From my last two posts regarding Santa you might think I was raised with these convictions, but that is simply not the case. Like most children, I grew up believing in and enjoying Santa Claus. All season long I would anxiously wait for the gifts he would bring and every Christmas morning I awoke with the excitement of knowing that “Santa” had left these special gifts for me under the tree and would quickly rush to unwrap them. Even when I got older and understood that Santa was not real I enjoyed the tradition of having gifts say “from Santa” on them. I do not look back on those wonderful experiences and abhor them, on the contrary I find them very sentimental!
However, having experienced the joy and excitement of Santa as a child I can honestly say that I would have rather been taught how to worship and enjoy Christ instead. My parents tried their best to tell me about the birth of Christ, even reading the Biblical account, but I never really gave it much thought. In my childish mind I understood that these moments of thinking about Jesus were supposed to be the real purpose of our celebration, but in my heart I really only cared about getting on to the part where we unwrapped the gifts Santa brought for us.
You see, when my family and I became Christians and totally devoted our lives to Christ (starting around my sophomore year in high school) Christmas took on a whole new meaning. Suddenly it was a time to thank God for the miraculous gift of his Son, Jesus Christ, rather than a time to focus on material gifts. Every part of my life, including Christmas, became an opportunity to worship and adore the one who saved my soul from eternal condemnation. As a Christian, my heart’s desire is to glorify God in every area of my life (as much as humanly possible) and I desire to help my family do the same. I especially want to teach my children how to know and honor the Lord early on in their lives through our family traditions.
Christmas provides a special opportunity to take extra time to focus on Jesus and why he came to earth in the form of man. Rather than let this time slip through our fingers, Richard and I want to make the most of it. We have come to the conclusion that the best way to do this is to cut out anything (anything possible) that distracts from this message and add anything we can that will bring to life this message. For us, Santa falls into the category of unnecessary and even distracting traditions and because of this we have no need of him. Though it was emotionally hard for me to make this decision at first, I have found that the Lord quickly blessed our desire to focus our hearts and time on him alone. My prayer is that one day he will use our Christmas traditions to usher our children into a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a blessing to have a time so devoted to the Messiah! What a tragedy it would be if I simply let it slip through our fingers.
And so this is why Richard and I have chosen to not include Santa in our Christmas traditions. Not because we think Santa is evil, or that other parents who tell there children about Santa are evil, but because through prayer and counsel we honestly believe that the best way to help our children love Christ more is to show them that we love Christ in every area of our lives, including our Christmas traditions. Through our joyful celebration of the Messiah’s birth it is our prayer that they too will come to have a similar joy and excitement when the season approaches. I am so very grateful that our God is worth celebrating every moment of every day, and that we have a special opportunity to do so in even greater abundance during the season of Christmas.
