Santa at our House

I think I've had the "Do you do Santa?" conversation 5 or 6 times with friends in the past few weeks. As parents who are primarily concerned with raising children for the Lord, the Santa experience can be a dilemma. Does it take away from the real celebration of Jesus? Does it make our children materialistic? Is it right to teach them a myth about some invisible man who gives them gifts only if they're good, and then they later find out he's not real? Is this how they'll also think of God?

While I understand all of these reasons, I personally don't think that it's "wrong" to do Santa. We try to always keep the focus on Jesus, so we discuss Santa in light of this too. We have conversations about how God loved us so much that He gave us the best gift ever--His son Jesus--so we celebrate with gifts at Christmas too. Today Catherine actually said that really the best gift we have is the Bible, because without it, how we would even know about Jesus? I thought that was a pretty wise observation.

We don't ask the kids to make lists of what they want for Christmas (this may change as they get older). We try to think about the giving and sharing more than the receiving. And I think there's something fun and magical about the Santa myth for a child. As kids they play pretend about something every day in their life, so I'm okay with us playing pretend about Santa. So yes, we do Santa at our house.

We have some Santa decorations on the mantel that the kids really like.

We went for a quick visit to see Santa at Chick-fil-A the other night. Catherine and Anna were much more interested in this than Will. Santa did ask the kids what they wanted for Christmas. Catherine's answer: "a mini-van to put her babies in" and Will's response: "a red motorcycle with doors." Yeah, I don't think they understand the whole asking-for-a-list-of-toys concept.
Will is a little shy with Santa, so he wanted Jay to hold him while he talked to Santa. He did shake his hand and was very interested in his gloves. He also wanted Santa to tell him "Ho, ho, ho". Unfortunately, I think he still associates Santa with our visit last year, when he then went home and busted his head open on the hearth and we spent the evening in the ER, with Catherine vomiting while we were there. I might not like Santa either if that's what I remembered about seeing him last year.
I think the Santa thing is one of those tricky lines between being in the world, but not of the world. And I think that as long as our children don't believe that the reason we have Christmas is so that Santa brings them gifts, then we're headed in the right direction. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong...but that's what we're doing at our house right now.