The Santa Conundrum

The dilemma about how much to tell my kids about Santa started years before I became a mother, or even a wife. I remember a college friend telling me that her parents never made Santa a part of their family's Christmas celebrations. The kids didn't receive any gifts from Santa, but they also weren't told that he wasn't real. They just didn't make a big deal out of it either way. As an adult, this friend told me that she thought her parents' approach was perfect, and she intended to do the same when she had kids.

Well this concept blew me away, but in a good way. I was impressed enough by the idea that I remembered it for years, and after Scot and I were married and discussing traditions that we wanted to carry on with our own family, I brought this up. When Scot was growing up, Santa only brought the contents of their stockings, as well as a small gift or two. According to Scot, his mom didn't want Santa to get the credit for the big stuff. So when I told him that I was leaning toward not pushing the concept of Santa, it wasn't a stretch for him.

Up until this year, it hasn't really been an issue. We've never told our kids that any of their gifts are from Santa. But Riley is old enough now to have picked up the idea that Santa brings toys to kids, even though we have never told her that. She had been mentioning him quite a bit in the last few weeks, but I felt strongly that some sort of action was needed when, in a prayer at bedtime, she thanked God for Santa.

Since that night I've been pondering how to address this. I really like the idea of just not making an issue of it at all, but I really don't like how obsessed she is becoming with Santa.

I remembered an article I read last year by Pastor Mark Driscoll in the Washington Post's On Faith column. He and his wife have taught their children that "Saint Nick was a wonderful man who loved and served Jesus faithfully. So, we gladly include him in our Christmas traditions to remind us of what it looks like for someone to live a life of devotion to Jesus as God." They have separated the truth from the folklore, in order to not demonize Santa. Love that!

I came across this blog post about a lesson that one mom did with her children about the similarities between Santa and Jesus Christ. "We talked about how Santa is actually a symbol for Jesus, and everything we love about Santa is really everything we love about Jesus." Awesome!

This is going to be the topic for our family night lesson next week, and I'll be using ideas from both of these articles.

What are your thoughts? I'm wondering if this is a topic that other people have strong opinions on, or if I'm just one of a crazy few. What is/was Santa's role in your family's Christmas traditions, and would you change anything if you were starting over?