TO Santa or NOT TO Santa?

What About Santa?

Now that is a loaded question. I have had that question posed to me many times over the last few years. And I have always answered the same way. With grown sons all I can say is what we did, and it seemed to work for us.

Everyone is different and has to do what they feel led to do. No one can make that decision for any other family, I just share how we handled Santa.

He was a real person, St. Nicholas. And…we learned all about him and all the good he did. It was a great lesson. We then told the story of Christ, and tried to make that our focus. We had a Birthday Party of Jesus every Christmas Eve.

But admittedly, often the cake went uneaten after the long night of celebration with family. But we continued to do it year after year.

We chose to tell the boys the truth. That Santa was “pretend” now just like Big Bird, The Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, etc. Jesus was a real person. The same yesterday, today and tomorrow. We “pretended” Santa Claus came to our house and we left him cookies. We sat the toys out for the surprise the following morning.

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” Isaiah 9:6-7

And it never seemed to be a problem. We told the boys that not all families did Christmas like us and that it was to be kept in our family. We never wanted them to tell others they were wrong. We never got any angry parent calls, so hopefully they listened to that advice!