Helena Mary Cole

One of the stereotypes that prevented me from thinking I could be autistic is the one that says that autistic people are always very literal in their thinking. And I am, a little bit. When I hear someone say, “She wears her heart on her sleeve,” I’m picturing an arm. But the following is also true about me: during Peter Pan, the stage play, when Tinkerbell’s light goes out, and Peter invites the audience to clap if they believe in fairies, to make her light come back on, I’m the first one clapping with all my heart and soul with tears streaming down my face.

Oh, gosh. I have tears streaming down my face now just thinking about it.

But anyway, it was a while before I first heard someone in the autism community that yes, some autistic people are very literal, and yes, there are even some who don’t think it’s worth talking about anything that they can’t see and hear and touch and smell. But, like all traits of people on the spectrum, the other extreme is also true. I think the things that you can’t see and hear and touch and smell are some of the things most worth talking about. I am deeply interested in metaphors.

Consider the play Man of la Mancha, where that guy, Don Quixote, thinks he’s a medieval knight seeking to be officially knighted, so he starts riding about the countryside, inventing weird quests for himself, the most famous being the one where he mistakes a windmill for a four-armed giant, and he tries to battle with it. And it all seems like a lot of fluff and nonsense.

Until.

He goes to the inn and meets a woman, an employee of the inn, named Aldonza, a common prostitute. When he sees her for the first time, he reacts as if the most beautiful lady in the world has entered the room. He calls her Dulcinea and starts talking to her about how lovely she is and he would do anything to defend her honour. And she thinks he just wants to get into her pants. But then it turns out that, oh, no, he would never presume to touch a lady so fine and so pure, he’s not worthy, and this goes on. And she starts begging him to knock it off and repeats, “Look at me. Why can’t you see me as I really am?” She begs him to see her dirty clothes and her greasy hair, her care-worn face, that she’s nothing but a common prostitute. He utterly refuses to see anyone but the most beautiful lady in the world.

Well, you know how it turns out. The moment she begins to believe that she’s Dulcinea, she becomes Dulcinea. The moment she believes she’s more than a common prostitute, she no longer is one. She finally sees herself as she really is: beautiful and worthy of love and respect. Don Quixote was right about her. Believe in it first, because sometimes that’s the only way it becomes real. Believe in Tinkerbell because she can’t exist otherwise. It’s a very important skill to cultivate.

And I have to say this today, on St Nicholas’ day: I believe all this is also true about Santa Claus.

I never believed in Santa as a kid because my mother thought that telling me (and my brother) that Santa delivered my Christmas presents would be a “lie.” So I never experienced that moment that some kids go through where they find out there isn’t literally such a person as Santa, and they’re crushed. So I’m coming from a place where I don’t know that pain when I say I feel ripped off about having gone through childhood not believing in Santa. I had to grow up to believe in him.

Now, remember, I am one of the most non-literal thinkers you’ve ever encountered. Do I believe a man named Santa literally flies through the sky and lands on everyone’s roof and comes down the chimney, etc? Of course not. How boring.

I looked at the Santa Claus legend with a vivid curiosity to know where it came from (also a common autistic trait). Most people know that the legend sprang from a historical person now known as St Nicholas. St Nicholas’ parents died when he was fairly young and he inherited a very large fortune relatively early in life. But he didn’t use the money to live a luxurious life. He travelled around and slowly gave it all away to people in need, as he encountered them.

Most famously, he saved three sisters from being sold into slavery. The family had no money for the girls’ dowries — in fact, the options were: sell our daughters into slavery or watch them starve. But the morning when the oldest daughter was going to be sold, the family woke up and discovered a bag of money in front of the fireplace, not far from where the girls had hung up their stockings to dry the night before. It was enough money for the oldest girl to marry on. But the second daughter would have to be sold the next day. But the next night, the same thing happened. Someone threw a bag of money through the window, and again, the money was sufficient to prevent the second daughter from being sold.

Of course, the father was curious to know who was doing this, so on the third night, he waited up until he saw the pouch come flying into his house, stuck his head out the window and the identity of the benefactor was discovered.

But this is the sort of thing St Nicholas did, until all the family money was gone, at which point he joined a religious community. But even after died, his legend lived on. The idea that such people can and do exist in the world was too hopeful a thought to die out. He became synonymous with the kind and generous nature of humanity, a thing that most people refused to lose faith in. His legend evolved and grew larger than life. It got embellished over the centuries and became completely fantastical, as most legends eventually do. And here we are today.

I’m 48 years old, and I actively cultivate my belief in Santa Claus. I see belief in Santa as an expression of hope and faith in the inherent goodness of people. Sometimes you have to believe in that first, or else you’ll never draw goodness out of anyone, least of all yourself.

I heard a story once about a couple who moved to a new apartment in New York city. That next December, they started getting a lot of letters from children, addressed to Santa Claus, at their address. They were mystified, wondering why all these kids seemed to think that Santa lived in their apartment, and they also wondered why the previous owners didn’t warn them about that. It’s a mystery. But they read all the letters and were deeply touched. Instead of just throwing all the letters away, and dismissing the whole thing as a nuisance, the couple went on to found a charity dedicated to making sure underprivileged children would all get a gift for Christmas.

So there you go. I rest my case. Santa Claus is alive and well and living in New York.

And then there was the Christmas after my second son was born, when the deepest desire of my heart was to get a full night’s sleep, and that very year, 2017, Christmas Eve was the first night in his life that my son slept a full eight hours. Therefore so did I. It was exactly what I wanted. So you can’t talk me out of it. There really, truly is a Santa Claus. Not literally. But why should that mean he doesn’t exist?

Believe. Believe first. Make it real. It’s the most important thing.

And Merry Christmas!