We’ve been trying to figure out what to do about Santa “for several years now”:/news/2006/o-santa-why-so-troubling/, and our expanding social circle isn’t making it any easier.
p{color:gray}. Photo: Rosie at Christmas in 2008, with her Santa hat half-on, half-off — the perfect metaphor.
In some circles, Santa Claus can be a tough issue. He goes hand-in-hand with the consumerism and inanity that can spoil Jesus’ birthday. But on the other hand, we think Santa is so fabulous! Along with Santa come cookies and milk, red-nosed reindeer, belly laughs, sugar plums, shimmery trees, and sparkly lights everywhere. So much wonderful Christmas children’s literature and film talk about him, and the idea of having him come to your house is so magical! So why spoil the fun?
As a child, I remember feeling duped when I learned that Santa wasn’t real. I asked my parents plainly if Santa was real or not, and they kept hedging, not really answering my question. I knew the answer, but I just wanted to know that my parents respected me enough to treat me like an intelligent human.
Another troubling aspect: I just don’t like the idea of lying to our kids. We really want them to know that some things are awesome and historically true (like John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) and some things are not true, even though we wish they were (like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy). And we really don’t want them to get confused about Santa and Jesus — and which one is real, after all?
So, we have tried to straight-talk it with Lucy and Rosie. When asked, we’re honest about Santa being “made-up,” but at the same time we don’t discourage enthusiasm about Santa (or the Bennet family, for that matter). However, our strategy is not necessarily working that smoothly. Here’s what happened last week:
I recently read an article entitled “"What We Tell Our Kids About Santa"”:http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/mark_driscoll/2010/12/what_we_tell_our_kids_about_santa.html that seemed to have some helpful tips about the Santa question. I appreciated the way the author explained the true history of St. Nicholas which lies behind the Santa story, so I thought I’d give that a try, just to bring a little clarity to the issue.
The other evening, during a Santa-centered conversation, I started telling Lucy about St. Nick. “He was a really wonderful, kind man who lived a long time ago and loved Jesus.” As I went on to talk about how people think about St. Nick and Santa sort of as the same person, everything got a little muddled, and Lucy asked, as she often does about historical figures, “Did St. Nicholas _die?”_ (If you’ve ever heard her ask this, you know the emphasis falls heavily on the “die,” drawn out with a scooping inflection.) And how could I answer that any other way than “yes”? So Lucy ended up with the bottom-line idea that Santa was no longer living. While not exactly incorrect, it wasn’t quite what I was going for. After a bit more conversation, I decided to cut my losses. “Lucy, I guess I’m not explaining this very well. It’s a little confusing. Let’s talk about it some more later.”
The next day, I volunteered at Lucy’s preschool during the Christmas party. It was a lovely afternoon with cookie-decorating, special treats, Rudolph-inspired noses, and a special singing program performed by the kids. Early in the afternoon, Lucy’s teacher read “_’Twas the Night Before Christmas_”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0399251936/octothorppres-20 aloud to the class for a special Christmas treat.
“He had a broad face and a round little belly that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly,” Ms. Laura read. Something must have clicked for Lucy at this moment, connecting this story with our conversation for the previous night, and Lucy blurted out for the whole class to hear, *”Santa died!”* Ms. Laura took it in stride, calmly and quickly contradicting Lucy’s proclamation, and then continued on with the story. Later she told me, laughing, “I’ve never heard that one before!” That was definitely not what I was going for. We can only imagine what kinds of conversation Lucy occasioned in homes all around the neighborhood that night.
Clearly, we’re still working out the nuances of the Santa discourse in our house. Our girls are so sweet to hang in there with us as we try to find the sweet spot between deception and whimsical suspension of disbelief in this magical story. And hopefully we’ll get through this without traumatizing too many more of their classmates!
Cannot stop laughing….that’s is classic
Our house has lots of Santa questions too. “How does Santa know what I want?” “Why does Santa not get burned in the fireplace?” “How does he not get scraped coming down?” We’ve basically gone along with the Santa myth, but do explain that the Santa in the mall or the ones they see are not really Santa. They’re just people dressed up like Santa. We don’t play it up or emphasize it. We do actually emphasize the story of Jesus’ birth, like reading scripture for some of our Advent activities and such. I also wonder how the transition will go when the girls are older…
Thanks for this, Ann! We also don’t know what to do with Santa Claus. We basically have been ignoring him and hoping our kids would do the same (yeah right!), but this year in particular he’s been the subject of many questions, similar to Jo’s kids! We don’t say on the tag that anything is from Santa, but we hang stockings on the mantle and stuff them with gifts.
We have the Veggie Tales DVD about St. Nick, which is somewhat helpful in explaining who St. Nick was and his relation to Santa Claus, if you want to give that a go again.
Basically, I don’t see the harm in it and we really emphasize that it’s Jesus’s birthday that we’re celebrating and that HE is the reason that we give gifts. The kids seem to get that and embrace that, so if they think that Santa is sliding down our teeny chimney, I’m not going to stop it.
We don’t put a huge emphasis on Santa, but the kids do believe he exists and are excited for him to visit the house. We put the emphasis on it being Jesus’ birthday and all the gifts are from people, not Santa. For now, I’m letting them go with the idea that Santa is real, when they are older and start asking, then I’ll probably explain the origins of Santa and how while he is not a real person, he is a very real idea that adds to the fun of Christmas.
Although we have gotten past this, we always told them that the reason he could know “if you’re naughty, etc., do so much stuff in such a short period of time was because it was magic. Not sure if that flies with your Christianity, Ann, but… We also did a kind-of reverse 12 days of Christmas – from the 13th on, Santa’s elves would visit every night with a small gift (pencils, maybe candy). Patti or I would distract and the other would put the gifts (bags – easy) outside. Sooner or later, Amanda or Emily would check and, “Hey! Santa’s elves came!!.” So we’d bring them in and open them and then hang the appropriate day’s ornament and sing (On the first day of Christmas, my true love…) and then go outside and look up at the sky and say “Thank you Santa’s elves!!” They really believed that for a long time. Just plain fun. Anyway, we finally told Amanda – who kept it going for Emily for a few years and then told Em before Christmas last year. We also outted the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. They both took it well at their respective times, as we made it clear that they were now older and this was an adult secret and they were never to let on to another child who still believed.
Ann – Dan and I both laughed out loud! Awesome story. :) We don’t do much Santa at our house (Dan grew up without many of the American Christmas traditions) but I also make the Santa/ St. Nick connection. It hasn’t really come up yet with our boys, so we’ll have to wait and see…