As for me and my house...

I will get on my soapbox now, and hopefully not get pelted with virtual tomatoes. If you can sift through my initial tirade, you might find some useful ideas at the bottom. :)

I don't like Santa Claus. That's why we don't teach Ethan about him or take him to have his photo taken with Santa in the mall. In fact, we drove past a giant inflatable Santa the other day and he called it Noah! I didn't feel the need to correct him at this point in his life, because I'm intentionally trying to NOT expose him to the story of Santa, at least not yet. Three-year-olds tend to believe everything you say, so I want to only present the truth to him at this point.

I really think the Christian community needs to re-think our passion for Santa, and here's my reasons.

1) Santa is all about giving to those who are good. It's an extrinsic motivator for kids to be good - act in the right ways and you'll get presents from the Eye In the Sky this year. That is so opposite who God really is. Sure, he sees you when you're sleeping and he knows when you're awake, but you don't have to worry about not pouting and not crying, because God is merciful and gracious. He doesn't give you coal in your stocking when you're bad, he gives you a Savior.

2) Getting presents from some dude at the North Pole who only makes contact once a year doesn't encourage thankfulness. In fact, what it encourages is consumerism and greed (which Colossians calls idolatry). Kids write these giant lists of things they want and when they get some or all of the items on their list from "Santa", they have no one to thank. On the other hand, when they receive gifts from people they know, they are required to give thanks. I would much rather have my child have the gift of a grateful heart than a few years of the supposed "magic" of Santa Claus.

3) And this whole thing with the Elf on the Shelf who "reports back to Santa" every night? Maybe I'm missing the point but it appears to me like a more extravagant way to deceive our children. And it's all in the name of fun, right? Honestly, my idea of fun with my kids doesn't involve lying to them. Pretending, yes. But only when we all know that we're pretending. So maybe when my kids are old enough to know the difference, we will have more fun with the Santa story. But right now when they don't really understand the difference between real and pretend, it's not worth it. I read something a long time ago that really stuck with me. No matter how much you ham up the Santa story and get them all excited about it every year, eventually they will learn the truth. They WILL learn that their parents deceived them. And at the age when they start questioning the existence of Santa, they are prone to start questioning the other things their parents taught them too. Such things as the "real" meaning of Christmas - why would they believe you about Jesus when they learned that they can't believe you about Santa?

But if you remove Santa and his endless bag of gifts from the Christmas scene, what do you do instead? First of all, it's important to remember that people loved Christmastime long before there was Santa Claus.  Santa Claus, while initially based on St. Nicholas, is really an invention of Coca-Cola that the makers of movies, books, and TV shows went gaga over.

I have to admit that for many years, even up until last year, I didn't think Christmas was all that great. Once I got over the gift-opening excitement that occurred as a child, I just stopped caring about Christmas. I always felt a hole in my spirit at Christmas, and actually tried to start up some Christ-centered traditions in my family to try to fill that hole. I remember making an advent wreath one year and reading the Christmas story on Christmas Day on another. Not that my parents did anything wrong at Christmas, I just always felt like there was something missing. Yes, we talked about it being about Christmas, but I felt like all the Christians I knew were just paying the Nativity story lip service. (NOTE: they might not have been, that's just how I feel about it!)

This year, for the first time, I feel like that withering of my spirit around Christmastime has been halted. In fact, I feel like my spirit is learning to rejoice in Christmas. I think it's because for the first time, we're really DOING advent. Ethan is excited about all the little traditions we're starting, and I'm finally starting to feel like Christmas really is amazing, exciting, and transformative. So here's what we're doing this year, and I hope to be able to do more next year. (I'm hoping to add in some ideas based on St. Nicholas' life)

1) My co-worker wrote a beautiful Advent devotional and we've been using that along with a homemade advent wreath and candles on Sundays.

2) We've been doing the daily Jesse Tree devotional from Ann Voskamp's blog. Ethan loves the pictures and the Bible stories that I paraphrase, and I love reading her daily devotionals to go along with it. I see us doing this every year, and actually getting more out of it every year.

3) Ethan has a felt advent calendar that has little characters from the Christmas story in each pocket. No chocolate required, at least not this year! He just loves seeing who's next. We also made him a paper chain to rip off one link every night before bed. Believe it or not, he actually sleeps with the paper links!

4) I've been writing a devotional specifically for 2-5 year olds and we've been working through the Christmas material with Ethan this month. I have to say there's something incredible special about seeing my husband and son re-enact the Christmas story using stuffed animals. (I wish I had videotaped it!) Or trekking up and down the stairs with Ethan only to be told when we get to his room that there's no room and we'll have to sleep in the bathroom. I think we're at an advantage this year because he doesn't remember Christmas from last year, so this is all brand new to him. It's so beautiful to see him so engaged in the story that it comes out in his playtime. This morning he wanted to knock at the doors of all the inns again! I'm looking forward to the end of the week when we'll create a makeshift manger to put in his room, and wrap a baby doll to sleep in there until Christmas.

5) We do still give gifts, but I think I'm even almost at the point of not giving gifts at Christmas Day anymore. I love what Ann Voskamp does with her family - for the last 2 weeks leading up to Christmas, their family spends time each morning choosing a gift from the various catalogues - Compassion, World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, Gospel for Asia. My dad has been wanting our extended family to do this for a few years, and I think I might actually almost be ready. Although I did read something cool on facebook the other day - someone mentioned that their kids each get 3 gifts because that's how many Jesus got. I thought that was a neat way to bring perspective to the gift-giving. Because I LOVE to buy gifts for my kids, so I definitely need perspective.

But here's the question that's probably burning on the minds of some people reading this: Is my kid going to be the one telling all the kids that "Santa isn't real!"? Likely not. I think it's more likely that he'd be rather oblivious to those conversations when he's young, not really realizing that some kids actually believe he's a real guy. I never grew up believing Santa was a real guy but I also never told anyone else he wasn't real. It was basically a non-issue for me. I think those conversations are much more likely to happen with the child whose parents told him Santa was real, and when he finds out the truth, is determined to tell every other child around what he's just learned. Think about it - we read Curious George and Frosty the Snowman books, and never once has Ethan said "those guys are not real." They're just in a storybook so he doesn't actually expect Curious George to waltz into our home. So I feel like if we keep Santa to the storybooks, it probably won't be an issue. Because in all fairness, the Christmas Eve part of the Santa story is pretty fun, and I don't expect to be able to (or even to want to) fully isolate our children from that part of culture.

I just want to keep Christmas about Jesus, really and for real and for always. We all say that's what Christmas is really about, but we don't live it. I want to try to live it. A girl can try, right?

And now off my soapbox. Please don't hate me. :)