How do you deal with Santa Claus?

[Guest]

My son's 2, so he's too young to do anything but enjoy.... But, I suspect next year he'll start asking questions. I hate to endorse the lie, particularly since it muddies the truth of the existence of God in many people's eyes, but he'll be too young not to "spill the beans" for some time, and I don't want him to be the kid who spoiled the good fun of the others at school one day.

Has anyone dealt with this situation successfully without endorsing the mythology?

[Guest]

I'm sure every family and every child is different, but I will tell you how we have dealt with it...

Up until age four, our daughter didn't know much about Santa other than what he looks like. For example, when we'd see a Santa at the mall or on TV and she would ask what that was, we would say "it's a Santa Claus" or "it's a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit".

It probably helped that the group that we fellowshipped with at that time didn't do Santa, so none of the kids really talked about it.

Since our daughter has turned five, she's really been asking a lot of questions this year about Santa. We've told her for the past year that some parents/kids pretend that Santa comes to their house and brings them presents.... and that some kids really believe that Santa comes to their house and that we should let their parents be the ones to tell them that he doesn't really come to their house.

This year though she has been asking questions like, "Mom, do parents lie to their kids by telling them that Santa comes to their house?"

I told her that for some parents, yes they do lie. But other kids end up finding out that "Santa" really is Daddy, so they just end up "knowing the truth" -- that Daddy is Santa. And then I told her that we want her to be able to trust us when we tell her that something is real and to be believed in. Anyway, it was a good conversation. I don't know if I handled the question as well as it could be handled (I wasn't quite sure how to respond without incriminating almost all of her friend's parents).

She's also been real good about not telling any other kids about Santa. So good in fact that she told a group of friends who were talking about Santa that she believed in Santa as well. And then told me what she said and that she didn't know what to do in a situation like that where everyone is talking about Santa. So we talked through that.

We didn't really hit any hard questions until this year (5 1/2) and just started getting a few questions last year (at 4 1/2).

That's at least our (very limited) experience.

[Guest]

Hi Darin,

My wife and I decided when our son was little that we would not do the Santa Claus thing. We simply told him the truth. We did explain to him who the real Saint Nicholas was. We explained that at Christmas time we give gifts to one another as a reminder that God gave us the greatest gift of all. There were some tensions with my parents who wanted to perpetuate the Santa thing but they acquiesced to our wishes. I can still vividly remember when, as a child, I discovered that Santa wasn't real. The next thought that occurred to me was "What else have they lied to me about?"

A few years ago there was a storefront in a strip mall near our house which, during Christmas time, would become "Santa's Den". My son took to calling it "Santa's Den of Iniquity", which really cracked me up.

I endeavored to always be open and honest with my son. I wanted him to know that if he asked me a question, I would give him a straightforward answer (age appropriate, of course). He is 19 now (where did the time go?) and seems to feel comfortable asking or telling me anything. Last Summer he came home from a camping trip and told me he had gotten drunk for the first time. Rather than freaking out, I asked him what he thought about it. "I don't understand the appeal", was his reply. "Me neither", I responded.

I don't attribute what I consider to be a very good level of communication (certainly better than I had with my parents) to not doing the Santa thing. Rather, our decision to not do the Santa thing was part of a larger decision about how we would raise our child. Your mileage my vary...

[Guest]

Our approach has been almost identical to Danny's, we keep Santa in the 4th century and admire his faithfulness to God.

Also, like Rae, we strongly encourage our boys (now 4 and 6) NOT to burst their friends' bubbles about it.

I do have to say though that I got a good belly laugh when mom tried to play the Santa thing with my oldest when he was 4 and he replied with, "I hate to tell you this Grandma, but Santa Claus is dead".

(BTW, I got a look from grandma that felt like she was going to turn me in to CSD)

[Guest]

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

By Francis P. Church, first published in The New York Sun in 1897. [See The People’s Almanac, pp. 1358–9.]

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

TK

[Guest]

Sad to say, many children who have been taught to believe in the reality of Santa Claus, later in life, put belief in God or Jesus in the same category. You never see either Santa or Jesus.

Unhappily, this is reinforced in our Xmas public celebrations. That wonderful song, "Joy to the world! The Lord is come. Let earth receive her King!" is heartily sung. It may be immediately followed by "Here comes Santa Clause! Right down Santa Clause Lane." Or "The First Noel" may be sung right after the reading of "Twas the night before Xmas, when all through the house..."

Christmas trees are decorated with the star on top that led the magicians to two-year-old Jesus. The child may be taught that the Xmas tree represents the tree on which Jesus died. But then a few images of Santa Clause May also be placed on the tree.

No wonder many children are confused! No wonder they can't differentiate between the Santa Claus myth, and what they may eventually come to believe as "the Jesus myth".

[Guest]

The magicians or "wise men" as they are called, are thought of as being kings --- probably from the song, "We three kings of Orient are". Christmas plays have the "three kings" appearing along with the shepherds at a stable scene depicting the Christ baby with Joseph and His mother standing around the crib, with a few cows and other animals crowed around.

There is no Biblical record that the magicians ("magoi" in Greek) were kings. There is no record that there were exactly three of them. And the record clearly shows that they come to the "young child" not the "infant" to whom the shepherds came about 2 years earlier. The gold, frankinsence, and myrr, may not refer to three gifts but three kinds of gifts. There could have been more than three magicians.

But in this world, tradition is stronger than Scripture. Once in an elementary school where I taught, as Xmas approached, each teacher was supposed to depict some aspect of the Xmas story with a short skit from his class. I was selected to do "the wise men."

I had ten magicians dressed in long robes with a big star and other magicians' symbols on their robes who walked in to see the young child.
Later on, one parent, absolutely livid with rage, came to the school and confronted me. He shouted, "Everybody knows that there were three wise men, not ten magicians. Why didn't you do it according to the Bible?"
I replied, "I did nothing contrary to the Bible. There's nothing there that indicated three "wise men".

The objector didn't leave it alone. He phoned every pastor in the district, looking for backup for his belief that there were three wise men. However, every one of those pastors were honest, and told him that the Scriptures do not indicate how many there were. The man finally settled down.

[Guest]

yes paidion, but you can't deny the magi were named Gaspar, Melchior and balthasar

and wasn't "joy to the world" originally written to pertain the SECOND coming of christ? i heard that somewhere.

TK

[Guest]

yes paidion, but you can't deny the magi were named Gaspar, Melchior and balthasar

OOPS. I forgot all about that!

and wasn't "joy to the world" originally written to pertain the SECOND coming of christ? i heard that somewhere.

I have never heard that before. I did a little Internet search, but couldn't find a hint that Isaac Watts had originally written it with the second coming in mind.

[Guest]

paidion-

re Joy to the World, you spurred me to look myself. there are several sites that suggest that Watts intended the second coming; one says that Watt's took this hymn from psalm 98, and that watts interpreted psalm 98 as referring to the second coming. however, none of the sites, that i could find, quoted any sources.

here are the lyrics:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.


Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.


No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.


He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Amen!

TK