2 years ago I wrote an entry I titled Santa Doesn't Live Here. As I was re-reading it today I realized I didn't answer the "Why?" question we get so often.
Before I explain I want to add this disclaimer . . . Every family has to make their own decisions on things like this. This is how/why our family does Christmas and I'm not trying to get into a "Mommy War" if your family does something different because I don't think it's a "right/wrong" issue.
First and foremost we don't do Santa because we don't want to lie to our kids and, in our minds, it's lying. We feel hypocritical punishing our kids for lying and teaching them lying is wrong when we're doing it ourselves. I know others tell us it's "Just a game", but to us it's still lying
Secondly, because we don't make a big deal of the commercial/material side of Christmas it doesn't really fit into our philosophy to be buying our kids two sets of presents: one from Santa and one from Mom and Dad. We're on a pretty tight budget and our kids generally don't have much under the tree so I want all the credit ;)
Also, this way I don't have to worry about older cousins, siblings or friends from school "ruining" it for my kids since I vividly remember discussions on the playground about, "My sister said there is no Santa". As the oldest sibling and cousin I remember my mom pulling me aside when I was about 4th grade and saying, "You know there's no Santa, right?" I told her I learned it at school already and she said, "Ok, just don't tell your sister or cousins".
When I was in college, and a new Christian, a friend was saying his family didn't do Santa when he was growing up because his parents didn't want the kids to make the correlation that if Mom and Dad were lying about Santa they must be lying about Jesus, too. His point made sense in the fact that there is more "evidence" (to a kid) for Santa. Santa is at the mall, Santa is on wrapping paper, NORAD tracks Santa on Christmas Eve, seemingly everyone believes in Santa, there are presents under the tree from Santa, etc. On the other hand, not everyone believes in Jesus, you can't see Him, you only hear about Him at church, He's not mentioned on the news, etc.
(Ironically the same friend is now a dad and he and his wife have decided Santa does live at their house)
This point was driven home to me about a year ago when I saw this meme making it's way around the internet:
Our faith is extremely important to us and, as I've written before, we're (attempting) to leave a legacy of faith for our kids. 365 days a year Jesus comes up in natural conversation around our home and our faith is something we try to live by example. We don't want to confuse our kids by throwing fictional characters they do see with a God who is unseen but VERY real.
How will be be celebrating without the man in red?
We will go to a Christmas Eve service at church (probably on the 22nd or 23rd to leave space on the 24th for others), but we go to church every week so this will be just another week of church for our kids. On Christmas Eve we'll sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and blow out candles on a cake we've made for Him (but we get to eat it since He's in heaven). Christmas morning we'll wake up and go into the living room in our pj's. Before we do anything else we'll have a small Bible study where my husband will read Luke, chapter 2 to us and we'll discuss Jesus' birth with the kids and explain we give presents on Christmas as a symbol of the gifts Jesus received from the Magi, as well as the ultimate gift God gave us in His Son.
This year we'll be adding a new nightly tradition inspired by my friend, Korri. This morning I bought a 4.5ft Christmas tree we'll be using specifically as an Advent tree. I spent the afternoon labeling the ornaments and I can't wait until we start having this devotional time with our kids every evening, discussing the names of God as we prepare to celebrate the greatest gift the Earth has ever known! (I may blog again about the tree after we get going and after I take a few pictures)
We've got a few other tricks up our sleeve, too, but this is just a glimpse of why and how we celebrate Christmas without Santa.
If Santa is part of your Christmas tradition I'm not judging you in the least and you can just thank me for being one less person at the mall in line with her kids to get their picture taken with a bearded fat man :)
Before I explain I want to add this disclaimer . . . Every family has to make their own decisions on things like this. This is how/why our family does Christmas and I'm not trying to get into a "Mommy War" if your family does something different because I don't think it's a "right/wrong" issue.
First and foremost we don't do Santa because we don't want to lie to our kids and, in our minds, it's lying. We feel hypocritical punishing our kids for lying and teaching them lying is wrong when we're doing it ourselves. I know others tell us it's "Just a game", but to us it's still lying
Secondly, because we don't make a big deal of the commercial/material side of Christmas it doesn't really fit into our philosophy to be buying our kids two sets of presents: one from Santa and one from Mom and Dad. We're on a pretty tight budget and our kids generally don't have much under the tree so I want all the credit ;)
Also, this way I don't have to worry about older cousins, siblings or friends from school "ruining" it for my kids since I vividly remember discussions on the playground about, "My sister said there is no Santa". As the oldest sibling and cousin I remember my mom pulling me aside when I was about 4th grade and saying, "You know there's no Santa, right?" I told her I learned it at school already and she said, "Ok, just don't tell your sister or cousins".
When I was in college, and a new Christian, a friend was saying his family didn't do Santa when he was growing up because his parents didn't want the kids to make the correlation that if Mom and Dad were lying about Santa they must be lying about Jesus, too. His point made sense in the fact that there is more "evidence" (to a kid) for Santa. Santa is at the mall, Santa is on wrapping paper, NORAD tracks Santa on Christmas Eve, seemingly everyone believes in Santa, there are presents under the tree from Santa, etc. On the other hand, not everyone believes in Jesus, you can't see Him, you only hear about Him at church, He's not mentioned on the news, etc.
(Ironically the same friend is now a dad and he and his wife have decided Santa does live at their house)
This point was driven home to me about a year ago when I saw this meme making it's way around the internet:
Our faith is extremely important to us and, as I've written before, we're (attempting) to leave a legacy of faith for our kids. 365 days a year Jesus comes up in natural conversation around our home and our faith is something we try to live by example. We don't want to confuse our kids by throwing fictional characters they do see with a God who is unseen but VERY real.
How will be be celebrating without the man in red?
We will go to a Christmas Eve service at church (probably on the 22nd or 23rd to leave space on the 24th for others), but we go to church every week so this will be just another week of church for our kids. On Christmas Eve we'll sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and blow out candles on a cake we've made for Him (but we get to eat it since He's in heaven). Christmas morning we'll wake up and go into the living room in our pj's. Before we do anything else we'll have a small Bible study where my husband will read Luke, chapter 2 to us and we'll discuss Jesus' birth with the kids and explain we give presents on Christmas as a symbol of the gifts Jesus received from the Magi, as well as the ultimate gift God gave us in His Son.
This year we'll be adding a new nightly tradition inspired by my friend, Korri. This morning I bought a 4.5ft Christmas tree we'll be using specifically as an Advent tree. I spent the afternoon labeling the ornaments and I can't wait until we start having this devotional time with our kids every evening, discussing the names of God as we prepare to celebrate the greatest gift the Earth has ever known! (I may blog again about the tree after we get going and after I take a few pictures)
We've got a few other tricks up our sleeve, too, but this is just a glimpse of why and how we celebrate Christmas without Santa.
If Santa is part of your Christmas tradition I'm not judging you in the least and you can just thank me for being one less person at the mall in line with her kids to get their picture taken with a bearded fat man :)
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