Some of you reading this journal may be uncomfortable or angry with the stand Howard and I have taken on Santa Claus. That is fine. I am not going to judge anyone for their parenting decisions even where those parenting decisions diverge from my own. Parenting is hard enough without having others tell you what you should and shouldn’t do. The only parents I would pass judgements on are the ones who “parent” without thinking and even then I mostly feel pity and concern for the neglected children. I doubt anyone reading this journal falls into that category.
Do I believe it is possible to be a loving and thoughtful parent while still allowing/teaching belief in Santa Claus? Absolutely. I grew up inside the Santa mythos and if I can be as good a parent as my parents were, I’ll count myself as sucessful. Every parent must find their own balance for what they teach their children. All I ask/hope is that parents think through what they are teaching and direct it, rather than letting their kids drift in the societal flow.
good advice…even though i love my kids, i know that there are times that i am seriously delinquent in how i need to teach them…but i do the best that i can…i think my biggest struggle has been how to relate to them ’cause they are still pretty little, but as they are getting older, i am getting to be a better parent, but i’m also able to relate to them better as they are getting older and i’m starting to enjoy them more…anyway, thanks again for the reminder…
All right, I’m lost. Why would anyone be angry with your stand on Santa Claus? What gives them the right to have an opinion in the first place?
When I tell people we don’t do Santa at our house I get several different kinds of responses. There are people in the world for whom Santa is almost a religeon. They are aghast. To them leaving out Santa completely destroys the magic of Christmas for the kids and turns me into an evil parent. Then there are the parents who fear that I intend to spoil Santa for their kids. I don’t and wouldn’t do that. Most people just look at me oddly and change the subject.
I try not to bring up Santa. I don’t feel evangelical about excluding Santa from Christmas. I just don’t make him a big part of my family’s celebrations.
It was worse than an empty manger–the manger was gone too!
I grew up in a home where Santa Claus brought the presents but my parents never tried to make a believer out of a non-believer. When we were ready to understand Santa was a pretend way of sharing gifts with those we care about, we were allowed to make that transition. I tried to raise my children in the same type of atmosphere.
Early in December we put up the Nativity Set. Each child in turn from youngest to oldest was allowed to tell the Christmas story and dramatize it with the Nativity figures. No one was allowed to interrupt or correct or add to their version. (Over the years we learned that the Wise Men parked their camels behind the stable and that those 3 Wise Guys brought gifts of gold, Frankenstein and Myrhh.) Letters to Santa were written early because once that was taken care of we could concentrate on what we wanted to give to others and how we could make Christmas special for others. The Christmas story was read from the Bible each Christmas Eve.
Having said all that, let me say that I am proud of my daughter Sandra and her husband Howard for creating a Christ-centered atmosphere in their home. I am proud that they were disappointed when Christ was left out of the Christmas program. I am proud that they had the understanding that someone put a lot of effort into that program and had the restraint not to say anything to hurt those people’s feelings. I am sure they will now take appropriate steps to help make sure that Baby Jesus will not be left out in the future.
I am sorry that they had this disappointing experience. My own mother always used to say that every cloud has a silver lining. As my own children grew up and difficulties happened, they would sometimes challenge me by saying, “OK Mom, where’s the silver lining?” And we usually found one. I think there may be a silver lining here. It appears to me that this experience has caused Sandra and Howard to understand more fully how important Christ is to them and how empty the program was without Him. I wonder if their personal committment to make sure Christmas is centered around Christ and the story of His birth will be even stronger as a result of this experience?
Merry Christmas to Sandra and Howard’s special friends. You are lucky to know this special family!
Story Lady
Tangled web of small lies
Hey, I like the stand you take on Santa. I understand your reasons are possibly different from mine however.
I firmly believe that if I have kids I’ll do the same thing. Why? Because I don’t believe in lying to them. It may seem like a small lie to make their christmas better could completely disillusion them later on. If they can’t trust you to tell them the truth, who can they trust? They discover you’ve been lying to them about the easter bunny, santa, and so on. They will wonder what else have you been lying to them about. Think of all the things you tell them about strangers, smoking, drugs, etc that they could now start questioning…
Re: Tangled web of small lies
You’ve hit exactly on the point that started Howard and I in our Non-belief of Santa. Kiki was a toddler and had no contact with television or schoolmates or anything. We realized that it wasn’t just a matter of allowing her to believe, if we wanted her to believe in Santa, we were going to have to sit down and diligently teach her to believe. That felt really wrong. We refused to do it. We’ve been Santa non-believers ever since.
This is going to seem like it’s coming out of absolutely nowhere, since I read Schlock Mercenary but don’t visit the forums or either LJ regularly, not to mention it’s almost a week after the fact.
Still, I wanted to mention that my parents took a similar approach about Santa. They told me and my brother about some of the stories it came from, including the St. Nicholas tale, and explained that Santa Claus was a story and a make-believe game that parents pretended with their children. (Thanking them directly for gifts in hung stockings was considered breaking the rules of the game a bit, but we did it sometimes anyway in the excess of enthusiasm. ;)) The reasoning was basically the same, of course: they figured that telling us a fictional story as if it were truth was lying, and that this way we would have all the fun and none of the mistrust or weird trauma that seems to be a danger of the other way.
Of course, at some point, possibly right at the beginning, they also explained that some parents didn’t really make the “game” part very clear, had believed in it themselves and wanted the same experience for their kids or whatever, and why they’d chosen their way.
…One of my first memories regarding Santa actually involves a book about a kid finding out he wasn’t real and being told the story of St. Nicholas. Heh.
(Well, somewhat similar. They did make it an active game, if not a very significant one.)