Ho Ho Ho or No No No???

As a follow up to my post about how to have a Christ-centered Christmas, I thought I'd share what our family does about the jolly guy in the big red suit. I've had several people ask me whether or not my children believe in Santa, so I thought I'd just share it here. Before I do, let me back up a bit...

 

Growing up, the only kids I knew who didn't believe in Santa were the older ones who thought they were "too cool" for Santa. I didn't know any families who actually did not get visited by Santa. Once I was older and knew the truth, my mom still did "Santa" for me every Christmas. I would wake up every Christmas morning to find that Santa had visited while I was asleep…even when I was in college! It was fun, even as an adult; and I thought this was how it was for everyone. It wasn't until I was in college that I found out that there were families who did not include Santa in their traditions at all. I was shocked! No Santa? Really? Then, when I heard their reasons, it made sense: They didn't want Santa to take away from the real meaning of Christmas.

 

Hmm…interesting. This revelation really gave me cause to stop and pray about what my family traditions would include once I was married with children of my own. 

 

I really struggled with the decision. On the one hand, I did not want ANYTHING to take away from Christ, NOTHING! I wanted Christ to be FIRST and FOREMOST in our hearts and minds. Also, I did not like the idea of lying to my children, especially as they got older and started asking the "probing" questions, seeking answers and truth. I wanted them to know that they could trust me to always tell them the truth. Finally, there were a few blogs and articles being shared about the time I was making my decision, and some of the reasons they gave for NOT including Santa made a lot of sense to me.

 

On the other hand, though, I loved the "magic" of Christmas through a child's eyes. I will never forget the anticipation of lying in bed on Christmas Eve as quiet as a mouse listening for sleigh bells and reindeer hooves or the thrill of running into the living room on Christmas morning to find that Santa had, in fact, come while I was sleeping and left me EXACTLY WHAT I ASKED FOR! Sure, the gifts were great, but it was the mystery of Santa that made it all magical. Once I knew the truth about Santa, though I still got gifts and still have wonderful Christmas memories, it was just not the same. While I tend to be a bit of a realist, not really playing into "magical" things, I didn't want my children to miss out on that excitement. 

 

The question was, could we have both? Was it possible to include Santa in a truly Christ-centered Christmas - not just one where we do whatever worldly things we want and say it's all in the name of celebrating Christ, but one where we truly focus on WORSHIPPING and CELEBRATING HIM? 

  

It took many conversations with God and with Craig before I could envision a Christ-centered Christmas that included Santa. After MUCH prayer and discussion, we decided that we could include Santa in our traditions as long as he didn't take away from the ONE Christmas is about and as long as we didn't compromise what God had laid on our hearts as higher priorities at Christmastime. The message on my heart was the same as in my previous post ("How to Have a Christ-Centered Christmas"): as long as we honored God first and nothing got in the way of that, we were free to celebrate in any way. (Besides, I don't think non-Christians should have all the fun. ;) We Christians can have - and should have - more fun than they do because we have true joy under all the extra fluff! Don't you think they should see that in us? Hey, those guys love Jesus, and they look like they have more fun at Christmas than we do!! What are we missing??)

 

So, how do we include Santa without taking away from Jesus? Well, here are a few stipulations that we placed on our Santa inclusion:

• We talk about Jesus 365 days a year. We figured if we only talked about Jesus in December, we were going to have a hard time convincing children who believe in Santa that Jesus is any different or any more special than Santa. However, if Jesus is celebrated 365 days a year - if we read about Him in our Bibles and talk about Him as we work and play and praise Him with our mouths and serve Him with our hands and worship Him with our lives every day of the year, He will be a much bigger deal than just a guy we talk about at Christmastime. Then, Santa can be the character who only comes out at Christmas...just another fun guy like Mickey Mouse or Peter Pan. We just don't make a big deal out of him.

• As stated in my previous post, we strive to honor God first, before including any other traditions. That means our toy nativity comes out before our Santa hats. We will make a big deal out of doing mission projects and doing our advent scripture readings every night and planning our Birthday Party for Jesus. The Santa stuff can fall into place when it's convenient, but we won't make a big deal out of it. We will devote our excitement and attention and energy to Jesus stuff!

• We will be INTENTIONAL about Jesus. Santa can pop in when it's convenient. Not the other way around. We make a big deal out of Jesus. We don't make much of Santa at our house. We don't talk about him unless our kids ask. We don't harp on what our kids want for Christmas. We don't even send a letter to Santa. However, we DO talk much about Jesus. We bring Him up as often as possible. Most of our conversations are about the manger or the angels and shepherds or Baby Jesus or the wise men. Most of our decorations include nativity scenes and Bible verses. We have several children's books about the manger and several Christmas movies that talk about the real meaning of Christmas, and we are INTENTIONAL about choosing those throughout the month of December. Sure we still have a few Santa decorations. We also have books about Santa and reindeer and movies like The Polar Express. When our kids ask to read those or watch those, we do; but we are not intentional about those like some are. For example, we are intentional about reading our advent scriptures every night, not reading a Santa story every night. We are intentional about reading the Christmas story from the Bible on Christmas Eve instead of Twas the Night Before Christmas. 

• Santa will give gifts for the same reason we give gifts - to show Jesus' love and to celebrate His birth. If we can give gifts at Christmas with a heart of love for Christ, then Santa can, too. We tell our children that we give gifts to our friends and family to show our love for them and to celebrate and remember Jesus' birth, and Santa gives them gifts for the same reason.

• Santa will not have any God-like characteristics. He doesn't see you when you're sleeping. He doesn't know if you've been bad or good. Which brings me to my next point…

• Santa gives gifts to show Christ's love which is not dependent on whether or not you are good. We will not use Santa to manipulate our children into being "good."

