Why Question it?
As I enter into the final week before Christmas, I’m reminded of how fast the season truly is. Lately, I’ve been watching some old Christmas classics, but something new is happening to me. I’m bored with them. To be clear, they are wonderful stories and bring back fond memories, but they feel empty. However, there is one movie I was reluctant to watch, but followed through with. And, as a result, I’m grateful I gave this classic a chance. It has profoundly changed my attitude on reconnecting to my favorite Nation.
There’s something quietly remarkable about a film released in 1947 still capturing our imagination today. Miracle on 34th Street continues to invite adults into a conversation we pretend we’ve outgrown: Is there really a Santa Claus?
And while that question may sound nostalgic or even naïve on the surface, however, the film’s staying power suggests something much deeper is at work beneath the story’s holiday charm.
"Pay" Attention
As children, imagination is encouraged, celebrated, and protected. We are told we can be anything, create anything, and dream without limits. Yet, as adults, the message subtly but firmly changes. We’re taught to “live in the real world.”
Work hard. Be practical. Pay your taxes. If you follow the rules long enough, you’ll be rewarded with security at the end of your societal viability work agreement. Consequently, imagination is slowly reframed as irresponsible, unrealistic, or even dangerous.
Favored Nation status
Meanwhile, the idea of entering our imagination — where fulfillment replaces obligation and creation replaces compliance — becomes something we’re trained to resist. We’re warned not to “get our hopes up.” We’re told to be realistic. Over time, imagination becomes synonymous with disappointment rather than possibility. As a result, this shift doesn’t happen overnight, but it happens deliberately.
That’s why Miracle on 34th Street isn’t really about Santa Claus at all. Instead, it’s about what happens when an adult is invited — gently, without force — to remember what imagination feels like. Doris Walker isn’t skeptical because she’s cruel or closed-minded. She’s skeptical because she’s been conditioned to survive in a world governed by Fear, Lack, and Limitation.
In other words, she’s doing exactly what society taught her to do. Therefore, you see a reasonable woman living in New York with a support staff and a nice apartment.
Macy's Department Store. Miracle on 34th Street Window Theme
Do the Right thing
Importantly, the film doesn’t shame her for this. Rather, it honors her intelligence, her responsibility, and her desire to protect her child. However, it also exposes the quiet cost of that mindset: when imagination is abandoned, life becomes something to manage instead of something to create. This is where the story begins to speak directly to us — not as children, but as adults navigating systems that reward obedience over inspiration.
Meanwhile, a man who claims to be Santa Claus is deemed to be mentally ill the minute he threatens someone's reality. Throughout the film, institutions take center stage. Courts, psychologists, corporations, and government agencies all attempt to define truth through authority and credentials.
Yet, none of them can actually recognize what stands right in front of them. Kris Kringle never argues his case with logic alone. He doesn’t demand belief. He simply is. And that presence unsettles systems built on control rather than trust.
Macy's Department Store. Kris Kringle Miracle on 34th Street Window Theme
What do you believe?
This is where the film quietly delivers its most powerful insight: belief doesn’t require proof in the traditional sense — sometimes belief itself is the proof. The moment belief must be justified, audited, or approved, it stops being belief and becomes permission. The courtroom scene isn’t about winning a legal argument; it’s about exposing the limits of institutional certainty.
As adults, we’re conditioned to wait for evidence before trusting ourselves. We’re told to seek validation from outside authorities — employers, governments, experts, and systems — before allowing ourselves to feel secure. Over time, we begin outsourcing our knowing. This is the same dynamic explored in “You Are Pure Energy”, where we examine how disconnection from inner awareness leads to dependency on external structures.
Don't Speak
To clarify, what Miracle on 34th Street gently suggests is that imagination is not fantasy — it’s remembrance. It’s the recognition that creation doesn’t begin with effort, but with belief. Children understand this intuitively. Adults forget it methodically. That forgetting is not accidental; it’s reinforced by systems that benefit from predictability rather than possibility.
Likewise, in one of the film’s quietest moments, Santa explains this without argument, telling a little girl that imagination is not about seeing things that aren’t there, but a place all its own — a country, much like nations she’s heard of but has never visited. And once you arrive there, he says, you can do anything you want.
Interestingly, the film never forces a conclusion. It doesn’t definitively prove Santa exists in the way modern storytelling often demands. Instead, it leaves space. That space is where imagination returns. And that return is uncomfortable for systems rooted in FLL because imagination dissolves fear, exposes lack as illusion, and renders limitation optional.
Come on in!
This theme resonates with what we explored in “Christianity’s Power & Influence,” where belief systems are revealed to be less about doctrine and more about lived experience. In both cases, truth isn’t imposed — it’s remembered.
Ultimately, Miracle on 34th Street endures because it asks a question we still haven’t answered honestly: What if reality isn’t something we submit to, but something we participate in? What if the imagination we were taught to abandon is the very mechanism through which fulfillment emerges?
A whole new World
So, is there a Santa Claus? The film never answers that directly — and it doesn’t need to. The better question might be this: When did we stop believing that we could create a life that excites us? And more importantly, who taught us that belief had to be earned?
Perhaps the miracle isn’t on 34th Street at all. Maybe the miracle is remembering that imagination was never childish — it was foundational. Ultimately, you get to choose which world you want to live in. Scared? The question isn’t Are you scared, but What are you scared of?
