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mathmama
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| Posted: Dec 26 2006 at 7:34am | IP Logged
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I hope that you all had a Merry Christmas. Our dd is 2 and dh and I decided long ago that we would not do the whole Santa thing in our house. I was kind of neutral on the subject but dh has some not so fond memories of finding our there was no Santa in the 5th grade (!). He doesn't want us lying to our dc. Of course, dd knows who Santa is, but she doesn't have it in her head that he is going to enter our house and leave her gifts. She does know about St Nicholas and we celebrate is feast and next year we will probably start the tradition of leaving treats in her shoes on his feast, but I think that is something totally different, especially since we won't be telling her it is St Nicholas leaving the treats.
Ok, so that is the background. Now yesterday my mom called to wish us a Merry Christmas and dh answered. She asked dh if Santa had come and he told her that we aren't doing Santa. She had a fit! She got on the phone with me and said that her heart was breaking. She made a huge deal out of it and really made me feel like I am a bad mother for not doing this with dd. Dh and I talked about it later and agreed that my mom probably wouldn't have had the same reaction if we told her that we weren't going to tell dd that Christmas was the celebration of Christ's birthday. Dd knows that is what Christmas is and that is our emphasis; we had a happy birthday cake for Him.
So, do you do Santa in your house? If you don't, how has your extended family reacted to it?
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MrsKey
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Nope. We don't do and never did the Santa thing. It started before we were even practicing Christians (I was an avowed atheist). I just remember being really angry with my parents and having the trust I placed in them damaged when I learned that Santa wasn't real.
My parents went to great lengths to perpetuate the myth and when I realized it was all an elaborate hoax I was angry. I mean here were these people who kept telling me that it was wrong to lie, and punishing me if I was caught in a lie, lying to me. So when I figured out that Santa wasn't real I swore that if I ever had children I wouldn't do it.
Dh and I kept that promise. Though we told dd that "Santa" was a myth based on a real person and that people gave gifts in his name to honour that person. So she would sometimes get gifts from "Santa" as a way of secretly giving a gift and honouring the real person.
My parents weren't thrilled but they got used to it. Particularly when they realized that we could still do the Santa-thing without dd having to believe that Santa, the sleigh and the reindeer were real. Just like dd never believed that Mickey Mouse was a real mouse - but that doesn't diminish her enjoyment of going to Disney World.
The worst reactions I've gotten are from other parents who swear up and down that I am doing my daughter irreparable harm by not carrying on the Santa hoax.
She's 10 now, a devout Catholic and discerning a vocation. She loves Christmas, not for the gifts she gets but for the gifts she can give to others (usually things she makes) and for the chance to celebrate the birth of the Saviour.
I don't think she's been irreparably damaged ... but I guess only time will tell. :D
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Carole
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chicken lady
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This year my dd found out there was no Santa and she is really upset! So I feel horrible too! I wonder if I should stop the others now from believing,I remember believing and never being this upset when I found out. We heavily push St Nicholas, and that the North Pole is just a fun made up story etc, but now my dd was crying, I too am very confused. I welcome any thoughts for the other kiddos over here!
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insegnante
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We don't do Santa. At first this year DS1 (who will be 5 in March) kept calling the neighbors' lawn decoration "The Christmas Guy." When he caught on to the Santa Claus thing I decided to focus on how some people like to pretend Santa Claus brings gifts on Christmas and how he is based on St. Nicholas, with whom DS is familiar. I didn't convey any negativity about it and he didn't seem to have any either.
But he talked to his grandfather on the phone yesterday and I heard DS's side of the conversation: "Santa Claus didn't bring me any gifts. He's just pretend.... I think you made a mistake." The grandmothers already knew and haven't given us trouble about it either.
The thing I have the biggest problem with is when Santa Claus the Christmas toy-bringer is presented as someone whose existence good little children will not doubt. That is too close to religion for me. I know some people think it is awful to risk your child revealing to other kids that it is just pretend but as of this year I did not tell him he should not tell anyone else that Santa is not real -- I didn't know how to explain that if it's a game and pretend that it would ruin anyone's fun for it be acknowledged as such. (Calling something "pretend" even in the midst of playing never seems to interfere with his enjoyment at all!) However, we have not been socializing much lately. If he were going to spend much time with any little Santa-believers I would have had to consider whether to direct him away from making blunt statements about Santa like he did to his grandfather.
Theresa
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Alice R
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No Santa here!
I think my husband's family things we are some religious zealots, but I'll take that as a compliment.  My mother died 5 years ago, but she woulda been fine with it.
My kids know about Santa and they know it is just a game. They know other kids play the game and think he is real but our family does not play the game. Rather, we focus on JESUS!!!!!!!! 
Life will continue on without Santa. Really, it will! No harm will be done without the jolly guy!
One thing that particularly disturbs me about Santa is that he sees you and knows when you are bad or good. Kids are more reverant of Santa than of God.
