"Santa is our culture's only mythic figure truly believed in by a large percentage of the population. It's a fact that most of the true believers are under eight years old, and that's a pity"
About this Quote
Van Allsburg pulls off a neat double move here: he flatters childhood belief as something rare and powerful, then needles the adult world for having misplaced it. Calling Santa "our culture's only mythic figure truly believed in" isn’t nostalgia so much as a quiet indictment. We live amid superheroes, national founding legends, celebrity lore, conspiracy cults, and branded fantasies, yet the only myth we officially permit ourselves to treat as real comes with wrapping paper and a bedtime cutoff.
The line about "true believers" being under eight lands like a soft punch. It’s funny because it’s obviously true, but the comedy carries a mournful edge: adults are positioned as people who can no longer access a shared enchantment without winking at it. Van Allsburg’s "and that's a pity" is carefully plain, almost childlike in its phrasing, which makes it sharper. He refuses the grown-up vocabulary of critique and instead mourns in the language of a kid who can’t understand why everyone stopped playing.
Context matters: Van Allsburg made his name writing and illustrating books (The Polar Express especially) that treat wonder as a serious aesthetic and moral experience, not a disposable seasonal mood. The quote reads like an argument for imaginative literacy. Santa isn’t important because he’s factual; he’s important because he’s a collective act of faith that teaches how stories can organize meaning. The pity isn’t that kids believe. It’s that adults forget how to.
The line about "true believers" being under eight lands like a soft punch. It’s funny because it’s obviously true, but the comedy carries a mournful edge: adults are positioned as people who can no longer access a shared enchantment without winking at it. Van Allsburg’s "and that's a pity" is carefully plain, almost childlike in its phrasing, which makes it sharper. He refuses the grown-up vocabulary of critique and instead mourns in the language of a kid who can’t understand why everyone stopped playing.
Context matters: Van Allsburg made his name writing and illustrating books (The Polar Express especially) that treat wonder as a serious aesthetic and moral experience, not a disposable seasonal mood. The quote reads like an argument for imaginative literacy. Santa isn’t important because he’s factual; he’s important because he’s a collective act of faith that teaches how stories can organize meaning. The pity isn’t that kids believe. It’s that adults forget how to.
Quote Details
| Topic | Christmas |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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