Santa Clause

[Relic]

The point is...they will find out it isn't true. And who told them it was? Their parents -- the ones they rely on the most. These kids are living with a falsehood. What can be good about that?

I'm totally not trying to sound harsh and I'm definitely not trying to be judgmental. I'm just questioning how healthy it is to believe Santa is real.

And I'm also saying that a child can have happy, joyful, memorable Christmases without thinking Santa brought them their presents based on whether they were "naughty" or "nice." And that's another thing...if we teach them that, we are teaching that gifts are rewards, not tokens of love.

Sorry for the ranting. ;) Love you guys.

my mom (now 84 years old) when we were little told us the truth about all the tales related to Christmas and we knew that even though we celebrated with all the 'decorations' that were relative from the old days, that these decorations remind us of how the pagan beliefs were transformed into how we celebrate today. And that it is the celebration of the birth of Christ... NOT the celebration of any other things or persons. She told us of her upbringing and how a man dressed up as Chris Kringle [sp] would come to houses and scare the children and would be prepared with a piece of coal if it was reported to him that they were bad. And he would have a person with him who was dressed up as the devil to scare children just by the sight of him into behaving because they would not want to end up in hell with that horrible devil! She said she was horrified as a little girl to have to see that and she would try to hide behind her mothers long and heavy winter skirt. My family even had the Christmas lights that looked like flickering candles on our tree and we used to wrap little pieces of hard candy and use them as decorations on the tree along side the other old fashioned bulbs and bells as decorations. We had a Santa with his sleigh decoration on the mantle, and a Nativity scene under the tree. (And yes, we even were taught that even the Nativity scene is out of chronological order in the sense of it. ) But we knew the history of all the fables and tales that were in relation to Christmas right from the start, no lies were told to us. How the story of St. Nick developed into Santa Claus, How the story of Chris Kringle developed into the Santa that is known today, how the Christmas tree was once used in pagan rituals and how that was transformed into how and why we used the tree today as a decoration... etc. (it's all reminders of past fables and tales being TRANSFORMATION into reminders of the past and how we are to LOOK TO CHRIST JESUS and not those "things". ) It's all a reminder of how we take the pagan things (wrong fixations, wrong focus) and show that nothing is worthy of honor and glory but Christ Jesus come to save us from our wrong fixations. The Birth of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior come to save us from all that idol worship from days past, and from all sin. How The Lord God born in the flesh being our example to overcome these wrong fixations, false gods, is what the celebration of the birth of Jesus means... It's a Birthday Celebration and a History lesson. there are many things to think of an Christmas where we came from and where we are all thanks to the Mercy, Love and Grace of our FATHER GOD.... in Giving us HIS SON and HOLY SPIRIT. Yes, decorations are not the problems... the problem is when we fixate on the "things" rather than on the "Spirit" of Christ Jesus... and that is a big Capital "S"... His Spirit. The Jews celebrate HOLY DAYS with reminders of their past.... and we celebrate Christmas with reminders of the past also. Same with the history and tales of Easter... we were told the truth but still celebrated with all the decorations as a reminder of our past and what the TRUE FOCUS on these HOLY DAYS is meant to be.

No, my mom didn't lie to me and I didn't lie to my children, and so the tradition of relaying the history of it all and why we decorate as we do is passed from one generation to the next. Jesus is the reason for the Season. Merry Christmas everyone!

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[JoJo]

No, my mom didn't lie to me and I didn't lie to my children, and so the tradition of relaying the history of it all and why we decorate as we do is passed from one generation to the next. Jesus is the reason for the Season.Merry Christmas everyone!

Yes, I don't ban Santa stories, decorations, etc. from our home. We watch Santa Claus movies and such and have fun watching it. I'm not against fiction. What I am against is believing in fiction as real and teaching my children that something is real when it's not. Otherwise, Santa movies and decorations are, in my opinion, just fun.