Blessings,
Alice R
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amiefriedl
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We don't. I'm glad we don't for the most part. Sometimes I wish we could. But the confusion in our culture is too overwhelming I think.
People I know want to convince my kids that Santa is real and the stores in the Bible are just that...nice stories. The Early Church Fathers speak of these events as very solid - not for "interpretation".
Wasn't it St. Thomas Aquinas who defines insanity as the refusal to accept reality?
We really speak much about the Saints who are OH SO REAL. Think of the amazing miracles and visions of the St. Don Bosco for instance. THAT is something to amaze the children with.
Also, we still pay under the pillow for teeth - but they know that the "tooth angel" is mommy and daddy.
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Michaela
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We used to, but I was very uncomfortable with lying and our focus changed once we came to the church.
Yes, there is "fun" leading up to Christmas with writing letters to Santa or leaving him cookies & milk and reindeer food, but after it was all over and my son would ask if Santa was real. 
When our oldest was born DH wanted to share his treasured memories of Christmas. Instead of opening gifts Christmas eve like I had done all my life, we opened them Christmas morning pretending Santa had left them. I went along with it, but reeeeally didn't feel right when Nicholas got older and Santa was the focus.
Maybe three or four years ago, while reading a St. Nicholas story I explained that he was the person Santa is based off of. It went well and the transition to pushing Santa out went smoothly.
Everyone around us is so excited that Santa is coming.
"What did you get from Santa?" Santa is the focus.
I gently remind my children Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of our Savior.
The odd thing in this is my children, knowing there's no such thing as Santa, approached me with the idea we could pretend.
ETA: I just read your reply, Amie, about still going through the "fun" even though your dc know there is no tooth fairy. We do the same thing. That's probably what my children are asking for regarding Santa.
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Essy
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No Santa here either. I grew up in the tradition that Christmas gifts are from Baby Jesus and we are continuing that. No lie there...all good things are indeed from the Lord. So...after we open up our gifts we say thank you to Baby Jesus. We also have the birthday cake and sing happy birthday to Him.
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JennGM
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Growing up I never had Santa. Dh did. My mother was very upset when she found out her parents were deceiving her (that's the way she felt) and didn't do it with us.
I've had similar reactions when I've told people we didn't have Santa. Even one parent crying, telling me how deprived I was and how much of true childhood my siblings were missing.
I had been anti-Santa for a while until I heard some other perspectives from families I really respect. They did Santa, and managed to keep their spiritual balance (Mary G. had a great post or two last year about Santa in her home that really inspired me. I don't have time to dig up that link.)
I have said when we got married we could "do" Santa if dh desired, but I really didn't know how, so it would be up to him. Ds is only 3, so we didn't do it the first few years. But Dh got really upset this Advent that we were being overly zealous in not doing Santa, that it was innocent and could be done properly without skewing the focus of Christmas.
So we did Santa this year. We didn't play it up, and we are not focusing on "he sees you when you are sleeping" nonsense...or threatening the loss of gifts for bad behavior. We didn't even leave out cookies or anything. He just got some ideas from reading Clement Moore's poem. Santa visited in the night, has 8 reindeer, left a present and filled his stocking. But we also call him St. Nicholas interchangeably. I see St. Nick as visiting twice.
We also did not write letters to Santa. I don't think we'll do that, either. That inspires a "gimme" attitude I think.
He's thrilled. Mommy and Daddy gave gifts, not everything was Santa's doing. And Baby Jesus was extremely prominent and important and not lost in the shuffle.
Will it always be this way? No, he won't be 3 forever. But I am happy to make dh happy in this small way. Just because something is secular doesn't mean it's evil. As Christians we have always been able to baptize traditions and make them our own.
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Dec 26 2006 at 9:07pm | IP Logged
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We have Santa/St Nicholas at our house. We celebrate the feast of St. Nicholas, and we talk to the kids about how St. Nicholas and Santa are one and the same person. We talk about how we give each other gifts at Christmas to celebrate Jesus's birthday. We have a birthday cake for Jesus with lighted candles and sing Happy Birthday. We place our "star cards" (cards with a star for every good deed) in the stable on Christmas Eve as a gift for the newborn King.
Santa-is it all a lie? I know that the spirit of St. Nicholas inspires me to give gifts with a glad heart. I believe in Christmas miracles, and maybe the Lord does dispatch St. Nicholas on Christmas Eve on special errands of healing and mercy. Does he fly through the sky with reindeer? You know- with God anything is possible.
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chicken lady
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Very well stated Melinda 
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Cici
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JennGM wrote:
and we are not focusing on "he sees you when you are sleeping" nonsense...or threatening the loss of gifts for bad behavior. We didn't even leave out cookies or anything. He just got some ideas from reading Clement Moore's poem. Santa visited in the night, has 8 reindeer, left a present and filled his stocking. But we also call him St. Nicholas interchangeably. I see St. Nick as visiting twice. |
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We don't play up the "he's sees you when you're sleeping" nonsense either. Or, the phone calls throughout the year "to Santa" and Santa brings just one gift to each of the children - and he fills their stockings with whatnots. We do visit him, though - mostly because I like the picture.
