Santa and Christmas

Since we're now approaching the "parenting years," there's a whole new slew of questions for Joe and I to answer. Pertaining to Christmas (which is fast approaching) is the question, Will we introduce the idea of Santa Clause to our children?

Our decision has been no. We aren't going to actively introduce (or promote) the idea of Santa to our children nor will we join the camp of anti-Santa activists either. After reading Treasuring God in Our Traditions, Noel Piper made some points that were quite interesting on the subject of Santa, Christmas, and children.

She listed some reasons the Piper family chose not to include Santa in their Christmas stories and decorations:

"First, fairy tales are fun, but we don't ask our children to believe them."

"Second, celebrating with Santa and manger will postpone a child's clear understanding of what the real truth of God is."

Noel expounds on her second point by saying, "It's very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part truth and part imagination to find the crumbs of reality. We want our children to understand God as fully as they're able, at whatever age they are. So we try to avoid anything that would inhibit or distort that understanding."

"Third, think how confusing it must be to a literal-thinking, uncritical preschooler. Santa is so much like what we're trying all year to teach our children about God. Look at the "attributes" of Santa:

• He's omniscient--he sees everything you do.
• He rewards you if you're good.
• He's omnipresent--at least, he can be everywhere in one night.
• He gives you good gifts.
• He's the most famous "old man in the sky" figure.

Noel goes on to say that there is a deeper level that young children can't yet comprehend that Santa is not at all like God, most importantly that God gave the gift of His Son when we weren't good at all (Ro. 5:8). "He gave his gift to us to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough."

It makes sense to me. Why, when we're trying to teach our children who God is and His purpose for sending Jesus, mix it with folklore when we should be feeding them the truth?

Do I think introducing Santa in children will inhibit them from knowing God? No. But it could inhibit them from knowing and understanding God in a meaningful way from an early age. Isn't that, as Christian parents, what we want for our children?

Treasuring God in our Traditions

I finally finished reading Noel Piper's Treasuring God in our Traditions. I thought I would have gotten through it much faster than I did. It is only 105 pages long and I started reading it in the beginning of the year. Nevertheless, I have finished it.

The basic premise is that our traditions can help the next generation (focusing on our children and family) treasure God and give them a taste of His amazing worth. Noel Piper goes about describing how we can do this in our family through everyday traditions in the family, such as mealtime prayers and reading to our children, and the "especially" traditions of birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, Easter, Christmas, and even funerals. There are many great ideas for making our traditions not only meaningful, but have an eternal significance.

The question in Treasuring God in our Traditions is, how do we demonstrate that God is at the heart of every celebration? Noel says, "Through him we have birth and life and every thing and every person in our lives. So God is the reason we have anything to celebrate. He is the ultimate source of any of our celebrations."

Ultimately, our traditions should have God at the center. Noel sums up the book with these points three points,

"Let's just remind ourselves of what we're after:

• Remembering what God did for his people, for us, and
• giving glory to God for what he's done,
• so our children and their children will know him."