Dealing with Santa

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Christmas is a bid deal in our family. After all I am half Christmas. (My mother's name is Mary Christmas, seriously.) Having said that, we do not do Santa Claus. I was never taught to believe he was real. He was just a joke to us. (By the way, I still get teased by my in laws about the way we pronounce it: Sanny Claws is close.) We were taught, and we have taught our daughter, about St. Nicholas and how the legends grew around his life. We do decorate the house. We are doing it right now as a matter of fact. We do hang stocking from the mantle. We do decorate a tree with nice things. We enjoy the time and focus upon God's grace, the blessing of family, and use it as a time to reach out to others in a special manner. (Folks tend to be more receptive at this time of year.)
 
Christmas is a big deal in our household too, but we don't "do" Santa. There are some Santa Claus ornaments on the tree and figurines about the house, but he's not as prominent in our Christmas decorating as baby Jesus.




....ok, that was a joke. We DO actually have Santas around the house, but only in acknowledging a fun, somewhat-fictional character. All the presents under our tree and in our stockings are from family.
 
Thanks for the tips - Kevin, any links about Sinterklass? Also if anyone has found especially good St. Nicholas books I would appreciate a recommendation.

I have a few pages of an older (non-PC) book called "Tales Told in Holland" that I can scan and email you - its the one we read. Just PM me.
 
Dealing with Santa is easy: cancel Christmas - in the church and in the home. At that point there will be no room for syncretism from this issue because Santa Claus will cease to exist.

I tried and was verbally flogged :(
 
While we debate on telling lies or truths about Santa, what about the lies that Jesus was ~never~ born on December 25th? Wasn't he born during warmer months like Spring?
 
While we debate on telling lies or truths about Santa, what about the lies that Jesus was ~never~ born on December 25th? Wasn't he born during warmer months like Spring?

Not necessarily. When the temple was still standing sheep were kept nearby so that sacrificial offerings would always be available. The area around Bethlehem has much better forage for the sheep and seems to have been one such area.
 
The justification I have heard for Dec. 25th is that the Jews and early Christians believed a prophet was martyred on the same day he was either born or conceived. They calculated Jesus' crucifixion as March 25th (which was reasonably close), and so they added 9 months to get his birthday - Dec. 25th.

I'm not buying it, but oh well. :)
 
And just because you can't watch sheep at night in a pasture in Hanover doesn't mean you can't in the Mideast ;-) The snow doesn't cover the fodder several feet deep in Palestine anymore than it does here in San Luis County CA. It's December, and the cows and sheep are still out there in the hills. I never did understand that objection as a kid. Until I went to Iowa one winter in my early twenties ;-)
 
Be as honest as possible and don't lie to your child. :)

Start early, and be honest. Our three year old knows that he is not real, and that she won't be getting any presents from him. What is the point in denying the inevitable?

Maybe this is paramount. I did not start early. I can not turn back the hands of time. And putting presents under the tree "from Santa" started about 10 years ago when my daughter asked my if she had been a bad girl because Santa has never left her a gift. So it was then that we started leaving out the cookies and milk for Santa, and in exchange "he" leaves presents.

I have grown a lot since then as a Christian. Perhaps now would be a good time to change. Sasha no longer believes in Santa, Owen can be re-conditioned, and Jack doesn't even seem to care.

-----Added 12/11/2009 at 11:20:08 EST-----

With my children, it has been more of a challenge. They believe Santa is real no matter what I tell them. And yes, sometimes there are gifts under the tree from Santa. Maybe that's wrong?

I can see where it might be hard to believe that someone who is giving you presents doesn't exist.

Thank you for your insight. Yes, I must now admit that I have given the children mixed messages.
 
No Santa Paws? No Santa Paws? Who said that there was no Santa Paws?

SantaPaws.jpg
 
Britney Spears and Presbyterians are composed of the same letters.

I knew there were eminently solid objections to Presbyterianism: thanks for bringing this up, Josh. It adds an important weapon to the intellectual arsenal.
 
The Children's Santa Claus Catechism

The Children's Santa Claus Catechism

Question 1: Children, is Santa Claus real?
Answer: No

Question 2: Children, is Jesus real?
Answer: Yes!

Seriously... this is how I do it in my house. :D
 
We discouraged our children from believing in Santa Clause. I remeber when my Nephew Kenny was young years ago got Santa and God confused. Santa is a Geni and our God is our Lord. Recently my eldest daughter Abby told me, "Dad, I am so glad you didn't teach us about Santa." We told a story about a man of wealth around Christmas of a Christian man who had some wealth would go out into the snow to deliver clothes and food stuffs to the poor in his town.
 
Saint Nicholas ::: My Kind of Santa Claus
One weak tradition has him actually attending the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, when Arian doctrine was rejected. The story goes that he got into a heated debate with Arius himself about whether there was a time when the Word did not exist. Nicholas strongly disagreed.

The debate ended suddenly when Nicholas punched out Arius then and there on the floor of the council!

Is the flooring of Arius true? I hope so.
 
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Man, as a fantasy-prone child, being forced to believe Santa existed by my parents, teachers, society, and Hollywood so vehemently caused me so much grief. As a child I always wanted to believe magical fairy tale things are real. Being told over and over and over by movies and tv shows that Santa is really real and don't you dare listen to anyone that says otherwise only made it worse. So when I realized Santa was not real I felt hurt and lied to by my own parents. To this day I still can't understand why parents want to lie to their children. I was sinned against, and to this day that still gives me pain sometimes.
 
That brings up an interesting point. It seems there is an abundance of movies that teach children to view non-believers in Santa as horrible people, infidels - People who don't believe in Santa are crotchety old men who don't have an inner child and probably throw rocks at children from their porches.
 