Jenn -
So you say St. Nick comes twice? We're having a hard time with this. My 4.5 dd (I assume like all oldest children) is very precocious. So, while reading Moore's poem she asks questions about St. Nick/Santa Claus. In fact, in a Classical Kids Christmas we keep saying "not St. Nick...Santa Claus"...but this doesn't seem to work well, either.
I may have to adopt this.
Melinda - beautiful!
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chicken lady
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What about the 3 Kings, do they come to your homes?
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Lisbet
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No, we don't do Santa. We celebrate the Feast of St. Nicholas in a big way, then on Christmas we all exchange gifts with one another to symbolize Gods gift to us all.
We just really feel sickened by the way St. Nicholas has been secularized. My oldest son really gets bent out of shape when folks start talking about a Mrs. Claus ~ afterall, St. Nicholas was a bishop, and he sees it as almost a mockery of the priesthood. (St. Nicholas is his name saint!)
Jenn, I totally understand where you are coming from about not all secular traditions are evil and we should baptize them and make them our own, BUT, for some reason on this issue it seems to have been the other way around. The secular "santa claus" has just taken all focus away from dear and true St. Nicholas. I feel, (personal opinion, not attacking what anyone else does) that we really need to reclaim the Feast of St. Nicholas on December 6th, then keep the focus on the Infant Jesus on December 25th.
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teachingmom
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We do Santa and enjoy the fun. He's not a huge focus, but the girls know that some of the gifts under the tree will be from him. In the past, some of them would periodically be inspired to write a letter to him. I wasn't particularly happy about that, do to the selfish nature of asking for things, but didn't make a big deal about it if someone wanted to do it. This year, no one wrote to Santa. (I have to add that one year, one of the girls wrote a long letter to him, telling him how kind and generous he is and thanking him profusely for all the gifts he's brought in the past, etc., ending with a simple request at the end. It was adorable!)
This year my 8yo asked directly if Santa is real, so she is now in on the secret, along with her two older sisters. She is my most emotionally sensitive child, so I was a bit unsure of how she would react. But she took it very well. Dh really played up the fact that she is now a big girl, and she can help to make it fun for her younger sisters by playing along a bit.
For what it's worth, I would never directly tell anyone, especially a child of mine, a falsehood, so as soon as any of them have asked a direct question about whether Santa is real, they are told the truth. That meant that my oldest, who is quite sharp and direct, found out the truth when she was only 5 years old! Amazingly she has never ruined the game for other children she knows, which is always a concern once young children are in the know.
After writing this out, I have a possible theory. I wonder if those who were hurt when they learned the truth about Santa were older children when they found out? My three who have figured it out so far were between the ages of 5 and 8 when they found out. Maybe it's worth telling a child before they get too old, even if they don't figure it out themselves. Just thinking . . . .
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Sarah
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We do St. Nicholas and yes, he comes twice. The first time on his feast day its one small little trinket.
We don't so reindeer, the North Pole, etc. We do a Bishop and Saint of the Church and I simply say he has messengers here on earth that help too. I don't do special handwriting on the presents nor bend over backwards to keep it a secret. I hoped that ds 10 would start putting it together this year and he did on his own and then asked me point blank. I was honest and he was fine. The idea had slowly been coming to him so it wasn't a blow.
I told him St. Nicholas IS real and the patron of children and it is in his name that we give these gifts.
He doesn't seem damaged. He didn't feel we lied. He saw it as I hoped he would. . .that we were trying to do something fun knowing that he would find out one day. To me its like if you were having a surprise party and you had to tell the person something contrary to reality in order make the fun happen. You know the person will find out so its not really lying.
We really down play the emphasis, too.
I suggest that if you are feeling guilty about doing Santa you dig up Mary G.'s post and Angie Mc's post last year at this time calling something like "perpetuating the myth." They both had good things to say and last year I was REALLY filled with doubts. I don't feel that way at all this year.
Also, if you do the Santa thing, don't be hard on yourselves. For ages Fairy Tales and Myths have been parts of childrens' lives in all cultures. You can easily begin to downplay and put it in perspective if you feel its become too much. I think HS Moms can overthink things and easily feel overly guilty.
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Jeanna
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Wow, so many good points and food for thought. I was feeling a bit guilty about doing the santa thing after reading this in a book about 5 years ago. Dh was not on the same page (no pun intended  ) When discussing it, my MIL overheard told us she thought it would be a bad idea to not do Santa. I guess my biggest obstacle is that Santa was meant to be the Protestant replacement of St. Nick and it sort of seems to have been the start of commercializing Christmas.
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Jeanna
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mathmama
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These posts have proven just what I thought was true. Different things work for different families. Thanks for all of the different perspectives.
Beth
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: Do you do Santa?
