Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Santa Who?

The other day I posted about St. Nicholas. I'm a fan of St. Nick, really. I think, from what we know he was a good man. I even like the legends about him too.

But my wife and I have been semi-covert in the fact that we, with our 4 and 7 year old sons, do not do Santa Claus. I don't care to go into a long diatribe over why this is so, (although it may increase comments and hits on my blog), but I will give two reasons why:
  1. My family celebrates Christmas which is the birth of our Savior. However, and perhaps it's just me, it seems that the focus seems to have gone elsewhere. (Sarcasm intended). This includes Santa Claus. We feel it important to do our best to bring the focus back on Christ.
  2. Since gift giving is one way of showing love for other people, does it not stand to reason that I would want my children to know the gifts they receive are a token of our love for them and not a fictional character's love for them?
Make no mistake here. I am not proclaiming that parents who choose to do the Santa thing are inferior, deceptive or wrong. (That includes both my folks and my in-laws who did Santa with us). We just don't do it for the reasons stated above and we tell our kids that others "pretend" there is a Santa and they can continue to do so.

2 comments:

Karen said...

So, what you are saying is that as the giver of a gift with love that you want to be acknowledged? hmmm...

Unknown said...

Hmmm, I see your point. Perhaps I didn't word this well. I would want (and we try) to focus on the birth/gift of Christ and not our "generosity." But in saying this, I can see how acknowledging Santa instead of mom and dad can have value in keeping the focus off the folks.