When Jane and I started having children, I raised a question in the high school Sunday School class I taught. Did everyone grow up with the Santa Claus myth? There were some students in the class whose parents were very intentional about raising Christian kids and I suspected some of them handled the legend differently than Jane or I had grown up with. I wanted to downplay the white bearded obese man in the red suit. My reasoning was that if we conveyed fiction as if it were true and at the same time taught them about the very real Jesus, we were doing them a disservice. Actually, that’s rather understated to how I felt at the time. I did not want to openly lie to my kids about anything and then expect them to believe me about Jesus and the bible. So I posed the question to my class and we had some excellent discussion. Many felt Santa was a harmless myth but some students actually grew up in homes where Jesus was center stage and Santa minimized. They were the students whom I wanted my kids to grow up like… very passionate about their faith. What baffled me was why people did not see the problem with lying about Santa and telling the truth about Jesus, all in the context of one holiday. Some even thought it might pose a problem for our kids to not grow up with the Santa story. So, much to the shock of many in my extended family, we downplayed Santa when our kids were growing up. We emphasized the day as Jesus birthday. We also had the double celebration of Lauren’s birthday on Christmas as well (which she has always cherished). As the kids grew up and heard about Santa (from others) we explained the legend of St. Nicklaus and how that became Santa Claus… never really asserting that Santa was true or false. We did not stop our kids from believing in Santa but we did not encourage it either. I think over time they were probably among the first among their peers to realize that Santa was fictional, in part because we never pushed it.
Growing up many of my peers came from families that did not encourage a faith in Christ. They consequently were not engaged with Christianity. Most of them were encouraged as children to believe in Santa who turned out to not be real. I think our approach was intentionally opposite and thus far, it’s paid off. Our kids are all in college and still take Jesus seriously. I was surprised to read today of someone else, a professor even, who has the same concerns as I do regarding the confusion of legend and truth at Christmas. You can read that here. There is much tongue in cheek humor in it but the main point is what I resonate with.
“Yes, it’s true, but Mr. Claus is just about the worst thing to happen to Christianity. We make kids believe in a fat man who hands out gifts unfairly and makes out with mom, and then ask them to believe in Jesus. Right.”
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