B-log

Disclaimer: The following is simply an explanation of one family’s decision to exclude Santa Claus from their Christmas experience. It is not intended to be a polemic against any personal decision you have made. It is offered without judgment or criticism that you may have made for your family. The author is not telling you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, or why to do it. Merry Christmas.

I don’t remember how we came to the decision to exclude Santa Claus from our family experience. I can tell you that it was no monumental decision. Both Kelli and I were raised in homes where Santa had been welcome, and neither of us had been scarred irreparably by it. Neither of us were hagiophobes who feared Saint Nick, or even the specter of a manic, white-bearded man wearing an over-sized crimson jogging suit climbing down our chimney in the middle of the night with a large sack filled with home electronics slung over his shoulder. We just made a calm, rationale decision that our home would be Santa-free as much as it was up to us to do so.

The decision was compelled by welcoming children into our family. A mere few months after our oldest child was born in 1997, we found ourselves entering into our first Christmas with a baby. As December 25 approached, we looked forward to the morning of opening presents as a family and celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus. To us, it just made sense that if Christmas was supposed to be about Jesus, then that’s what we should do. Make it about Jesus. So we did.

As the picture indicates, we weren’t “anti-Santa.” We thought it would be cute to have a picture of Kaylyn with him, even if we wouldn’t be perpetuating the tradition of old-but-not-dying-invisible-man-leaving-behavior-based-rewards-under-the-tree-in-your-home. As subsequent pictures show, though, this Kodak-moment soon went away in direct proportion to the dread it placed in our children.

Confessionally, I get a little fuzzy on the details (I’m more of a “big-picture” guy when it comes to nostalgia), while my bride can still remember what we were both wearing on the day I proposed to her. So I don’t have this clarion recollection of the conversation about excluding Santa Claus from our Christmas. What I do remember is that we were in agreement about it. And that it wasn’t a big deal for us. We didn’t fight about it. Neither of us had to convince the other. I made a decision and Kelli agreed with me.

What this decision looked like in the first years was simple. We just didn’t label any gifts as being “From Santa.” And we celebrated Christmas! And our celebration was wonderful. We did not spend a single moment regretting our decision, and our home was no worse for having forsaken the myth of Kris Kringle.

1998’s yuletide season came and our Kaylyn—no longer an infant, but just barely a toddler—became more of an unwitting pawn in this issue. After Thanksgiving passed, people…even strangers…began confronting our now-able-to-communicate daughter, asking her what Santa was going to bring her for Christmas. She’d look at us with a confused look and we’d answer with a chuckle, “we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Picture time” rolled around…and as you can tell, it didn’t go as well. Probably because we hadn’t spent any time whatsoever building the myth in our home. So to our toddler, we were just putting her in lap of a stranger. To make matters worse, we used one of the girls from our youth group to hand her over (Sorry, Ash!). This was as close as Kaylyn would get to sitting with Santa.

The next year was the first that I can remember having The Santa Talk with our child. As Christmas approached, we sat down with Kaylyn (and Cotter was present, but only as a 9 or 10-month old), and said something like:

Now that Christmas is coming, we want to talk to you about something very important. This is a wonderful time of year where we celebrate the birth of Jesus. We give gifts to each other because God brought us the gift of Jesus.

One thing that many people do during Christmas is that they talk about Santa Claus. The story of Santa is that he travels the whole world on Christmas Eve and leaves presents under the Christmas trees of good girls and boys. We want you to know that Santa is not real. There is no Santa Claus. Your mommy & daddy, your grand parents, and other people who love you very much give you the presents that are under our tree, and we do it because you are part of our family.

When people ask you about Santa, all you have to say is, “I don’t know.”

That was the full content of that initial Santa Talk. And, just for exploratory purposes, we tried to get a commemorative photo of Cotter with Santa. The results were less-than-exemplary.

As the next Christmas came and went, we had to add another brief preemptive conversation that it was not our kids’ job to tell other kids The Truth About Santa. We told them that this was a talk between parents and children. To my knowledge, none of my kids have stepped on other children’s Santa-tinted Christmas spectacles. In an impromptu survey, each has said that the closest they’ve come is agreeing when other kids have declared their own disbelief in Saint Nick.

By 2002, Kelsi joined the family. We were veterans of Santa-Free Christmases and had sworn off any more Santa pictures. We established other traditions that became special to our family (such as each child receiving three gifts from the parents as a reflection of the three gifts mentioned in the Bible that were given to Jesus by the Magi). We open a single present on Christmas Eve (always new pajamas). After the kids go to bed, we cover the hallway with wrapping paper and they have to burst through it to start off Christmas. This last tradition also allows us to make sure they don’t bust in to the living room before there’s a pot of coffee ready to be served.

