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Thank you for this article! It's great to have this written out in a concise article that I can share with other people instead of trying to explain it myself, or trying to get them to watch five of Jonathan's videos, haha.

Anyways, something I was thinking while reading this: Would you say that it actually is Santa who gives children presents, as opposed to their parents, in the sense that though it is the parents who are actually purchasing/making the gifts, the parents offer the gifts up to Santa, who is the one who ultimately returns them to the children? Would this be the same pattern of how we offer our lives up to Christ, and ultimately he returns it to us with eternal life?

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Thanks for reading and for the kind words!

Yes, that is exactly how I would put it. Santa Claus gets his being in and through us by our participation in his activity in the world. Because Santa doesn't have a body in the same manner that we do (although its not entirely different) we serve as his "members" so to speak in the same manner that "the Church, though it has many members, is one body." Its the same pattern.

So yes, it is certainly Santa who is actually bringing the gifts to the children, but he does it through the parents who give him body.

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I think it's a bit unreasonable to phrase it as: "it actually is Santa who gives children presents, AS OPPOSED to their parents..." There is a synergism of wills at work, in which the unique desire of parents to give gifts to their own children (or siblings, or parents, or other) becomes the working body of Santa. Similarly to how, though we say God performs His own works through His Saints, we still laud the Saints themselves for their virtuous works (funnily, similar to parents denying their own actions in giving gifts and claiming it was Santa Claus alone, the Saints routinely denied their own role in miracles and good works by claiming it was God alone). Santa is giving the gifts, truly, but parents are also giving gifts. These two aspects of the ritual are not opposed.

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