To Santa or Not To Santa?

We don't Saint Nick or Santa. I don't claim the flowers my wife receives - back when I did that - are from St. Valentine. As for Santa, I don't find anything edifying in celebrating him anymore. He is no longer about goodwill to men or any of the other secular traditions. Rather than offer a reminder to Mr. Scrooge about the generosity owed mankind for the gifts God has given us, Santa is just deliverer of hedonistic desire. I'm not honoring that mythology in my house.

Joshua Claybourn at the incomperable InTheAgora opined that a child's image of God is often the same as their image of Santa, and that when children are disillusioned of their belief in Father Christmas, it could set them up for disillusionment in Pater Noster.

"...we even celebrate Santa and one of the most significant Godly holidays on the same day. Is it any wonder that a child's perception of God can often get tangled up in the mythical character of Mr. Claus?"

intheagora.com/archives/2007/12/reflections_on_1.html

Mr Claybourn goes on to say that when he has children (as the childless often have the strongest beliefs on how to raise children), he won't pass on the story of Santa, and he doesn't care if you call him a grinch for doing so.

For my family, when the kids were young (they are now in college) we celebrated Christmas mentioning Santa - we were Catholic then. When we started attending an evangelical church we were told that Santa/Easter Bunny/Halloween were definate no no's. It made sense in many ways, but I think that they carried it overboard. The reasoning was that if you told them about Santa & the Easter Bunny when they found out it wasn't true then what about God that you couldn't see either. Your children might question whether that was true also.

The funniest thing about all this was when the kids were in a Christian school you would find out from the children that they did indeed go trick or treating, etc. This would also happen at church. However, they were told by their parents not to tell other people at school or their teachers, etc. Talk about ridiculous!

This is what I dislike so much about organized religion. Teach your children to lie so that you don't "look bad" to other people. To me that is far worse than the things evangelicals thought were "demonic". Just my opinion.......

I like the idea of Icon.

I think the best change we've made away from the secular idea of Christmas isn't Santa v. St. Nick.

It's the idea that Christmas is a season. That there are 12 days of Christmas. Plenty of time to fit everything in. No big let down for the kids on the 26th.

We end with a little Christmas party on the Feast of the 3 kings. The whole season is so much less stressful now. The Church knew what they were doing on this one.

You know, it's the whole "Santa = Lying" thing that got me started in the first place (thanks for posting this again, Rod!).

When your three-year-old or five-year-old asks where babies come from, do you "avoid lying" by telling them in vivid and graphic detail? Or do you adapt your language to their level of understanding?

Children, like it or not, understand fairy tales. They have a way of reminding us cynical adults that at a level we once knew but have long since forgotten, fairy tales are true.

We celebrate St. Nicholas day.

We, as everyone knows, don't celebrate the Coca-Cola Santa. ;-)

On the question of where babies come from: Would you deliberately tell your children something wrong, when your church has actually provided an age appropriate answer that is true?

Apples and oranges situation, people.

Question: Erin, is your answer in any way affected by Rome's decision to demote the status of St. Nicholas of Myra in the feast days?

Also, I think it is crucial for people to know that almost all of "our" Christmas traditions in America have their roots in Western Europe. St. Nicholas is a totally different kind of figure in the East, the land he called home. Weren't his relics even stolen by the Crusaders during the sacking of Constantinople?

What a symbolic figure. Let St. Nicholas be St. Nicholas!

Tmatt, to answer your question: nope.

Besides, as I mentioned last year, if you're going to "let St. Nicholas be St. Nicholas," you have to accept him as a saint who was a bishop and about whom almost nothing else is known for sure. Celebrating his feast day in any way, repeating the story of the gold coins, claiming his patronage, is *already* celebrating a legendary character--and some of those legends may be fiction. Only God and St. Nicholas know for sure.

Nobody says you have to choose between the (supposedly) ascetic, definitely obscure bishop and the Coca-cola guy. We told our kids a long time ago that "Santa" is just another name for St. Nicholas.

If you look at the history of Christmas celebrations, you see that many cultures have developed a "gift-giver" who is responsible for the presents children receive at Christmas or Epiphany. La Befana. The Wise Men (for whose camels children leave straw, instead of the carrots left originally for St. Nicholas' horse). Even the Kristkind Himself.

Why? Is it all commercialism, greed? Is it all because adults secretly like to fool children into believing? That sounds to me more like something a non-believer would say.

I like to think that parents in different cultures across different centuries developed these traditions so that, like the good God Himself, they could grant their children's wishes with no expectation of thanks. I like to think that when we say that St. Nicholas is responsible for the largess in stockings or under trees, we're acting a little like Our Heavenly Father, who sees our wants, gives us everything we need, and sometimes grants us even the childish wishes we scarcely acknowledge to ourselves, for no reason other than that, since He is our Bountiful Father, He wishes to bring us joy. Surely our imitation of that beneficence is a good and holy thing.

ROD, OMG! Have I gotta HOT TIP for my cheap-as-hell-en-route-to-heaven friend! The 99 Cent Store in your neighborhood @ corner of Carroll and Live Oak is AWESOME. Spent $58 there and it was so organized, clean, full of treasures and laughs and stocking stuffers and in some cases just great stuff! Take the gang and go there NOW. Tell em Rollie sentcha. On Donner, On Blitzer (Wolf, Wolf!)

Mr. Mattingly: Santa's red suit does NOT come from Coca-Cola. I believe you have been corrected on this in the past, so I find it rather annoying that you continue to spread the myth.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

As for the fact that St. Nicholas is now an "optional memorial," I doubt that anyone other than professionally churchy people like you, me, and Erin even know this. I believe St. Patrick is also an optional memorial now, which certainly seems not to have affected related revelry.