So my boy, Liam, loves Santa. He’s three. I loved Santa too, and I have fond childhood memories of him and the delightful expectation of Christmas morning. So when Collette and I knocked around the idea of whether we were going to do Santa or not, we went for it.
Then comes along Noel Piper’s post on why they don’t do Santa over at the Piper household. The post has a lot of the usual reasons you’ve probably come to expect, but this particular section stuck out to me:
Third, we think about how confusing it must be to a straight-thinking, uncritically-minded preschooler because Santa is so much like what we’re trying all year to teach our children about God. Look, for example, at the “attributes” of Santa.
- He’s omniscient—he sees everything you do.
- He rewards you if you’re good.
- He’s omnipresent—at least, he can be everywhere in one night.
- He gives you good gifts.
- He’s the most famous “old man in the sky” figure.
She’s right. Santa is a lot like God, but only partially so. Noel goes on:
But at the deeper level that young children haven’t reached yet in their understanding, he is not like God at all.
For example, does Santa really care if we’re bad or good? Think of the most awful kid you can remember. Did he or she ever not get gifts from Santa?
What about Santa’s spying and then rewarding you if you’re good enough? That’s not the way God operates. He gave us his gift—his Son—even though we weren’t good at all. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He gave his gift to us to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough.
When Liam was born, my walk with the Lord was drastically different than it is now four years later. And I’ve got to admit that Noel’s reasoning here has me thinking.
Still, a part of me just thinks Santa is a little harmless holiday fun, and Liam and I talk a lot more about Jesus than we ever do Santa.
Just the other night, after nightly prayers, I was cuddling with my buddy when he said to me, “Daddy?”
“Yes, buddy?”
“Did you know Jesus was born in a barn? Isn’t that wonderful?”
He knows the reason for the season.
So what do you think? Is Santa harmless Christmas fun? Or is Noel right, does he cloud your child’s capacity to know God fully?
Teaching kids about Santa is leading them on in a lie – as lighthearted and good-intentioned as it is, it is still a falsehood. We expect kids to trust us to teach them about this world. Thus, when they find out that Santa isn’t real, isn’t it safe to assume they may question the validity of other things we may have taught them? Especially since Santa and God have a lot of “similarities”, it may be easy for a young mind to group the two – if Santa isn’t real and God and Santa are similar, maybe God isn’t real either.
Erik, those are good points but I’d have to say that the evidence to back up the no santa = no God line of logic would be scant. I’m pretty sure that there are plenty of good Christians who grew up believing in Santa but who still believe in God. I’m sure the opposite is true too, but I doubt that the causation is a belief in make-believe.
I’m more convinced by the sheer fact that it’s a falsehood, which leads to the deeper question of what other falsehoods do we perpetuate (innocently) in our kids’ lives?
I am not teaching my daughter about Santa, but she hasn’t had much to say about him yet, at 5 years old. We talk about Jesus a lot, and she knows who he is much better than old Saint Nick. I suspect that by next year, I will have the discussion about Santa not being real.
I completely agree with Santa. I never led any of my kids to believe Santa was real, for precisely the same reason he gives. If my kids can’t trust what I say about Santa, why should they trust what I say about Jesus?
I was really hoping for a second there that Erik had posted as Santa, which would have been a master stroke.
Bummer.
See my response to Erik on the trust issue. I’m not sure it’s quite that simple, at least experientially.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Drat. My thoughts outran my fingers and I failed to proofread before I hit Submit… That was supposed to say, “I completely agree with Erik.” Good grief.
I’m with Erik on this one, also. I don’t think it sets a very good precedence in the whole always tell the truth thing. And even beyond that, just on a basic level, I can’t think of any reason that Santa would add more to the season.
We are going to burn Santa in effigy this year for Christmas Eve. My problem with Santa isn’t that he takes something away from God’s Glory but rather the simple fact that he doesn’t point to it. It the same reason we don’t eat chocolate bunnies at our house on Easter. We eat lamb and we celebrate the Lamb.
Oh… and I even taught my 3 year old to say “Happy Reformation Day” when we went trick or treating.
I’m a freak.
Chad, I love you because you are a freak.
Question, what other things do you allow your daughter to enjoy that don’t point to God?
oh… we twist all things to point to God. As if that were needed.
I never believed in Santa because my parents were very adamant about telling me that he wasn’t real. I wasn’t raised with any religion, so that wasn’t the reason. It was because they didn’t want to lie to me. Plain and simple.
Sure, maybe some people see it as harmless holiday fun, but I trusted my parents more when I was a kid because they were honest with me about everything, including Santa. My parents weren’t the best parents by any means, but their saving grace is that they NEVER lied to me.
I won’t be telling my kids Santa is real. Bah humbug.
