The Gomez Blog

Elijah had a check up at the pediatrician’s office and all the kids wanted to go.  As we were leaving the doctor’s office she asked the girls if Santa was coming to bring them presents.  In unison, they shouted, “NO!”.  I told the doctor we told them there was no Santa Claus.  She gave me a look that seemed to say, “Maybe I should call social services here.”  Well, at the moment I had no quick comment to explain why we taught them about the truth of Santa.  Now, when faced with the situation, I just say, “We want them to focus on Christ during Christmas.”  I feel a bit over-pious when saying this, but here are some of the reasons we have chosen to tell our kids Santa’s not real.

In no particular order:

1)  I don’t want them to associate the Christmas story with fairy tale.  Someday they’re going to realize Santa is not real (despite all attempts by Hollywood to convince them otherwise).  When that happens, I don’t want them to question all elements of the Christmas story.  Let’s be honest.  Many Bible tales sound fairy tale-ish.  I want them to be clear on what elements are real and what are fiction.

2)  The concept of a being who “sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake” is a bit disturbing when you think about it.  Since when does another being, fairy tale or not, deserve the non-communicable attributes of God.  Unless the character is a representation of God in the story, which if that’s the case here, then it leads to a malformed view of God.

3)  The whole idea of gifts as a result of good-behavior is a distortion of what the Christmas story was all about.  God didn’t send His Greatest Gift to us because we were on the nice list instead of the naughty list.  We were all on the naughty list.  None of us deserve anything.  I want my kids to understand that they don’t deserve the gifts that they get, but the gifts flow out of love and graciousness from their father and mother who enjoy showering blessings on them.  This will produce a proper view of gifts in relation to God’s gift of salvation.

4)  To me, the modern conception of Santa Claus encourages the materialistic culture surrounding Christmas as an American holiday.  It’s hard enough to encourage my kids to think about Christ at Christmastime.  I’m tempted to throw out the whole gift-giving all together (although I would have to give back my ESV Study Bible and Third Day Chronologies).  

5)  The modern view of Santa Claus does a disservice to the true story of Nicholas of Myra (see a summary here).  I plan to teach my kids about the real Nicholas who, as far as we can tell, was an orthodox believer who ministered to the poor and needy.  The story of Nicholas is a story that encourages giving sacrificially rather than receiving.  The modern Santa Claus is a poor representation of that brother in Christ.

6)  This may be selfish, but I worked hard to provide the gifts I give my children, and so did their grandparents and aunts and uncles.  I don’t want some jolly elf swooping in and taking credit for what I’ve provided for my children.

This is not intended to be a polemic to get everybody to abandon Santa Claus.  I wouldn’t mind if that happened, but it doesn’t bother me that friends and family still tell their kids he’s real.  This is just what we’ve decided as a family and how we got there. 

This is also not an argument against make-believe.  I believe in the power and importance of a good imagination.  My kids are constantly making up stories, reading fairy tales, and watching Pixar movies.  I just don’t want my kids to confuse make-believe with real-life, especially when it comes to the birth of Christ.

I get my kids a book every Christmas and we read it Christmas morning before opening presents (after reading Luke 2).  This year I found a book by Karen Kingsbury called We Believe In Christmas that said what I wanted to tell my kids about Christmas.  On the page with a picture of a kid on Santa’s lap she writes:

“And should they whisper ‘I believe. . .’
when sitting on his knee,
Whisper, ‘I believer this more,’ 
and there will Christmas be.”

Tagged as Christmas, Santa + Categorized as Books, Family