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<\/p>\nAfter spending a few weeks watching movies about Santa (like “_Elf_”:http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0319343\/ and “_Miracle on 34th Street_”:http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0039628\/) — movies where the good guys are the ones who really believe — I am feeling the weight of this question more. Do we believe, or don’t we? And what do we tell Lucy? <\/p>\n
Jon and I both grew up believing in Santa without too many ill effects, although I distinctly remember having the “there’s not really a Santa, is there?” conversation with my parents at age seven and being annoyed that they wouldn’t give me a straight answer. When I got serious about my Christian faith in college, I pretty much decided that I wouldn’t “do Santa” when I had my own kids — it distracted from Jesus being “the Reason for the Season” — and as the Church Lady pointed out on Saturday Night Live, have you noticed that you can rearrange Santa’s name to be “Satan”? (It was so easy to see things in black-and-white when I was nineteen!)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
p{color:gray}. Photo: So many Christmas traditions, like cookie baking! This year Lucy helped out Mama and our friend Keri making homemade oreos.<\/p>\n
But now that I am old and wise and matronly (ha!), I’m revisiting the question. Obviously, it is nearly impossible to escape Santa Claus in our culture, but is that such an unpleasant fate? Santa personifies generosity, good-will, and love for children. He’s cute and friendly and his tummy is like a bowl full of jelly. Who can resist the magic of leaving cookies and milk for him (and carrots for the reindeer)?<\/p>\n
However, I really am bothered by the deception involved. Is there a way to enjoy the legend but also speak in a truthful way? Perhaps I am na\u00c3\u00afve, but I don’t see any other instances where I’d want to lie to Lucy. I can see the need for simplifying complex questions or smoothing over hairy situations, but saying, “Santa is coming down the chimney tonight” just doesn’t seem worth it. We’re not going to tell her that the stork brings babies — why not be truthful about the beautiful story of Santa?<\/p>\n
I’m also conscious that we’ll be telling Lucy the story of Jesus’ birth at the same time — a story which is historically true. Won’t it be confusing to learn about both Jesus and Santa, and then to discover that one is true and the other a myth? But will Lucy feel robbed of Christmas joy if she never experiences the wonder of imagining Santa coming into her own home?<\/p>\n
Most likely, I’m over-analyzing this question and its potential impact on Lucy’s life. But Jon and I want to be as thoughtful as possible in shaping Lucy’s childhood. In any case, our hope is that Lucy would experience the great love of God and of her family every Christmas season. And so far, that’s been easy at her first Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After spending a few weeks watching movies about Santa (like “_Elf_”:http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0319343\/ and “_Miracle on 34th Street_”:http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0039628\/) — movies where the good guys are the ones who really believe — I am feeling the weight of this question more. Do we believe, or don’t we? And what do we tell Lucy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}