I don’t think deferring the disassembling of Santa is lying to your children. In a similar way, last night my son was crying and scared to goto sleep because he thought there were ghosts in his room. I could have said the brutal truth:
“Well demons do exist and Satan roams the earth, so you may have an acute sense Owen.”
But instead I said:
“Jesus is your protector Owen and he is creator of all things and loves you deeper than anyone could ever love. He will keep you safe and me and mommy are right here with you too.”
I don’t think that I lied because I disregarded his belief in ghosts. I tried to point him to the greater truth. I take the same tactic with Santa, instead of the brutal truth to tear Santa down, why not just point him to the greater truth, Jesus.
As a parent one of my responsibilities is to parse and with *wisdom* teach my child. I find that requires constant humility as I ask Jesus to lead me in how best to parent and teach each of my children at each stage of development. I won’t parent a 3yr old like they are 15. Maturity has a pace.
Have you ever realized just a simple rearrangement of the letters and Santa turns into Satan? Coincidence? I think not.
My goal with my 6yr old son is for him to treasure Jesus, to know him as his savior, Lord and friend. I don’t think shattering his fantasy of Santa is the most effective tool in doing so. Rather we’ve talked about the differences in Santa and God, for instance Jesus showing us ill-deserved grace instead of Santa only rewarding “good” kids. We talk about how Santa is not God, and that the only true God is Jesus and he’s the only one we worship.
I’ve found showing my son Owen how much better and more worthy of worship Jesus is than Santa has been of great value. I think from a fathering point of view it’s much more effective to teach the gospel rather than just tearing down my son’s enjoyment of a mythical cartoon character.
For my younger ones, we pray and they pray to Jesus and know why we celebrate Christmas. But for them much of the joy found in this season will always be simple. That mom and dad loved them and they got to open presents. I think that’s perfectly blessed.
Thanks for your thoughts, Kyle. Very interesting. At what age did you start having such conversations with you boy?
When he turned 6 we started really trying to be gospel centered in our teaching and discipline, everything really. “Timeouts” became opportunities to discuss sin and repentance, and not just behavioral punishments. Stuff like that. We probably should have started earlier than 6, but he just seemed to understand things at a deeper level at that age. It’s really been awesome.
My kids will not be indoctrinated with the nonsense that is Santa. Strongly considering Krampus as an alternative option though…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus
I had no idea that parts of the world preached a dualist Santaology.
Santa doesn’t cloud a child’s capacity to know God fully because a kid can’t know God fully anyway… it’s a child.
I was never told about Santa, but it’s silly to think that a child doesn’t live in an altered state of reality no matter how much truth you tell them.
The Tooth Fairy never made me question God.
If anything my poor example of the Tooth Fairy’s faithfulness will do more to point my children to Christ than anything. Our Tooth Fairy has alzheimer’s and needs to be fired.
I would hope that we don’t talk to our children about Santa with the same conviction and passion that we speak about God. Santa is a seasonal character, God should be year round. We should give our kids a bit more credit, they will see the evidence of Christ in our life and know we are not lying.
I heard a pastor say that he told his kids about Santa Claus, but made sure that they knew that he was as real as Little Red Riding Hood.
I personally don’t think I’ll tell my kids about Santa Claus because when I was younger (and not a Christian, mind you), I believed Christmas was about me getting gifts. So I think Santa has the potential to detract from what we really celebrate Christmas for.
Plus, if you think about it, Santa’s a major creeper.
I don’t do Santa but for more personal reasons. I’ve considered the whole “well if that’s fake, then is everything fake” logic but it doesn’t hold much weight to me.
Honestly, for me not doing Santa because I want my daughter to know that her mom and dad love her and appreciate her for who she is to us, not some mythical fat guy who eats the cookies.(who should be convicted of breaking and entering) Besides, how will we explain that gift from “Santa” that we’re giving to a friend, family member or complete stranger at the nursing home, orphanage or shelter is really from us? I can see it now “Daddy, why are we putting from Santa when we got them the gift?”
Call it selfish…and maybe it is. But I we’re not doing Santa. Alana is only 4 months old so it won’t matter to her either way this year.
[...] a follow-up to my recent post on Santa, I came across this in my “research”. Thanks to Eugene Cho for finding [...]
Santa Claus, I am for him and can not wait to allow my kids (which I do not have) to use their imaginations.
To all the parents that do not allow their kids to enjoy the creativity of Santa:
1. Be sure to never allow your kids to pretend to be a princess or a superhero, because that is a lie since they will never be either.
2. Be sure to never lie to your kids about anything this includes the tough questions, like “where do babies come from” or “why are those guys holding hands and kissing”?
3. When your family pet dies don’t tell them that they have gone to doggy heaven.
Allow your kids to be creative and please do not stifle them because there will be plenty of time for that.
Go Team Santa!
I really don’t think that not “doing” Santa and fostering creativity are mutually exclusive at all.