Remember, there was a rationale behind our decision to become Santa-Free. And for us, it was the decision to really make Christmas all about Jesus. We determined that as far as we were concerned, Santa was competition to Jesus, not a complement to him. We knew that the other 364 days a year, we would be undertaking the work of teaching our kids about the things of God. We would be teaching them that the God they cannot see loves them very much and gave them the greatest gift when he gave them his Son, Jesus. And that God desires a relationship with them, if they place their trust in him. We just felt like it was putting an added burden upon our kids if we did all this while at the same time introduced them to Santa, an invisible man they couldn’t see who brings gifts and can (like God) see everything they do, good or bad.

We knew there would be a day when they learned that Santa wasn’t real. It’s inevitable. Them learning the truth about God is so important to us that we didn’t want to hinder their opportunity by having any conflict with the burden of a similar account of Father Christmas, only to find out that we had been tricking them the entire time.

And this is where I can imagine hagiophiles (lovers of Santa) getting upset. I understand that the notion of “tricking your children” is inflammatory. But isn’t that what it is, really? Lying to them. Deceiving them. I’m not being mean or judgmental. I’m just being honest. At some point, the truth about Santa has to be told. It can be sugar-coated, rolled up in a sweet package of good intentions and sprinkled with some explanation about the “the magic of Christmas,” but in the end, it is one or two parents coming clean that they haven’t been honest about a major part of Christmas for the entirety of their children’s lives up to that point. And then, if there are multiple children, the older children are forced into the conspiracy. I don’t propose to be able to speak for all kids any more than I can speak for all parents, but what I can tell you is that in our home, it was just easier to start with the truth and not compromise it.

A couple of closing notes on being a “no Santa” home…

• All three of our children came to faith in Christ at a young age (4, 5, and 5 years old, respectively). We don’t believe this was because we were Santa-free (like God somehow rewarded us for our proactive Santa extermination). We believe this was because we prayed for our kids to be saved every day since before they were born, and because God graciously answered our prayers. God loves all people and wants everyone to trust him and we’re so thankful our children have a faith relationship with him. We do think that the decisions to trust God came easier for our kids because of our decision as parents to remove Santa as a potential obstacle.
• We don’t think it is impossible or unlikely for fans of Santa to become Christians. I’m not your Holy Spirit. I don’t care what you do about the Santa question. Really. I don’t think you’re a bad person for the decisions you make as a parent regarding this issue. I don’t think I’m a better person for what we decided. I just acknowledge that our decision is a different decision than what many parents decide, so I’m explaining why and how and when we came to that decision. We can still be friends despite this, I promise.
• While it doesn’t matter what I think about this, I’m pretty sure it matters what God thinks about it. And while I think that if God cares about the number of hairs on your head then he has an opinion on this subject, I trust your ability to discern what God reveals to you about this (if anything). If you are interested in what biblical insight I’ve gained, I’ll be pleased to share what I’ve discovered.
• We are not Christmas Pharisees. We decorate at Christmas. We put up a tree and hang ornaments (even though I can isogete a passage out of Jeremiah that would make you feel guilty for having done so). We display multiple nativities, some of which include the Magi (even though they didn’t arrive until two years later and not at the manger). Our tree is adorned with a Rubenesque winged angel (even though it is entirely unbiblical). We even have a gift bag under the tree that has a Santa on it, now that all the kids are old enough to not be conflicted by this. We just try to have a reason for doing whatever we do, and we try to eliminate anything that might be a barrier to the development of our kids’ faith in God. Where there are imperfections, we talk about them. We highlight worshiping in the truth of God, which we believe facilitates our ability to worship God in spirit.
• I want to give the final word on this to my kids. They’ve agreed to share:
  • Cotter (now age 10): I’m not disappointed because I know it’s right that Santa isn’t real. It has been better because the parents don’t have to feel bad. I think its good we know it because we have better Christmases as a family because we know it is a genuine gift from our family and not one from Santa Claus.
  • Kelsi (now age 7): I think its been better because I know my gifts are from my family and I know they were thinking about me. When people believe in Santa, it brings people’s minds off of Jesus and takes away from the true meaning of Christmas.
  • Kaylyn (now age 12): Over the years, I have come to appreciate that you didn’t lie to me from my birth. It’s more of a family experience that I don’t have to rely on Santa, and that my parents give gifts because they love me. And another thing, I can actually thank you for the gifts, rather than just not say anything to a fake Santa who is not there.

So there you go…may your Christmas bring glory to God, the giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17)!