I want to talk to you about my favorite Christmas movie: Miracle on 34th Street. It’s the story of
Kris Kringle, a sweet, eccentric old man who believes himself to be Santa Claus. He gets
a job as a store Santa at Macy’s and changes the lives of everyone he meets for the better — well,
almost everyone, but that guy has it coming — trust me, if you haven’t seen the movie.
When I was a kid, I thought of Miracle on 34th Street as a kind of holiday fable, a story about
how the Christmas spirit helped people to see beyond their own limited, petty concerns and
remember the true meaning of the holiday, a story about how hope and faith can be rewarded even in a
cynical age, a story about how magic does still exist in the world and is worth believing in.
But the first time I watched the movie as an adult — and I mean, took off the nostalgia
glasses and really watched it — I realized that it’s not the movie I always thought it was.
It still affirms those same values I mentioned, but it does it in a way that is grounded
and justified and, more or less, plays by the rules of our real world. This isn’t a fairy tale,
and despite the title of the film, no actual miracles are involved.
Let’s start with the most important thing most people get wrong about the movie: Kris Kringle
is not Santa Claus. The movie is not ambiguous on this point. He never does anything to suggest
to us in the audience that he is Santa Claus, the movie never leads us to believe
that he is Santa Claus, and other than Kris himself and, at the very end, Susie,
no character in the movie ever seems to sincerely believe that Kris is Santa Claus.
It’s not a point the film leaves open for interpretation, it’s not a case of “well,
maybe he is, maybe he isn’t, we get to make up our own mind” — he’s not Santa Claus. Period.
Now, if you’re someone who interprets the movie differently, if you think he is Santa Claus,
or that he at least might be, this probably seems like a harsh read, as though I’m squeezing all the
magic and wonder from the film. I assure you, that’s not that I’m trying to do. As I said,
this is my favorite Christmas movie, and it’s not because it’s soul-crushingly bleak — that would
be my favorite musical. I find Miracle on 34th Street to be very heartwarming and life-affirming.
It just goes about it in a different way than most other beloved holiday movies.
So. Kris Kringle. Nice old man. Looks like Santa Claus, says he is Santa Claus,
definitely isn’t Santa Claus. The movie tells us he isn’t Santa Claus but is,
in fact, a sweetly deluded senior citizen, in the very first scene, when he stops at a shop to
politely but firmly correct this poor guy who is stuck arranging a window display on Thanksgiving.
After he convinces the guy to open the door, Kris explains that the reindeer are in the wrong order.
“You’ve got Cupid where Blitzen should be,” he insists.
The thing is, the miniature reindeer are all identical. There is no Cupid, or Blitzen,
or Dasher. The store worker’s reaction to Kris, which is to smile patiently,
lock the door once he leaves, and watch him go on his way with a mixture of pity,
concern, and disbelief, is the appropriate response.
There are other little clues thrown in here and there throughout the film, like the fact that Kris
actually lives in an old folks’ home, and has, by his own admission, been frequently subjected
to cognitive testing. We even get a scene with a doctor from the old age home where Kris lives,
who explains that Kris has “a delusion for good” — he’s harmless, but he sincerely believes that he
is Santa Claus, even though he’s not Santa Claus — the movie is telling us he’s not Santa Claus.
Kris doesn’t change the lives of the people he meets in the movie because he’s Santa Claus.
He changes their lives because he shows these cynical, disillusioned people what unconditional
kindness looks like. Kris asks people what they want, and then finds ways of getting them those
things, no judgment, no strings attached. His methods are very practical — when a little boy
visits him at Macy’s and asks for a hard-to-find toy fire engine, Kris promises that he’ll get it,
then privately tells the boy’s mother which store sells the kind of fire engine he wants.
When a woman brings the young Dutch orphan she’s adopted to visit Santa, Kris gives the girl a hug
and speaks to her in her native language — which he just happens to know. Susie witnesses this and
interprets it as evidence that he is actually Santa Claus, but I tend to agree with her
mother on this one, who tells Susie, “I speak French; that doesn’t make me Joan of Arc.”
Kris’s kindness not only affects the people he gets the closest to, it also pays wider
dividends. Mr. Shellhammer, the manager of the toy department at Macy’s, is initially horrified when
he learns Kris, in his role as store Santa, has been advising customers to shop at other stores
when necessary in order to find the perfect toy for their kids. But he changes his mind when he
encounters shoppers who assume Kris is acting in accordance with an official store policy,
and are grateful to Macy’s for putting the good of the customer ahead of profit. It soon does become
official store policy, when Mr. Macy himself realizes what a public relations boon it is
and tells his staff that from now on, Macy’s will be known as “the store that places public
service ahead of profits. And, consequently, we’ll make more profits than ever before.”
