Ok, so again, I’m trying to avoid any Christmas wars discussions, but this video brought me to a slightly different line of thinking than simple Christmas wars.
I’m curious about how you’ve dealt with Santa in your family, either as you grew up or as you’ve dealt with your own kids. We’re kind of getting to a transition point in our own family, so I’ve been thinking about this more. Thus far we’ve talked about Santa and played along with the fun- after all Santa is a relatively benevolent figure and our feeling was that as long as we focused more on the religious side things were good. Enjoy some Santa fun, but focus on Jesus as the reason for the season.
Here’s the thing though, Reuel is getting older and he’s already asked, “the question”- “Is Santa real”. Thus far my wife and I have kind of side-stepped the issue- Santa is a story that we like to talk about at Christmas. That’s satisfied him so far, or at least his 3 1/2 year old attention span has moved on to something different, but that will be changing by next year I’m sure.
So I’m curious, have you tried to play on the idea of Santa as part of the “spirit of Christmas? Have you gone whole hog, “of course Santa is real” and tried to keep up this perception with whatever steps necessary? Have you had “the talk” (no, not the Birds and the Bees, the other talk) with your kids about how Santa isn’t real? If so, how do you get a young child to understand how to deal cautiously with this issue when they’re around other kids.
I’m especially curious about your experience and especially how it’s impacted your kids in terms of what they think about Christmas, their focus on Jesus and faith at this time of year.
Mmmmm…good question! Reuel is a smart little guy and probably about the same age as Kade when Kade first asked if Santa was real. We went ahead and told him that Santa isn’t real but just a fun story. He seemed to be at peace with that and it didn’t take too long for him to understand that other kids DO think Santa is real and it’s not up to him to “enlighten” them. So, if it’s brought up by his friends, he can just smile and nod. Because we’re not bent on keeping Santa “real” to the kids, we don’t have to sweat “the question”. We just treat it as part of the fun surrounding Christmas.
We also started a tradition that every Christmas Santa leaves a “Happy Birthday, Jesus” cake with a note of the meaning of Christmas.
Good luck!
I like the idea of Santa leaving the cake for Jesus. As long as we see Santa serving Jesus’ purposes rather than becoming the show stealer, that seems good.
I won’t have to “deal” with this for awhile, but I’d like to somehow incorporate the historical/legendary aspects of the real 4th century Saint Nicholas into the Santa Claus discussion. After all, he’s commemorated on December 6th on our liturgical calendar. More info is here: http://watchfulone.blogspot.co.....-myra.html
Doing a quick Google search I ran across a movie about Nicholas that looks really interesting that is releasing in 2010: http://www.nicholasofmyra-movie.com.
My family always has done a blend of St. Nickolas & Santa, and I don’t remember a single point in my past where I learned that Santa wasn’t real… I seem to remember just kinda figuring it out. I do think that the more emphasis you put on the presents under the tree from Santa on Christmas morning, that the harder it will be to understand that Santa isn’t real. But if the emphasis is on Jesus and the significance of the gift that God gave us in His Son, it’s easier to make the transition. Gee, I hope there aren’t any 3 or 4-year-olds reading this blog!
One more thought I’d like to share, I think it’s important not to tie too much importance to the date of December 25th. Not everyone gets to be with their whole family on that day, especially in cases of divorce and blended families. For various reasons, my family has celebrated Christmas on the 24th or 26th or even 27th over the past 15-20 years, and that has worked well for us. But it’s easy to fixate on the date, or the presents, or family, or the weather, or the lights (which I personally love!) and all those things can obscure our view of the manger scene.
Darin- thanks for the references to the movie. I hadn’t heard about that and will defintely be looking forward to it.
Darin and Stephanie- have you found resources you really liked for St. Nicolas stuff? I was just curious. We have a book we’ve read some with Reuel, but it’s defintely directed at much older kids, so I really have to adapt as I go along (especially being careful of stories like the one where Nicolas resurrects the boys who were murdered and stuffed in brine barrels!)
I’m glad to see an overall feeling coming out of all that we can uplift some of these secular traditions where they go in the right direction as long as we don’t let them drive the bus. Jesus drives the bus and if we let him do that, then things tend to fall out ok.
We have been talking about St. Nicholas, as well. In the tradition of St. Nicholas, their stocking stuffers come from him. Both of my younger ones have asked if Santa is real, and so far I’ve sidestepped a little. With my oldest, I gave the whole Santa story. I’ve talked with her about it, and asked if she felt it hurt her faith or made her think I was lying to her. She said “no” to both. I still think I’d like to focus more on St. Nicholas (as far as “Santa” goes) and make the holiday all about Jesus’ birth.
Oh, and a good site I’ve found is – http://www.stnicholascenter.org
This is a very delicate subject. But as a child, I grew up with my Dutch heritage and you can have Santa and the Christ Child all wrapped into one holiday.
There are a couple of ways to look at this. First you could do the old world way of Santa has his own day, which happens to be Dec. 6th. But, Santa doesn’t leave the toys, he leaves fruit and candies, if you’ve been good.
This can be a hard concept to swallow when you have young children, like Reuel.
The best way I have seen to handle this is by a book titled “A Special Place for Santa: A Legend for our Time” by Jeanne Pieper. If you search around on the internet, you should be able to find it. I know it is out of print, but I have some on the internet. This story talks about Santa, and he actually gives gifts to the kids because of the birth of Christ. At the end he actually ends up at the manager, kneeling and praying for the new baby.
Dan, I’ll look around and see if I can find this story. I have this statue and it is absolutely my favorite Christmas piece. This story will help even big kids understand the true meaning of Christmas.
does it bother anyone else that the “story of santa” is a lie you tell your children?
Santa is real: http://www.iCaughtSanta.com
Merry Christmas!