Why we love Santa Clause and why he doesn’t actually come to our house.

Santa Clause. Just the name gets a reaction. To most, he stands for a what is left that’s ‘right’ in the world. A big jolly fella giving freely with no expectation or debtors ethic. What’s not to like? There’s a happy man, encouraging obedience to mom and dad, and giving gifts to those who haven’t earned it. In Santa’s economy, it seems all you can do is lose your gifts, not earn them.

Then we have Christians. I hear things in the Christian subculture like “santa idols,” or some tirade about how Santa is taking Christ out of Christmas (assuming he was at some point there, which is another discussion).

I tipped my hand in the title. We don’t do Santa in our house, at least not in the same sort of way. I don’t have a problem with Santa as a story. Just like Jack in the Beanstalk (doesn’t he eat children?), Snow White, Mickey Mouse or the Chronicles of Narnia. In the hands of a parent, Santa can be a pretty cool launch point to talk about grace, accountability, sin and generosity. I like the Santa story, for these reasons. Plus he just looks so stinking happy, and I generally like happy people, unless it’s prior to 7AM.

That said, here are some reasons why we don’t have Santa visit on Dec 25:

1. We don’t assign divine attributes to men other than Jesus. I have a real problem with Santa being omniscient and therefore the divine accountability partner for my 3 year old. That’s not healthy. Again, see above point, I don’t have a problem with the Santa story anymore than I have a problem with any other kids story. It doesn’t bother me that Mary Poppins can fly. It doesn’t bother me that Qunicy, Leo and team can free rocket from the evil czar by finding the magic feather (you people should watch the Little Einsteins). But if my children are convinced they need a magic umbrella to fly across the street, I’m going to help them understand what is reality and what is pretend. We need to encourage our children to learn to divide reality from unreality. For my family, supernatural powers are reserved in reality for God. Stories are fun; they are not reality.

I sat with my daughter a few nights ago and we watched the Rudolph story. The old school one. It was awesome. She was concerned for the little toys on misfit island, mortified by the abominable snow man, and really glad when Rudolph saved Christmas. I was too, I always get nervous when I see that eleventh-hour whiteout. It’s a far cry to go from enjoying a fun story to “believe or you won’t receive” or worse yet, “be good because Santa’s watching.” Our children get enough humanistic bad theology and philosophy.

2. I want to engender gratefulness in my children. I remember well after one Christmas I said to my mom, “Christmas was smaller this year.” She gave me ‘the look’ and said, “You better not let your dad her you say that.” I didn’t say anything as I knew from the tone, it was be quiet time. But in my little heart, I couldn't figure out why that bothered my mom, it was Santa who brought the presents. I want my children to know that Dad and Mom love them and bought them a present. They need to learn gratitude. A flying man in a red suit is hard to look in the eye and offer sincere gratitude.

3. I don’t want to lie to my children. I know there’s all types of pretending that we do with our kids. Isn’t that lying? You put a pillow case over your head and become the tickle monster. Is that lying? No, that’s absurd, right? But why? Children are gullible and are hard wired to believe big people, especially their parents. So if you really wanted to convince your 3 year old that you were a Martian, you probably could. This is a trust given to parents to help teach their children truth. At some point, it’s going to become extremely obvious that the smurfs or talking trains don’t actually exist. I’m not going to try to convince my children they actually do. I will not treat Santa any differently. It’s a fun story. I can enjoy the story, use it to point our thoughts back to God, but I’m not going to try to convince them something is ‘for reals’ when it doesn’t exist in reality.

Though most kids come out of it just fine, it seems the possibility exists to undermine the trust a child would have in their parents.

But they’re just kids. Do you really want your children to be the one that ruins it for everyone else in the class? I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone. But my concern isn’t primarily for what 5 year old Susie and her parents talk about. I have to raise my children. I want them to be respectful and courteous of what other people think, but the reality is, I’m sure this will happen, probably sooner rather than later. My simple response would be, we love the Santa story in our house. Mom and Dad love giving their children gifts just like God loves giving His children gifts (Mt 7.7-12). We choose to keep those things separate.