel for truth, or a spark alive inside each of us? Each answer carries its own kind of life. When we unpack these options, we should not find contradictions but a layered invitation, to a spirit filled with wonder, of selfless giving, and to becoming the very person that once brought us tremendous joy.
At the surface, the person we call Santa Claus traces back to a fourth‑century Catholic bishop named Nicholas, famous for secret generosity toward the poor. That historical figure reminds us that human kindness has long been the seed of this seasonal character. Knowing the biography behind the legend can deepen our gratitude: the gestures of one life multiplied into centuries of giving.
As a myth, Santa is a cultural shorthand for something the heart recognizes without needing proof. Myths that encode values such as joy, abundance, generosity, and the reversal of ordinary expectations (the small giving to the great). These myths thrive because they tell a truth larger than facts: that the world can be kinder than we expect and that miracles sometimes come in wrapped, unsecured, and unexpected packages.
Peeling the layers further, Santa carries moral truth. The child’s hope for a gift is not just about toys; it is about being seen, being loved, and receiving undeserved grace. We tie this to the birth of Jesus for this very reason. Santa teaches the truth that generosity is restorative and selfless: reconnecting us to one another and to our better selves. When we celebrate and embody Santa, we deliver charitable miracles; the capacity to act as selflessly as Jesus did, when He chose to die on a cross all of humanity, in smally ways, making that love felt in modern times.
The most profound answer to the opening question is that Santa “lives in you.” This is not magical thinking but a call to an identity: to actually make changes to ourselves. To become the anonymous giver, the midnight deliverer of comfort, the person whose small acts of kindness shift someone’s winter toward spring. When parents sacrifice sleep so a child will smile; when strangers pay for a meal, without thought of payback; when a neighbor shovels a driveway without being asked, Santa is alive in those moments. The transformation is real, practical, and spiritual. What we think, we believe, and is ultimately, what we become.
Let Santa Live in You
- Choose anonymous generosity: small, unwanted praise; quiet gifts; unseen acts of service.
- Practice imaginative abundance: give time, presence, and attention as freely as money.
- Tell the Christmas story with integrity: preserve wonder for children, and model how the tale becomes a living virtue.
- Make a sacred ritual a family tradition: a yearly deed that stretches your compassion and trains your heart toward delight in others.
Whether you call him history, myth, or truth, the figure of Santa asks one plain question of each of us; “Will you be the answer to someone’s hope?” That is the highest test of any story’s worth. When a legend stirs you into a new selfless person, it has fulfilled its deepest purpose. Let the season move you from believing in Santa to becoming him, not as a person in a costume or playing a role, but as a settled habit of your heart. In that way, the miracle of Christmas lives not in a sleigh but in every cross observed, every hand extended, every light kept burning, and every life made warmer by quiet generosity.
If this is my last post, I want all to know there was only one purpose for all that I have written; to have made a positive difference in the lives of others.
Anthony “Tony” Boquet, Certified Professional Business Coach, A Modern Solutionary, the author of “The Bloodline of Wisdom, The Awakening of a Modern Solutionary” and “The Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, A Devotional Timeline”
