One last post about Christmas!
Several people asked us this year about the place of Santa Claus in our family. I'll quote Noel Piper, who is much better with words and explanations than I could be, and then I'll try to sum up.
This may seem like a lot of text to read, but if you're a relative of ours it will be worth it so you'll maybe better understand our decision!
"For several reasons, we have chosen not to include Santa Claus in our Christmas stories and decorations. First, fairy tales are fun, but we don't ask our children to believe them. Second, celebrating with Santa and manger will postpone a child's clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. It's very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part truth and part imagination to find the crumbs of reality. We want our children to understand God as fully as they're able, at whatever age they are. So we try to avoid anything that would inhibit or distort that understanding.
Third, think how confusing it must be to a literal-thinking, uncritical preschooler. Santa is so much like what we're tying all year to teach our children about God. Look at the "attributes" of Santa:
-He's omniscient...he sees everything you do.
-He rewards you if you're good.
-He's omnipresent...at least, he can be everywhere in one night.
-He gives you good gifts.
-He's the most famous "old man in the sky" figure.
But at a deeper level that young children can't comprehend yet, he is not like God at all. For example, does Santa really care if we're bad or good? Think of the most awful kid you can remember. Did he or she ever not get gifts from Santa? What about Santa's spying and then rewarding you if you're good enough? That's not the way God operates. He gave us his gift- His Son-even though we weren't good at all. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). He gave his gift to us to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough."
-Treasuring God in our Traditions, page 80
Another thing that I could add to that last paragraph is that our goal in teaching our kids obedience is that they do it out of love for God and out of thankfulness for what He has done, not because they want to be rewarded with presents.
Does this all make sense? Maybe you think we are being too strict or thinking too hard about things. But we believe that if our goal in parenting is to evangelize our kids, then we must consider and analyze everything we are teaching them and try not to hinder them from learning the truth.
The other thought we've had is that, how can you avoid Santa? Obviously they know about him because they've seen him everywhere. We can't just pretend that he isn't around. Our plan basically is to treat Santa just like we do other characters that they love...Elmo, Grover, etc are good examples. It's fun to pretend and enjoy these characters! We've had their picture taken with Elmo, so maybe next year we could do the same with Santa. The point is, though, that we won't be telling them that he is real, is watching them, and will bring them presents on Christmas if they're good enough.
Let's talk about it next time we see you!
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