So now that I'm a new mom, the question that me and other moms are all asking each other is, "How are you going to deal with Santa? Are you doing Santa?"
Time out.
This can be a touchy subject with people. Let me preface that if you celebrate in a different way than I do, I will 100% not judge you in any way. I hope you will do the same.
Time in.
Here are some thoughts because I'm better at bullet points:
-We are teaching our kids about Santa. This is because he is unavoidable. I can't just shield their eyes at the mall and in every single store where his face is plastered every 5 feet.-At the same time, Santa isn't our focus of Christmastime at all. Jesus is.
-My children won't be wearing any Santa clothing and I don't really have any Santa decorations or anything. I'm just not wanting to invest money into that. No big deal.
-I'm not anti-Santa, but I am pro truth. If my kids ask me if Santa is real, I will tell them that Saint Nicholas was a real person a long time ago, and sometimes people like to celebrate that man nowadays.
-I don't want my kids to be the ones that ruin Santa for the other kids at school. That's awful. Yet I'm not going to say "Johnny believes in Santa so don't spill the beans!" That is an invitation for your kid to spill the beans. It will be more like "Some people believe in him, some people don't."
-If you teach your child all about the magic of Santa, and then later they find out it's a lie, what will they think about what you've taught them about God? I never want my girls to think "Oh man, Santa was a lie so that I would be a good girl and have something to believe in" and then in turn think, "Hmm, is God a lie so that I will be a good girl and have something to believe in?"
-Therefore, I don't want to give Santa any qualities that a deity would have. (He wants you to be good this year, he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows if you've been bad or good, etc).
-Also, I will not be doing Elf on the Shelf. *SIGH.* I really want to do Elf on the Shelf because it's adorable and cute and fun. It's SO up my alley. But I don't want the kids think that this stuffed animal is observing then reporting their behavior back to Santa. (Ha, I might be kicking myself for this later!)
Note: I'm not against whimsical things like this, though. In fact, I might make my own version in which I read "The Gingerbread Man" and have a stuffed gingerbread man hide around the house in a similar manner (minus the reporting good behavior aspect).
Here is a different perspective from my teacher-mom-blog-crush: www.icanteachmychild.com
"As parents striving to raise our children to love the Lord, we celebrate Christ (his life, death, and resurrection) each and every day of the year. We talk about God throughout the day, we read Bible stories, we pray regularly with our children. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t set aside special times to celebrate more intently as well (as God himself commanded His people Israel to do in the Old Testament), but our daily, lifelong focus is to be on Christ.
If Christmas is the only time that you celebrate the birth of Christ, I would conclude that there isn’t any room for Santa in that celebration. 25 days (the length that we typically end up “celebrating” Christmas) is way too short to focus on the whole story of Christ AND Santa. But because we try to make Jesus the focus of every day of the year, having fun with Santa for a few days of the year won’t take away from Christ being the center of our lives or even our Christmas celebrations. "
^^^
A unique way to be pro-Santa and pro-Jesus, I think.
Next blog? All about our family celebrating advent and Jesus!
^^^
A unique way to be pro-Santa and pro-Jesus, I think.
Next blog? All about our family celebrating advent and Jesus!
1) Yay for more blog posts!
ReplyDelete2) You did a good job with this one. It's even-handed and reasonable. It gels thoughts I've had and I'll be sure to refer to this when my time comes.
3) You're completely right about your approach to not telling your kids it's a secret. Saying "don't tell" is pretty much the same as "tell everyone the first chance you get".
4) I don't know much about this elf on a shelf thing, but what I do know creeps me out. Maybe when it's ok they can understand it's a game, but still...
When we were kids we never really "believed" in Santa. I think the best way to describe it was, we understood that the family was basically engaging in a little fun and make-believe. We knew what Christmas was really about and we were taught that the presents were simply representative of the ultimate present God gave on the first Christmas, so we never had to struggle with some kind of cognitive dissonance over the issue of Santa. Like with movies and TV, we were smart enough to understand that the little wink with which our parents discussed what "Santa" might bring meant that he was just a little harmless fun, and I don't remember ever having to struggle with realizing Santa's status as fictional. I have no problem with those who don't want to discuss him with their kids, but I have little patience for SNL Church Lady-esque conspiracy theories about how Santa is just there to steal Christmas from Baby Jesus.
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