Through his example, Kris teaches people that there is no reason not
to treat others with kindness and generosity — it makes you feel good, it makes them feel good,
and it doesn’t even hurt business!
Of course, while that is a message the movie is giving to us, it’s not one that we see
internalized by most of the characters who have only a peripheral association with Kris.
The real changes of heart occur with Doris and Susie, and I want to talk about those. But first,
let’s look at the seemingly miraculous climax of the movie, when Kris Kringle is
legally declared by a New York State court to be Santa Claus. How does that happen?
Enraged that store psychologist Mr. Sawyer has been exploiting gullible young janitor Alfred,
Kris confronts Sawyer and winds up whacking him in the head with an umbrella. In retaliation,
Sawyer has Kris committed to Bellevue on the basis that his Santa delusion masks
“latent maniacal tendencies” that make him a danger to others. After a pep talk from Fred,
Doris’s neighbor and love interest and, now, Kris’s lawyer, Kris agrees to challenge his
commitment. When the court date arrives, Fred employs the bold but risky strategy of
arguing that Kris isn’t insane for claiming to be Santa Claus, because he actually is Santa Claus.
Now, I think it’s worth pointing out that Fred doesn’t genuinely believe Kris is Santa Claus.
He takes the case because he likes Kris and believes he’s been mistreated by Sawyer, but,
as he explains to Doris after that first hearing, he’s making
the Santa argument for strategic reasons, not because he believes it.
And it turns out to be a brilliant strategy. By arguing that Kris is actually Santa Claus,
Fred puts both the district attorney who opposes him and the judge who presides over
the hearing in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to potentially disprove
the existence of Santa Claus — on the verge of Christmas, no less — in order to beat him.
The district attorney, Mr. Mara, initially argues that anyone who claims to be Santa is obviously
not sane because, as everyone knows, there is no Santa Claus. Fred counters by calling Mr. Mara’s
own young son to the witness stand, who testifies that he knows there is a Santa Claus because his
father told him so, and his father would never tell him a lie. Backed into a corner, unwilling
to disappoint his son, Mara utters one of the best lines in the movie, reluctantly telling the judge,
“Your Honor, the State of New York concedes the existence of Santa Claus.”
Others who wind up supporting the argument that Kris is actually Santa Claus are motivated by
a similar kind of emotional self-preservation: Mr. Macy testifies that he believes Kris is the
real Santa Claus after he imagines the negative publicity that would come his way were he to admit
that his famous store Santa is a fraud. And Judge Harper, who allows Fred to make the preposterous
argument in the first place, and ultimately decides the case in Kris’s favor, is warned by
his political advisor that if he rules there’s no Santa Claus, it will mean the end of his career.
Judge Harper’s not a total pushover, though. Finally, he does insist that Fred offer
some tangible proof that his claim is true, that Kris is, in fact, the one and only Santa Claus.
That proof ultimately comes as a result of the movie’s cleverest and most
satisfying twist, and produces its most enduring visual.
With things looking bleak for Kris, young Susie writes him a letter to cheer him up.
Her mom, Doris, once dubious of Kris but now firmly on his side,
adds her own encouraging note at the bottom, and mails the letter to Kris care of the courthouse,
so it will be delivered to him during his hearing. A postal worker notices the letter and marks it
as unusual — he’s never seen a letter to Santa addressed to the courthouse before.
A co-worker fills him in on the Kris Kringle story, and he suggests that they take the
opportunity to rid themselves of the thousands and thousands of letters to Santa that are currently
clogging the dead letter office by delivering those letters to Kris at the courthouse, as well.
This postal worker doesn’t seem to be filled with the Christmas spirit. He doesn’t seem to have any
particular preference regarding the outcome of Kris’s case — he doesn’t even know about
it until it’s explained to him. He’s acting in the interest of himself and his fellow postal workers,
proposing a way to rid themselves of a great bulk of undeliverable mail
that’s just taking up space in their workplace.
But that decision proves fateful for Kris, because Fred introduces those letters — all of
them — as evidence that the United States Postal Service recognizes Kris Kringle as Santa Claus.
It’s good enough for Judge Harper, who dismisses the case, leaving Kris free to go. The involuntary
commitment of an old man who claims to be Santa Claus has been overturned on the basis
that he actually is Santa Claus. It’s a miracle! On whatever street the courthouse is on!
Except, it’s not literally a miracle — the movie has shown us, step by step,
what led to Judge Harper’s decision, and while that chain of events is
pretty implausible — which is fine, this is a comedy and has more than a touch of the absurd
and the whimsical about it — no individual event in that chain is all that implausible.
Fred takes the case because of his friendship with Kris and goes with the “he’s really Santa”
argument because he considers it audacious strategy that will give him the best chance of
winning; the judge is worried about his political future and the opinions of his grandchildren, so
he decides the court will “keep an open mind”; the D.A. doesn’t want to let his little boy down, so
he doesn’t dispute the existence of Santa Claus; and the Post Office inadvertently substantiates
Kris’s identity as Santa by delivering a huge pile of otherwise undeliverable letters to him.
