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Happy Christmases are all alike; each unhappy Christmas is unhappy in its own way

Author

Listed:
  • Vivien Blanchet

    (EM - EMLyon Business School)

Abstract

The French postal service has been opening a bureau for Father Christmas every winter since 1962. Sixty employees are responsible for responding to letters to Father Christmas. In 2018, more than one million children corresponded with him. But what would happen if someone were to write to Father Christmas, developing a close epistolary relationship with him? This short story explores such a scenario. Pierre M. and Father Christmas have during many years maintained regular and personal correspondence. Yet Father Christmas's attitude seems to have changed. Pierre M. reveals the evolution of their secret relationship to his mysterious friend. On substance, the short story offers an original perspective on modern marketplace mythologies. Previous studies depict myths as liminal spaces in which people negotiate contradictory meanings, practices and realities. The myth of Father Christmas thus involves compromises between ignorance and knowledge, life and death, the sacred and the profane. The short story tells how they evolve to define the identity of the protagonists and the world they live in. It highlights how they are embodied in hybrid artefacts like letters to Father Christmas and extraordinary servicescape. The short story also questions the performative force of the myth. It shows that it results from the interpretative work and ritual practices of the protagonists involved in an unstable actantial system structured around an enlightened person, an ignorant person and a mythical character. This is constantly negotiated throughout sociotechnical interactions, which, as in the case of witchcraft, may or may not realize the myth. On form, the short story adopts the principle of the eternal return inherent to the myth: it is plotted as a series of small variations on recurring themes and structural repetitions. Intertextual references to academic publications, literary tradition and popular culture enrich the narrative by extending it beyond its textual boundaries.

Suggested Citation

  • Vivien Blanchet, 2020. "Happy Christmases are all alike; each unhappy Christmas is unhappy in its own way," Post-Print hal-02437257, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02437257
    DOI: 10.1177/1470593119897764
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02437257
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Brown & Pierre McDonagh & Clifford J. Shultz II, 2013. "Titanic: Consuming the Myths and Meanings of an Ambiguous Brand," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 40(4), pages 595-614.
    2. Craig Thompson & Kelly Tian, 2008. "Reconstructing the South: How Commercial Myths Compete for Identity Value through the Ideological Shaping of Popular Memories and Countermemories," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(5), pages 595-613, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    discourse; Christmas; myth; performativity; Santa Claus; marketplace mythology;
    All these keywords.

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