Santa has no causal powers: He doesn’t make a difference in the world. According to stories about Santa Claus, Santa has enormous causal powers: He delivers billions of Christmas presents in a single night. But those stories are false; Santa has no intrinsic causal powers. Of course, the stories themselves have causal powers. They affect cards and costumes and children throughout the world. So by the Eleatic dictum, the stories are real, but this doesn’t mean Santa is real.
