Sarah’s Search for Santa, A Different Kind of Christmas Album
If Santa Claus is a myth, does that mean Christmas isn’t real? This question sends the young protagonist, “Sarah,” on a magical quest to find the deepest roots of Christmas. By drawing on the animist and shamanic elements of the world’s most popular holiday, Sarah’s Search for Santa traces the origins of the season’s most beloved icon, Santa Claus, and his flying reindeer, back to their beginnings in Ice Age Europe. Amy Gustin, host of the Living Earth Connection, a radio show, blog and podcast that examines the roots of our current global ecological crisis from the perspective of animist spirituality, and musician, record producer and filmmaker, John Hardin have teamed up to produce a new and very unusual Christmas album that the whole family can enjoy.
This modern fairy tale uses spare language, old European Christmas melodies and mesmerizing instrumental music to take us back in time, through the eyes of a young girl, whose parents recently told her that Santa wasn’t real. In Sarah’s Search for Santa, Sarah finds a new ornament on her Christmas tree, left for her by a mysterious stranger who visits her home on Christmas Eve. As she follows the stranger outside, she finds herself in an unfamiliar forest where she meets a reindeer who takes her on a magical journey through space and time to find Santa Claus.
Sarah’s Search for Santa sprang out of Gustin and Hardin’s quest to learn about and connect with their own indigenous European animist roots. Their quest took them to ancient rock art sites in France, Sweden and Norway, medieval villages in Germany, and North of the Arctic Circle to meet Sami people and study their culture. This new fairy tale draws from all of these experiences and culminates in a gentle story, set to original music, told in a way that everyone can enjoy, and a child can understand.
“I always loved fairy tales growing up, and never lost my attraction for them” Gustin explains, “I eventually came to realize that the magical quality that appealed to me in fairy tales was the animist worldview. Animism is the perception that the world around us is alive and intelligent. All of our early human ancestors were animists, and fairy tales are one of the last bastions of animism in Western Civilization. Fairy tales remain one of the best ways to express an animist worldview, because stories convey meaning on a deeper level than facts, logic and statistics. Christmas trees, reindeer, amanita mushrooms and Santa Claus are not unbroken Christmas traditions, but these symbols reemerge because they remind us of our indigenous shamanic beginnings, and these animist origins have a powerful attraction. Reindeer, for example, resonate so deeply with us because they were critical to our ancestor’s survival during Europe’s Ice Ages.”
“Sarah’s Search for Santa grew out of a variety of interests: a deep love and fascination with reindeer, the Taiga forest, tundra, and arctic cultures and habitats, as well as European Ice Age art and animals, and a rekindling of my love for Christmas celebrations.” Gustin continues, “At first, these seemed like separate unconnected topics, but by following the golden threads, I discovered that they all connected. The cultures of the arctic provide good models for how our European Ice Age ancestors lived. Reindeer kept Ice Age Europeans alive during the coldest periods of our history. At the La Madeleine rock shelter near Les Eyzies, France, reindeer make up 87-100% of all the animal remains found in almost every layer of excavation. Reindeer not only provided food to our Ice Age ancestors, but people relied on reindeer hides for warm clothing, bones, tendons and antlers for making tools and weapons, and guts and hooves for everything from cooking utensils to storage containers. You can find beautiful depictions of reindeer made by ancient people in the caves of La Combarelles and Font de Gaume in Les Eyzies France, so it’s no surprise to see reindeer reappear in European Christmas celebrations centuries later. Sarah’s Search for Santa reminds us of the deep connection we have with these remarkable animals.”
The painted caves of Southwestern France also inspire the music that accompanies Sarah’s Search for Santa. “The acoustics in these painted caves are extraordinary.” Hardin points out. “In Grotte de Cougnac, archaeologists tell us that ancient people played the stalagmites in the cave like a giant stone marimba. While touring these caves, I realized that the art depicted on the walls only tells part of the story. The sound of these places, and the music people made within them must have had a central role in the rites and rituals conducted there. After visiting the caves, I began imagining what kind of music prehistoric Ice Age people might have made in these sacred spaces, based on archaeological findings, indigenous tribal music, and surviving shamanic traditions.”
“About half of the music in Sarah’s Search for Santa conveys this tribal, shamanic vibe with drums, rattles, overtone flutes and didgeridoo. The balance of the music to Sarah’s Search for Santa expresses the young girl’s sense of wonder, and love of Christmas with sounds that hearken back to medieval Europe: a reedy organ ambiance, sleigh bells, a tinkling glockenspiel, and traditional Christmas melodies played on the recorder.” Hardin explains, adding “Of course, there’s also a little magic that only modern electronics can provide.”
Sarah’s Search for Santa consists of two tracks, pt 1, Sarah Meets a Reindeer, and pt 2, Finding Santa Claus. This full length album will be released on Oct 21, 2019, in advance of the Christmas shopping season. It will be available at as a download at
johnhardin.bandcamp.com for $7.00, and as a CD for $15. ////
released November 6, 2019
Amy Gustin - original story, voice, recorder and glockenspiel
John Hardin - original music, drums, percussion, didgeridoo, flute, Omnichord, glockenspiel voice and synthesizer
