The Heart of CHRISTmas: It isn't Santamas...

When my mom was a child, she knew her mother to be the most honest person in the whole wide world. So when the kids at school told her there's no such thing as Santa Claus, my mom declared with utmost conviction that her mother told her Santa was real and "My mommy would NEVER tell a lie!"
She went home and told her sainted mother what the kids at school had had the NERVE to say- that Santa wasn't real! Her mother broke it to her that Santa really was just a tall tale and it crushed my mother. It shook her confidence in everything for a long while, that the one person she knew would never ever tell a lie had deliberately lied to her for years about Santa, the tooth fairy, and the easter bunny. Her mom assured her that Jesus was really real but I'm sure you can imagine the doubts and heartsick feelings my mom had to deal with for a long time thereafter. She vowed to NEVER do that to her own kids. And she didn't.

When I was a kid I never believed Santa was real. I actually always felt very sorry for kids whose parents would lie to them and tell then Santa was real! I thought it was terrible that proclaimed Christians would propogate Santa because
1. It's an outright boldfaced lie and it's wrong to tell lies,
2. It hurts kids when they find out the truth that their parents have been lying to them all along,
3. It takes away from Jesus because kids are so busy trying to please Santa so they get material posessions that they forget their real goal should be to please Jesus and gain eternity in heaven, and
4. It makes a mockery of a true historical character.

Then when I was a little older, probably 10 or so, I learned the story I told above, how my mom came to opt out of the great Santa conspiracy with her own kids. That was the cap on a conviction I'd been formulating throughout my childhood up to that point- to continue the herritage of TRUTH with my own kids instead of propogating the Santa myth.

My husband believed in Santa as a kid but his parents didn't push the myth and he figured out the truth quite young. He didn't have a traumatic experience but believes that it's wrong to lie to kids about Santa etc. because then they won't know when to believe you and when not to. They won't know if you're telling them the truth about Jesus or not. So even though he had Santa as a kid with no traumatic results, he as an adult believes it's wrong.

So that is the story of why we don't preach Santa to our kids. My 3 year old knows presents come from loved ones. She knows Santa is some guy in a red suit. She has not connected either thought with "Christmas" yet and when she does we'll be here to make sure she is (and later our son and any future kids are) connecting the right dots and Truth is the verdict. We have not allowed her to learn any Santa songs or watch any Santa tv shows or movies because we want her to know the truth before she knows the lie. Santa Claus is the god of xmas commercialism. When she knows that CHRIST is real and the reason we celebrate, then she will be able to see the Santa pop-culture with the knowlege of what is real and what is not.

Here are a couple other bloggers' posts regarding whether to promote Santa or not:
Cheryl @ Adventures of a Somewhat Crunchy Mama: Why We Don't Do Santa Part 1
Cheryl @ Adventures of a Somewhat Crunchy Mama: Why We Don't Do Santa Part 2
Tiana @ God Made, Home Grown: Real or Pretend?


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