• We will not lie to our children. This one gets a little tricky, and you might call me liar if you wanted to get technical. When explaining Santa, I always say, "My mom always told me…" or "The books say that…" I even say, "I don't know how he does that! I've never seen it." When that is no longer sufficient, when they start probing (whether they're 5 or 15), we'll tell them the truth. (If you know my oldest, something tells me this will be sooner rather than later with him.)

• Santa will not give so many gifts (or such large gifts) that he overshadows everyone else. Santa fills our stockings and leaves one small gift for each child or sometimes one larger gift for the 3 of them to share. This year, Landon is getting a small lego set. Carson is getting a $15 pop up tent. Anniston is getting a baby doll. That's it! We try not to go overboard on gifts anyway because our kids have so much already, and they get so much from our extended family. However, even if we did give them lots of gifts, the larger ones or the majority of them would come from Mom and Dad, not Santa.

• If Santa ever takes away from Jesus, he's gone! 

 

So far, this is working very well for our family. Every year, we will re-evaluate and pray about God's best for our family. My prayer is that we will always please Christ and bring glory and honor to Him with our celebrations, whether Santa is included or not. 

 

How To Have a Christ-Centered Christmas

It's that time of year, now, when we hear things like, "Remember the reason for the season" and "Keep Christ in Christmas." But how, exactly, do we do that?

 

 

A few years ago, I really wrestled with that question. I was a new mom with a young baby and another on the way, and I was still kind of in a new mommy fog. (If you're a mom, I do not need to explain. If you're not, I can't possibly explain.) Anyway, somehow, about mid-December, I realized that the Christmas season was upon us and figured I'd better decide which traditions we were going to include in our family and GET A MOVE ON! I mean, after all, magical elves had been wreaking havoc in my friends' homes for weeks already!

 

I knew that I wanted our Christmases to be magical and wonderful and fun and full of traditions and family and centered on Christ, but as I considered the options, I was completely overwhelmed. There were so many Christ-centered traditions to choose from, and then, there was all the other extra stuff that wasn't Christ-centered but was still fun.

 

I wanted to do it all, and yet here it was the middle of December and I hadn't done anything! I spent several days overwhelmed and discouraged trying to figure things out on my own before I finally sought the Lord on this. My prayer went something like this: "God, I love Christmas. I want my children to love Christmas. But more than anything, I want my children to love the REASON for Christmas, and I want YOU to love how we celebrate Christmas. So, help me. Help me to know what to do and what not to do. And help me not to feel stressed or overwhelmed or discouraged. Help me not to judge or criticize others who celebrate differently than I do. Above all, let my attitude and my actions be pleasing to You."

 

Shortly after that prayer, God very clearly spoke to my heart. Not with an audible voice, but with clear conviction, I heard this message from the Lord: There is nothing wrong with all the extra stuff, but before you do anything else, honor ME! Before you worry about decorating a tree or taking pictures with Santa or buying gifts for everyone in your family or any of those other things that tend to consume people at this time of year, figure out how you are going to celebrate ME. Then, once you have placed me at the center of your heart and your plans, you can add anything extra that you have room for as long as you can do so with a heart that is joyful and do it in the spirit of celebrating MY birth.

So, that's exactly what I did. I sat down and decided what Christ-centered traditions we would include in our celebration. I decided to start small (December was already halfway over anyway):

• Have a birthday party for Jesus for just our family where we would have some simple party foods and decorations (I'll include more about this in another post.)
• Read the Christmas story from the Bible
• Give gifts to Jesus - tell what we wanted to do in the coming year to serve and love Jesus better, write it down, and put it in a stocking for Jesus.
• Talk about Jesus every time we do anything Christmas related - "Every time we look at our Christmas tree or any other Christmas decorations, we can remember that it is a 'party decoration' for Jesus' birthday It's something special that we only put up once a year to celebrate His birth." "We give gifts because we want to remind people of the gifts that Jesus has given us." "Santa brings us gifts to remind us of Jesus' birth and His love for us." etc.
• Give our Christmas offering to our church, giving more to Jesus than we spent on any other single person on our list

After I had those plans in place, I figured out what extra stuff I wanted to include. We didn't do much that year.

• Decorate a tree (not the whole house)
• Buy gifts for our family
• Have some friends over to decorate cookies.

Other than those things, I figured if an opportunity presented itself (like driving around to look at Christmas lights or taking pictures with Santa) and wouldn't cause any added stress, I would take advantage of it. However, I was not going out of my way to plan anything more. It was a wonderful, stress-free, Christ-centered Christmas.

Fast forward a few years, and we've added some traditions. It seems that each year, I am able to do more than I did the year before. We have done acts of service throughout the month of December with the idea of sharing the love of Christ with others. We have also added an advent scripture reading with a felt Christmas tree and advent ornaments every night in December. Last year, we did pictures with Santa for the first time. We like to find a night in December and drive around and look at Christmas lights while drinking hot chocolate . We did a Grinch movie-watching party with my nieces last year (after Christmas) and decorated ice cream cone "Christmas trees." I am not sure if any of these will become annual traditions. My plan is that each year, we'll just see what God lays on our hearts to plan and what other opportunities present themselves.

Here's the thing, though, while the traditions are fun, none of them (not even the Christ-centered ones) are as important to me as the heart and spirit of worship in my home. If ever the traditions become cumbersome or I feel stressed or distracted from the real reason we celebrate, we'll cut it back to the bare minimum -- sitting around a Christmas tree (even if it's a Charlie Brown tree), talking about Jesus and what He's done for us. I believe my children will remember the atmosphere/attitude/heart/spirit in our home more than any traditions we embrace. To me, traditions are about creating memories, and the most important memory I want my children to have of Christmases in their childhood is a joyful and peaceful celebration of Jesus' birth and worship of Him!