To Celebrate Santa or Not? One Christian's Perspective.

So, I saw this blog by Matt Walsh and he gives a rundown on how he feels about Santa... He has a sometimes snarky/ comedic way of writing that makes me laugh. I really appreciate his blogging. He usually says what everyone is thinking (or at least what I'm thinking) but don't say it because I'm scared. Ha! Well anyway, that is where I got my inspiration for this blog.

      In a lot of ways we have approached the Santa question in the same way as Matt, that the magical Santa is not real. However, we went a little further than Matt in his post and we told the kids the origins of Saint Nicholas. While we do not celebrate St. Nicholas either, we wanted our kids to know where the idea of Santa came from and that the theme of giving is a good thing; but our most important focus is in Jesus' birth at Christmas time.

    Where it all started for us is about 3 years ago we were sitting in the living room at 3am hurrying to make everything perfect because the kids had finally fallen asleep after becoming purely exhausted from the big Santa wait. As I sat on the floor (aching back from 2 hours of present wrapping on a cold floor) and writing "Santa" on packages that my husband and I carefully picked out, saved for and bought I had this realization... Why in the heck are we giving credit to a mythical character sneaking into our house at night to deliver gifts when it is really my husband and I staying up until 3 am trying to keep this lie covered by taking bites out of cookies and making everything look perfect for Christmas morning? Then the sinking thought came to me:What are the kids going to think when they realize we have been lying this whole time? (Yes, it was the first time I thought of that) So at that point we were convicted that we had to come clean.


   For us, we thought if we were going to teach our children the importance of truth we had to be truthful (novel idea) and most importantly we wanted our childrens' focus to be where they should be on Christmas day; celebrating the birth of our Savior. Today, our kids look at Santa just like they do watching a cartoon; it's pretend. They are no less excited about Christmas.

   

    After considering what Santa is all about with "he's making a list, checking it twice" we didn't feel it really reflected Christ at all... Our gift giving to our children is not based on what they have done as is the custom of Santa keeping a naughty or nice list... We give them gifts because we love them and that's it; no other reason.  We want to teach our kids to know that they get these gifts whether they deserve it or not because we are showing our love for them. The bigger lesson we are trying to teach our children is a gospel centered one: love is not earned, just as salvation is not earned,it's a gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

         One way we show our children we love them is in giving them gifts, and other ways is taking care of them, feeding, clothing, sheltering, protecting, disciplining, hugging and kissing them, telling them we love them. It's not something earned, just as Salvation is a gift and not earned. We teach them, that because of God's great love for us, he sent his one and only son to Earth, laying aside the glory of Heaven and humbled himself to be among us sinners. He lived a perfect, sinless life we are unable to live in order to pay the fine we owed God for our sins against His holiness and righteousness. Jesus satisfied the debt of sin when he was nailed to the cross for our sins and rose again, defeating sin and death so that we can be with him in Heaven when we repent and put our trust in Him.(Romans 5:8) (1 John 1:19)

     While I know that our take on Santa may not be popular, I think it is something important for Christian's to consider in the Christmas season. Let us not get so caught up in cultural traditions that we forget whom Christmas is all about for those of us in Christ Jesus.


*disclaimer*: I know this isn't a popular opinion held by most people regarding Santa because Santa has become a huge part of American culture, but I just want to say that if you tell your kids about Santa it doesn't mean I think you are a horrible parent..I'm just sharing how we as parents decided to deal with the magical elf. :)