Close-up of the book cover illustration. Photo: By Swea Sayers.
‘Father Christmas and the Gift of Light,’ by Stephen Sayers (illustrated by Swea Sayers)
Review by Paul O’Kell
Dressed in cola red with a plastic face, Santa Claus offers commercial joy. The white-bearded old man of legend bestows gifts from teddy bears to computer fantasy worlds. This old tale – a fiction masquerading as fact for small children to believe – encourages parents to buy and buy, and already rich people to profit. A situation as staggeringly shallow as it is duplicitous, in which caring parents, perhaps remembering the disappointment of their own sad discovery years ago, perpetuate the existence of the nonexistent.
On the other hand, there is another way of looking at the Father Christmas myth – not ‘myth’ as synonym for ‘lie’, but as a deep truth about humanity that is universal and perpetual. It’s about good will, the ghost of Christmas present helping to reconcile Ebenezer Scrooge’s two selves, so that the compassion within him can (finally!) dominate.
Some years ago, one of Stephen and Swea Sayers’ daughters became caught up in the controversy over the existence of Father Christmas, and whether children should be encouraged in the belief that he’s real. Temperatures can run high where such matters are concerned. In order to bring about reconciliation in a Quaker way, Stephen and Swea created this book, this work of art, which delves into a visit Saint Nick makes to a boy, and the discourse that ensues.
Father Christmas is the symbol of our ‘good’ side, which allows harmony to reign. Joy to the world! Bringing the different sides together may seem impossible but this isn’t so, provided we accept the mythical truth as equally valid – as a deeper, older truth of warmth amid the cold.
Father Christmas and the Gift of Light is an attempt to bring reconciliation through story, to show the place deep in our spirit where dwells the light that Quakers hold dear. Opposing views, both true in their own way, are brought together. The historic existence of Saint Nicholas in the world of logos (science) is a lie, but in the world of mythos why shouldn’t he be accepted? Or he be she?
While the story here is told with different names, it has the same message. The kind mythical being who comes and talks softly to the boy perhaps touches the child within each adult, too. It’s a Quaker exploration in words and pictures, and one that moves us with the fiction-and-truth of literature that inspired Carl Jung.
If we look beyond the tinsel of Christmas, as this story does, there’s a wealth of Quakerism to be found in deep myth. Here it’s expressed in a delightful way – one that works on different levels, and therefore offers both children and adults fulfilment.
Personally, I believe that children know the difference between reality and myth, and – when ready – pull away from the conscious dominance of myth in their lives. So Father Christmas and the Gift of Light isn’t just for yuletide, but for all year and every year, for each and every one of us