:rolleyes:
That brings up an interesting point. It seems there is an abundance of movies that teach children to view non-believers in Santa as horrible people, infidels - People who don't believe in Santa are crotchety old men who don't have an inner child and probably throw rocks at children from their porches.

haha, that's how *I* felt this Christmas with my mom in law. Despite being told that we don't "do" Santa, and the fact that my oldest told her flat out that mom was the one who fills the stockings, mom in law still insisted on going on and on about Santa on the rooftop, yadda yadda. Finally I had to pull my 5 year old aside and tell her not to contradict Grandma, she's just pretending and having fun, but the result is my daughter thinks her grandparents are kind of nutty.:rolleyes:
 
:rolleyes:
That brings up an interesting point. It seems there is an abundance of movies that teach children to view non-believers in Santa as horrible people, infidels - People who don't believe in Santa are crotchety old men who don't have an inner child and probably throw rocks at children from their porches.

haha, that's how *I* felt this Christmas with my mom in law. Despite being told that we don't "do" Santa, and the fact that my oldest told her flat out that mom was the one who fills the stockings, mom in law still insisted on going on and on about Santa on the rooftop, yadda yadda. Finally I had to pull my 5 year old aside and tell her not to contradict Grandma, she's just pretending and having fun, but the result is my daughter thinks her grandparents are kind of nutty.:rolleyes:

Well, grandparents have to be kind of nutty, I think. I will enjoy being a nutty grandparent one day. ;)
 
:rolleyes:
That brings up an interesting point. It seems there is an abundance of movies that teach children to view non-believers in Santa as horrible people, infidels - People who don't believe in Santa are crotchety old men who don't have an inner child and probably throw rocks at children from their porches.

haha, that's how *I* felt this Christmas with my mom in law. Despite being told that we don't "do" Santa, and the fact that my oldest told her flat out that mom was the one who fills the stockings, mom in law still insisted on going on and on about Santa on the rooftop, yadda yadda. Finally I had to pull my 5 year old aside and tell her not to contradict Grandma, she's just pretending and having fun, but the result is my daughter thinks her grandparents are kind of nutty.:rolleyes:

grandparents are nutty, at least mine are. I learned long ago to take what they say with a grain of salt. Most of the time I just nod and say, "sure, grandma"
 
:rolleyes:
That brings up an interesting point. It seems there is an abundance of movies that teach children to view non-believers in Santa as horrible people, infidels - People who don't believe in Santa are crotchety old men who don't have an inner child and probably throw rocks at children from their porches.

haha, that's how *I* felt this Christmas with my mom in law. Despite being told that we don't "do" Santa, and the fact that my oldest told her flat out that mom was the one who fills the stockings, mom in law still insisted on going on and on about Santa on the rooftop, yadda yadda. Finally I had to pull my 5 year old aside and tell her not to contradict Grandma, she's just pretending and having fun, but the result is my daughter thinks her grandparents are kind of nutty.:rolleyes:

grandparents are nutty, at least mine are. I learned long ago to take what they say with a grain of salt. Most of the time I just nod and say, "sure, grandma"

My grandpa invented the M&M and the question mark. He has also had virtually every job you can imagine, including working in the basement of the White House. :rolleyes:
 
:rolleyes:
That brings up an interesting point. It seems there is an abundance of movies that teach children to view non-believers in Santa as horrible people, infidels - People who don't believe in Santa are crotchety old men who don't have an inner child and probably throw rocks at children from their porches.

haha, that's how *I* felt this Christmas with my mom in law. Despite being told that we don't "do" Santa, and the fact that my oldest told her flat out that mom was the one who fills the stockings, mom in law still insisted on going on and on about Santa on the rooftop, yadda yadda. Finally I had to pull my 5 year old aside and tell her not to contradict Grandma, she's just pretending and having fun, but the result is my daughter thinks her grandparents are kind of nutty.:rolleyes:

That sounds similar to my in-laws. My wife and I told them a few years ago that we were not going to "do" santa anymore and she thought that we were exercising some type of child negligence or abuse. She said that we were taking away the "magic" of Christmas. Then, the following Christmas, she decided to get all of the adults a copy of the book "The True Saint Nicholas: Why he matters to Christmas" :lol:. I thought it is quite humorous! Still haven't read it though.
 
Simple. Santa is just like all the disney characters on TV for my son. We stress to him that Santa is not real. If we see a santa look-alike at the mall we tell him that it's a man dressing up to look like santa. He doesn't visit out house on Christmas eve.. and if others want to be so ignorant as to ASSUME that everyone believes in (or lies to their kids about) santa and make a comment to us at the store or anywhere else, we tell them the truth.. That we don't celebrate santa, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
 
Well tell them about the REAL Santa

St. Nicholaus one of the bishops that participated in the niceancounsil and during that counsil knocked one of the other bishops out cold, during a debate because the other bishop said that Jesus was not fully God.
This made Santa so angry, because as he said, how can you say this and thus claim all our brothers have died in vain.
So he jumped from his seat, crossed the floor entered the other side and knocked the guy cold for saying Jesus was not fully God.

Later he became the patron saint for sailors and children, and that is how the myth of santa started, because he gave money and gifts to children in the town where he was a bishop.

The above is my favorite santa story, and not only that, this one is true!
So tell them that!
I bet they will like that santa better.
CLOSE! Saint Nick punched .........Pelagius! He was arrested and place in Imperial Holding for a Day, given Pelagius had lost court favor, it only took a little coaxing by the other Bishops to get him "sprung".
 
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