Parenting Wins at Christmas TimeSýnishorn

DAY THREE - WHY MY KIDS NEVER BELIEVED IN SANTA

If you loved Santa, believed in Santa, and want to continue the tradition that a man dressed in red comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve to leave presents, then please go ahead. That is your decision, as the parent to your children.

But I often meet young Christian parents who aren’t sure what they should do. Should we tell our kids that Santa isn’t real, and potentially ruin the fun? Or should we continue the tradition?

If you’ve wavered or wondered about this topic, here are my thoughts and what we decided to do with our children.

When my sons were little, we told them about St. Nicholas –– that the idea of Santa Claus came from this good, Christian man, but had changed some over the years, leaving God out of the picture (and actually making Santa Claus himself into a supernatural being with god-like qualities).

The reason we decided to do this was two-fold. First, it seemed like lying. If we told them Santa was real, then later said, “Just kidding! He’s a myth,” what might happen if we told them Jesus was real? Would they later wonder if we were just kidding about Him, too? Jesus is not a myth!

The second reason was the whole naughty or nice, gift-giving thing. We believe in God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8) – that God doesn’t love us based on what we do but rather who we are (unconditional love), and it’s the same with Mom and Dad. We don’t love you more because you were nice and not naughty. We taught our kids to obey and be nice to please God, not to get presents.

All this talk was very low-key at our house. We didn’t want to take all the fun out of Christmas. I think if we take too much fun away from kids, they think Christianity is boring, bondage, and a bummer –– and that’s not true. We didn’t alienate ourselves from people who believed in Santa but kept the door open to talk about Jesus.

Remember that the true story of Christmas is the greatest story ever told – Jesus came to earth because He loved us and was God’s plan to save us. There’s no need to embellish the story!