Saturday, December 12, 2009

Oh Santa

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We do not believe in Santa, and we are not going to teach Addie that Santa is real. This is a decision that every parent has to make for their own children, and I am not condemning anyone who chooses to make Santa a part of their Christmas celebration.

We feel (as a couple) that Santa takes the focus away from Christ, and children behave in order to please Santa, not the Lord and His commands (Exodus 20:12 and Ephesians 6:1). Please understand, I am not talking about Saint Nicholas (great Veggie Tales video by the way) who was a real person in history.

I am speaking of the big guy dressed in red that supposedly lives at the North Pole who manages to fly around the world in one night on a sleigh with flying reindeer and visits all of the good little boys and girls and brings them presents but no one has actually seen.

If we teach Addie that Santa Claus is real all during her growing years when she is more likely to believe everything we tell her without question and then finds out that Santa Claus is imaginary, what will she think about Christ since she has never actually seen him either?

Believe it or not, when I was teaching 5th grade, I still had some students who believed that Santa was a real person. One particular boy (who was one of my tough guys) practically melted into a puddle when one of the other kids said that Santa wasn't real.

In addition to the above reason, my husband works too hard to provide for our family for some imaginary guy to get the credit.

However, no matter where we go, Santa is going to be a very present feature during the Christmas season. Will we shelter Addie from him? No. Will we hide all evidence of the character? No, that would be impossible. Will we go along with the Santa hype? Absolutely not.

But he is around, and we will just make light of the situation and remind her that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus not Santa, and, like my mother used to tell me, God gives Daddy the strength and ability to work so we can buy presents.

And knowing how much Addie talks now and how serious she gets when she is talking, I think we are going to end up with the child that tells all of the kids in the nursery that Santa is not real. Oh well.
 
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We are coming home today from a wonderful, week long visit with GrandTiti, Uncle Jack, cousin Belinda, and Grandma Che-Che. I can't wait to share with you the wonderful memories made this past week.
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1 comment:

  1. When John was about 8 years old he looked on the bottom of one of his toys and it said Made in Taiwann...and it clicked in his head "Santa isn't real...my parents lied to me...if santa isn't real, then maybe God isn't real either!"

    So, we definitely agree with your decision Suzie, althought Santa was a big silly joke in our house that we all pretended about, some children, like John, really take the santa stuff to heart, and it does take the focus off of Christ in my opinion!

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