Why you should play Santa

This topic seems to go either way with parents. I have some friends who celebrate Santa Claus and some who do not for their children. The reasons are always varied. Some say that it can confuse the children about Jesus, the reason for celebrating Christmas, versus, making the holiday all about toys and a fictional round red suited fellow that slides down the chimney on Christmas Eve with gobs of toys. Some say that their parents did not "do" the Santa thing so they don't do it now for their children. Some perhaps just don't even want to bother. And some, embrace it a little too much to the exclusion of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ who died as a substitute for us all to live forever in heaven home if we accept the grace gift of salvation for ourselves. (the full Gospel in one run on sentence!) That,of course, is the truth about Christmas.

To play Santa or not seems to be a complicated matter but I don't happen to think that it is to me anymore. Let me try to convince you why you should go ahead and play Santa this year if you don't already...and if you do get into it, make sure you keep it true. We certainly don't want to lie to our children.

There was a time that my husband and I would discuss it while Gun was a wee crawling baby on his first Christmas where he might have a curiosity to ask about all the lights, music and hullaballo. We talked about our families traditions and the above mentioned controversies. We wanted then and still do want, to present the truth to our children always. However, they are children. If you cannot embrace the fun of Santa as a child, can you ever? We pretend there are forest fairies and make believe with action figures but I don't interrupt and say, no, no, that is fiction! There are many opportunities to train our children to "keep in line" and Santa Claus is a great opportunity to suspend reality a bit in a fun and harmless way...a way to play with our children big time. For example, on Gun's first toddling Christmas, I even left a trail of candy and footprints on the stairs since our chimney was upstairs at the time in a cabin. We left the typical cookies and milk out for Santa which some of the folklore books call Santa's "lunch"...what? yeah, okay, not exactly a square lunch but ...moving on.... The next morning, the note to Santa that Gun and I composed was gone..the cookies and milk consumed....the wide eyed wonder on Gun's face was priceless.... We went with it and that was it. Since then, we have read the history of St. Nick and you can read that anywhere online or in books. He was a real person at one time so this is history and a bit of folklore and church politics (we don't share all of that at this age of course) which are valuable in their education cross culturally.

As far as the Lord Jesus Christ goes, we celebrate him weekly with study and daily with prayer in our home that confusion would be almost impossible. However, I do think the whole "whose naughty or nice" thing that Santa always seems to know sounds like God's omniscience. God is omniscient..not Santa Claus. Simple as that and I have had to decipher that for the children already. So we DO NOT say something like "you better be good or you will only get a lump of coal for Christmas"...now, good grief. That is ridiculous in my opinion. The compass of right and wrong and what is a sin and what is not is determined by God, not Santa. The focus on materialism that causes some parents to object can also be overcome. Here are some simple things you can do....

• Make many of your gifts ~ handmade things are always appreciated and loved best I believe and especially if born in the hands of a child. Go to The Crafty Crow, Soulemama and many other links from there for tons and tons of ideas for crafting creativeness fabulousness.


• Avoid the malls and t.v. commercials as much as possible~ they can really convince you of things you need to buy that you never before knew you were doing without or could create on your own with your children


• Avoid multiple visits, if any, to sit on Santa's lap to tell him what toys you want for Christmas. I have said to my children that the gift giving of Christmas is reminiscent and in memory of the three wise men bringing gifts to baby Jesus.


• We also have a nativity set and read the Christmas history from the Bible. We remind them often just what all this is about whenever we can or mention it when we see an opportunity.

So I say, go ahead, go for it, make a little make believe and if you need to,read about Santa Claus for yourself or your children, just go here for a quick read and share the highlights with them. This Wikipedia listing certainly goes into more detail that I have here.

With all this being said however, if you disagree, I accept that too. For now, it is still a free country!! Thank God.

Will you play Santa this year? What are some of your family traditions this Christmas?

Merry Christmas friends and family!