Comments on: Forwards That Make You Go, “huh”- Santa vs. Jesus

By: steven

steven — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:05:00 +0000

Santa is real: http://www.iCaughtSanta.com

Merry Christmas!

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:21:03 +0000

does it bother anyone else that the “story of santa” is a lie you tell your children?

By: Brenda M

Brenda M — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:39:36 +0000

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.

By: Jennifer M

Jennifer M — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:36:52 +0000

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

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:18:11 +0000

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.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:29:30 +0000

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.

By: Darin

Darin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:50:33 +0000

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.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:14:52 +0000

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.

By: Erin I.

Erin I. — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:00:46 +0000

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!