Every year it comes. The dreaded but unavoidable Christmas question directed at Kendall, "What is Santa bringing you this year?" I clam up every time. What will she say? Does this random person (or family member, for that matter!) want a dissertation on why our family chooses not to participate in the Santa thing? Is it an opportunity to somehow share Christ and how can I in the three second time span I have? Of course, it always ends with Kendall giving some random idea like a new princess bed or a Dora suitcase or something else pretty dumb, and with that, the conversation is over.
But, for some reason, I always feel defeated.
Not doing Santa with Kendall was a conversation that Evan and I had pretty early on as parents. I was pretty indifferent on the whole thing; my parents gave us Santa gifts until we were old enough to ask questions, then told us the truth. I never thought too much about it, and quite frankly just thought Santa was something I would always do with my kids. However, conversations with my husband changed my mind. In short, these are our reasons:
1.) We never want to lie to our children. About anything, period. I read a Facebook post recently from a teenage girl saying: "My dad said, 'I can't believe you lied to me.' I looked at him and said, 'Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy. Boo-Yah.'" While I laughed about that, it was a reminder to me of why we do what we do.
2.) We never want our children to doubt God's existence because we chose to teach them about Santa. If you think about it, Santa has many similar characteristics of God, but he is NOT God. We never want our children to doubt the validity of God because we taught them about Santa. In other words, we don't want to hear, "But you told me Santa was real and he's not, how can you tell me to believe in God?" (It all ties back into the lying thing.) Of course we know many Believers never struggle with this sort of thing; I am living proof of that. We also don't want to feed that thought in our children if at all possible.
3.) We work very hard to have what we have and to give our children a few nice things. We want to make sure the girls know that what they have is a blessing from the Lord and because of His provision over us, not from some made up, magical character.
With that being said, we are okay with Kendall and Arden knowing about Santa. We don't avoid the mall at Christmastime or run past the Santa display. We watch Christmas movies with Santa and even sing fun Christmas songs about Santa Claus. We tell Kendall (and will tell Arden, too!) that Santa is not real, that he is a made up character based on a real person. We tell her that some people believe Santa is real and if they want to, that's okay, we just don't. THIS article from the Washington Post written by Mark Driscoll was very helpful for me in knowing how to answer Kendall's questions or be truthful without taking out all the fun.
Just today, I read THIS article that got me to thinking a little more, and helped me recharge a little. I've actually read this one twice today, and each time it just strikes a chord with me! While I'm not sure we will get rid of our Santa heads at the moment (not that we have any to put out this year!), I love all her thoughts on overspending, giving our children the gift of giving, and the advent calendar that involves scripture AND family fun. Flash light tag with my crew? Yes, please. And I won't even get into how much my eyes were opened with the whole slave labor thing! Talk about convicting.
So, there you go. Why we do what we do at Christmas. I won't judge you for choosing Santa, if you won't judge me for not. And, as Believers, I think we SHOULD join together to do the best we can to make sure the focus is on Christ.
"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
(Luke 2:8-14, KJV)
"...And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."
4 comments:
Yes, yes, yes!! This issue has been on my heart this season. Great article. I actually read it a few days ago myself. : )
I love hearing this! We've been having lots of covnerstations about this too...mainly how frustrating it is that we are expected to "go along" with the lie about Santa being real around people who choose to beleive in Santa... while we obviously don't want to ruin the suprise for others, we don't want Emelyn seeing us lie to others just to make them happy. Still not sure what to do! I think the awe of santa takes away from the awe of Jesus' birth... I'd much rather Emelyn be excited that it's Jesus' birthday than be excited to find out what she received from a make beleive person.
I hate when people push the "what is Santa bringing you question". Someone at church kept pushing G to answer that the other day, and even though we talk every year about what our answer is, he blurted out "santa isn't bringing me anything- he's not real!" in front of several kids-yikes!
Hope your sweet family has a special time celebrating God's amazing gift to us!
you are not alone! stand firm! wish we would have been more firm in our beliefs but we just half way did santa. never ever made him a bigger deal than Jesus, but none the less.....didn't out right ditch him either. wish we would have. good post!
haven't checked in on all the blogs i like to read. hope you guys are settled and you are 100%! prayed prayed prayed for you! have a wonderful ARKANSAS christmas!
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