Hopson and I grew up pretty differently when it came to Santa. I grew up leaving cookies and milk out, going to bed early, and running downstairs Christmas morning to see what I got and if Santa ate his cookies. Hopson grew up not believing in Santa. He knew that he wasn't real from the start.
Guess what? Neither of us were traumatized for the way we were raised about Santa
So two people with opposite views get married and have kids...what do we do now? We had many conversations about Santa. It started with us both wanting to convince the other to join our point of view. That has changed in the last few years. We can talk about Santa without having a huge debate, and believe it or not, we are both happy with the decision we came to.
Last Christmas we decided that we were going to treat Santa like you would treat Mickey Mouse. He is fun to look at and go see, but he is not real.
As you can see Jonah pretty much is terrified of Santa right now anyways!
He finally calmed down enough to take a family pic!
This Christmas we have talked even more about Santa, and we have come to the conclusion that we can teach Jonah that Santa is fun and not real and still totally miss the true meaning of Christmas. So we adjusted our view of Santa. We don't want Santa to be the main point of Christmas; we want Christ to be the main point. We want to teach Jonah that Christmas is all about a baby being born to one day die for our sins. That may seem like a horrible thing to teach children about...a baby being born for the purpose of dying, but what an amazing truth for him to understand and hopefully one day believe with all of his heart! Hopson and I pray every night that our children will understand and believe Christ. If we pray this, how could we NOT share with Jonah (and our future kids) about the amazing miracle that we celebrate every December.
I know many people who are hardcore about Santa and many people who are completely against celebrating Santa. Santa is not a big enough deal to fight over. I can be friends and enjoy people on both sides. I am not trying to get people to "hold my view," I just wanted to put it out there for others :)
We share your stance, too, Holly. Our four girls know the true reason for Christmas and are eager to share it. They know Santa's a story character like Frosty or Elmo (although they know about the real St. Nicholas and his story, too.) I was worried about how things would go when they started school and they encountered classmates who do believe that some guy (with all the attributes of God, btw) breaks into their house and gives them all the things that Mommy and Daddy have been telling them no about all year. But the first three have done quite well not bursting the other kids' bubbles. When we had our first daughter we decided that we didn't want to feed her this huge elaborate hoax, just to figure out one day that the whole world has been lying to her. And if we, her parents, were lying about that... what ELSE (aka Christ) were we making up. Nope, they love Christmas just as much as the next kid and we get to be honest. (It made it a whole lot easier the year Daddy was out of work!) I do smile every time an older person asks, "Did Santa come to your house this year?" and the girls reply, "No." (accompanied with a sideways glance toward us, as if to say, "Is that old lady crazy?") It's not always a popular view, but it's ours and we stand by it. :-)
ReplyDeleteI am a little worried about Jonah telling other kids and the parents getting mad, so I am encouraged to read your comment! Thank you!
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