Nothing impossible, nothing magical, it’s the sort of thing that
probably wouldn’t happen . . . but if everything lined up just right, it could.
So, that might not seem all that heartwarming. Is the message of the movie that everyone acts
in their own self-interest and when good things happen it’s because of a simple twist of fate,
like a child’s letter being seen by the right guy sorting mail at the Post Office?
I don’t think so. Because while the plot of the movie builds toward Kris’s court case, that’s not
ultimately what it’s about. The heart of Miracle on 34th Street is found
through the character arcs of Doris and Susie.
Doris begins the movie as a cynical, pragmatic, career-driven woman. She’s
not one-dimensional — she has warmth, a sense of humor, she seems like a loving and involved
parent — but she doesn’t value things like imagination, and while she’s successful,
she doesn’t seem to derive much meaning from her work — she’s in charge of the Macy’s Thanksgiving
Day Parade, but doesn’t even stick around to watch it once she’s gotten everyone to their places.
Her daughter Susie is very much a chip off the old block. Much of the humor in the film comes
from what a serious, practical child Susie is. When she meets Kris for the first time,
he asks her what she wants for Christmas, and she replies, “Nothing, thank you. My
mother will get me whatever I want, as long as it’s sensible and doesn’t cost too much.”
Doris and Susie start out not believing in Kris. By the end of the movie, they both believe in him
very much. Now, in Susie’s case, that belief comes in the form of believing that he is actually Santa
Claus. That doesn’t mean Kris is actually Santa Claus — it means that Susie’s journey through
the film has brought her to a place where she is able to have the sort of childlike faith in things
that she wasn’t capable of before. The important thing about Susie at the end of the movie isn’t
whether or not Kris is really Santa Claus, but that she has learned to embrace being a child,
and she has had her faith in an adult validated,
because her preposterous Christmas wish — in a true “put up or shut-up” moment, she asks Kris
to get her a house for Christmas, a request even he balks at initially — has been granted.
Susie’s Christmas wish, in its way just as audacious and seemingly doomed as
Fred’s argument in the court case, is ultimately granted in the same grounded and plausible fashion
as that which leads to the judge’s decision. Kris doesn’t do anything miraculous — he finds a house
on the market that looks like the one Susie asks him for — it may even be that exact house — the
paper Susie gives Kris with a picture of the house looks like it could be an ad. Then, Kris
simply gives Fred driving directions that will take him, Doris and Susie past the house on their
way back from the Christmas party, and counts on Doris and Fred’s love for Susie to do the rest.
Doris’s character arc follows a similar path as Susie’s. She doesn’t wind up believing that Kris
is Santa Claus, but she does come to realize the importance of what Kris stands for, those “lovely
intangibles” that Fred appeals to when trying to explain to her why he’s taken Kris’s case:
kindness, love, and joy. It’s not that Doris doesn’t see the value of those
things in the beginning — it’s that she isn’t willing to put herself out there,
to take a chance, to risk failure or heartbreak, for the sake of those things.
It’s implied that Doris’s cautious, rigidly pragmatic worldview is a
result of her divorce — her supposed Prince Charming turned out to be
something less than ideal and left her to raise their daughter on her own,
and as a result she’s reluctant to put too much faith in anyone else. It’s a somewhat
glib and sexist bit of characterization, but it was the 1940s, what’re ya gonna do?
By the end of the movie, Doris has come to believe not only in Kris,
but also in Fred, and in kindness, love, joy — the things that really make life worth living.
Doris and Susie arrive at these realizations not because of a Christmas miracle,
but because other people in their lives come through for them, showing them that
putting their faith in other people might be a risk, but it’s a risk worth taking.
If there is an overarching message to the film, one that covers the court case and the character
arcs of Doris and Susie and everything else, I think it’s that kindness pays off. Being kind,
being generous, doing right by people — we can all profit from those things.
Yes, sometimes those profits can come in the form of dollars and cents,
as Mr. Macy discovers when he decides to follow Kris’s example and prioritize
helping his customers over selling to them, or in the form of political success, as is the hope of
Judge Harper. But we profit in much deeper and longer lasting ways when we help each other,
and believe in each other, and strive to be the kind of people who are worth believing in.
Knowing that is a gift. It’s not a gift that we need to ask Santa for. It’s one we can give
to each other, and ourselves, and enjoy all year round. As Kris says in the movie,
“Christmas isn’t just a day. It’s a state of mind.”
Sure, it’s a cliche. But there’s some wisdom to it, as well.
Because the thing this movie shows us about the Christmas spirit is, there’s no
magic required — it’s all in the way we treat each other. That’s how we work real miracles.