Mr. Native Texan and I have had our fair share of (ahem) disagreements over the years. One of the first, and most polarizing, was over whether or not we would include Santa Claus in our Christmas celebrations. (We didn’t even have children yet. In fact, I think the disagreement began before we even got married!)
This picture is from a little book of Christmas illustrations by Norman Rockwell, one of our favorite American artists.
I’ll let you speculate as to which of us was on which side of that argument, but in the end we’ve adopted a middle-of-the-road stance on the matter. We do not focus on or teach our children about Santa, nor do we ignore him completely.
Santa is sort of hard to avoid this time of year, and our kids do know who he is.
[Although....Little Brother gets him confused with Noah. While out and about one recent Saturday, Mr. Native Texan pointed to a picture of Santa and asked Little Brother Who is that? Little Brother immediately answered Noah! Mr. Native Texan informed him it was, in fact, Santa Claus, to which Little Brother responed No, dat Noah! with a smile that said "silly Daddy!"]
At the same time, we try to keep the focus on the true meaning of Christmas: We celebrate Christmas in honor of Christ’s birth, and we give gifts because God gave us the best gift of all in sending His Son, Who gave us the gift of salvation on the cross.
As our kids get older, we plan to learn more about the real Saint Nicholas. As it turns out, there are only a few meager facts known about this famous man, among a host of legendary stories. The history associated with St. Nick is quite fascinating, spanning hundreds of years and several continents.
From a book called “Tales Told in Holland” (photo by dierken)
Rather than reinventing the wheel, or pretending to be an expert on the subject, I’ll mention a few additional resources for those interested in learning more about the history behind Saint Nicholas, or for Christians attempting to determine the appropriate response to the contemporary tradition of Santa Claus.
I’m sure there are many resources available on this topic, but these are several I’ve read and would recommend (Please let me know if you know of additional reliable sources):
- Who Was St. Nicholas?: Kevin DeYoung of the Gospel Coalition shares a brief overview along with his thoughts.
- The Real Saint Nicholas by Ted Olsen of Christianity Today
- It’s Time for Christmas by Elizabeth Hough Sechirst and Janette Woolsey presents a nice historic overview in the section entitled St. Nicholas.
How does YOUR family keep the focus on Christ during Christmas?
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our family has blended the two as well- it’s so hard-both matt and i grew up LOVING Christmas-I grew up celebrating the real meaning, w/Christ’s gift- AND the Santa magical fun side of things. matt and i focus on our Sunday Advent plans- we rotate which child picks the special dessert- and we do our advent bible readings- and that child who picks that weeks dessert lights the candles that week. they love it! matt and i often feel a little conflicted b/c our kids have never been on santa’s lap- and sometimes we feel that childlike magic was taken b/c our lack of focus on that- BUT-what is awesome is our children don’t beg and beg for toys- we made the mistake last year to let them see the target toy catalog-and that was a nightmare-they turned into ungrateful beggers and it consumed them for a few days. we do have Santa bring gifts and fill stockings- since i was in kindergarten I had my own elf (similar to todays elf on a shelf story) who brings me a scavenger hunt leading to my “big” gift- we still do that in our home.
Courtney, We do a scavenger hunt on Christmas morning, too! (Just like I did growing up). Fun tradition!
Thanks for this. Rendi, my wife, was raised without Santa at all and her niece and nephew were told at a very young age that there was no Santa. Being from a mixed Jewish and lapsed Christian household myself, Santa was a big part of the joy of Christmas morning. The middle of the road compromise and the story of the real St. Nicklaus is a great way to go. Thanks!