 

[jmespinosa]

Our thing on the Santa Clause thing is we don't tell them anything about it. They know that it was made up by Coca Cola. They know about the real St. Nick and the good deed he had done. We though do not celebrate Christmas. We feel that if we tell our kids that is when Jesus was born or about Santa that we are lying to them. The bible says no sin is greater than another. So we didn't want them to think it was OK to lie even if it is something that small as long as no one really gets hurt or makes someone feel better. A lie is a lie no matter what. They do know that we think that Jesus was born in the fall (haven't got the chance to study it completely), but we do know that his actual bday isn't on December 25th so we aren't going to celebrate it on that day.

 

[Feldew]

I think it's silly to try to make them believe. My family tried, but I knew better: still I felt obligated to pretend I believed because I didn't want to make them sad (knowing that I knew Santa wasn't real), but faking that was really embarrassing.

It was also annoying to be in school and tell people he isn't real, and get a whole bunch of stupid kids picking on you because they believe in something fake and you don't. I didn't have much respect for my peers at that age, if you couldn't tell. xD So please, for the sake of intelligent children, don't tell your kids Santa is real. haha

 

[micaela]

My daughter is five and she never has believed in santa clause. I made it a point to let her know that there was no such thing as santa clause when she was really little. She knows exactly why we have Christmas. My dad also reminds her every year that there is no santa clause, easter bunny etc.. (he is JW)

 

[Ema]

I have nothing personally against Santa. But, Santa is taking the place of Jesus. It is Jesus' birthday and we need to give the birthday the gifts. Instead Santa is giving our children gifts Instead of giving they are learning to get.

 

[Joshua David]

Hello everyone,

Personally I am very opposed to suggesting, encouraging, or outright lying to your kids about Santa being real. It does nothing to bring to light about the birth of our Savior, and I find that it has done a wonderful job of distracting kids away from learning the true meaning of Christmas. Now I am not saying that a child can not be taught the true meaning of Christmas if he believes in Santa, but I can tell you that to a young child that believes in Santa, their attention is on Santa around Christmas, and not on Christ, even if they have been told the "Story in the bible".

I guess, my feelings are best explained by a picture of a billboard that I saw online one time. It has the picture of the smiling, kindly, grandfather looking Santa Clause, and the caption said, "Now Children, when you finally figure out the truth about me, remember what you parents said about Jesus."

In other words, ( at least this is how I took it ) Santa was telling the kids, "If you parents lied to you about me, then they probably lied to you about Jesus too."

Sorry, I do not want to stand before God to explain why I encouraged my children to believe a lie. I have plenty of other stuff I am going to have to give account for.

Joshua David

 

[With LoveSherri]

I guess, my feelings are best explained by a picture of a billboard that I saw online one time. It has the picture of the smiling, kindly, grandfather looking Santa Clause, and the caption said, "Now Children, when you finally figure out the truth about me, remember what you parents said about Jesus."

This is the thing that first comes to mind when discussions of Santa Clause come up. My husband and his sister grew up believing in Santa, the cookies, the whole sha-bang. When his sister was 14, her friends laughed at her for believing in Santa, but she didn't know yet that he wasn't real and she was devastated! My husband said that things like Santa Claus got him questioning his faith because if Santa isn't real, the Easter Bunny isn't real, then what about that baby in the manger? Just another childhood icon that isn't important or real. I personally don't mind Santa, he's a holiday icon, but my husband and I both agree we won't be teaching our child that's he's real, when he isn't. We don't want them to clump Jesus up with Santa when they get older.

 

[Shimei]

My 2 cents - we do not celebrate; christmas, easter, or halloween because of their pagan origins. i was shocked when i started digging into origins some 30 years ago. My wife had to be convinced however. So we put it to the test. We asked the Lord to show us if He did not want us to celebrate christmas. i had read about the origins of the fur tree and the god Brachius. So we decided to put a living tree in our house instead of a dead one, and then transplant it outside afterwards. We followed the instructions for aclimating it to the outside and planted it. It died. The next year we decided to transplant a tree from the nursery to our yard outside of the window. It died. The next year we dug one up from our woods and transplanted it to the yard. It died. She was convinced and christmas died to us as well. We tend to celebrate the Feasts instead...they have real meaning. i've always been amazed that people find fantasy (someone lying to you very convincingly) to be entertaining or fun?? i guess i'm just too much of a realist. i find the truth much more entertaining. To each his own.