Posts Tagged ‘Santa’
How Our Family “Does” Christmas.
Thursday, December 8th, 2011
Now that we’ve had children we’ve really had to think about the how and what of Christmas. How do we teach the girls the real meaning of Christmas? How are are we going to keep it Christ centered? What are we going to tell them about Santa?
A couple of years ago I learned about the Elf On The Shelf. I thought it was a really cute idea. You buy this little elf and hide him around your house each night so your kids can find him in the morning. You tell the kids that the elf is “always watching” and will tell Santa if they are naughty. The kids enjoy trying to find the elf’s new location every day and are more aware of their behavior and how it might affect what they will get for Christmas. I thought this was a cute idea so we got one. My girls named him “Diego”.
See him? He’s trying to blend in with all my other ornaments, waiting to be found by Katelyn and Madelyn.
We liked the Elf On The Shelf idea until we started thinking about how wanted to “do” Christmas for our family as our kids were growing up. Did we want Santa and his Elf to be the main focus? Did we want our girls to base their behavior on “Santa watching” and being put on the naughty girl list and therefore get less presents for Christmas? After our girls started getting a little older and understanding more what Christmas was about we really wanted to make Christmas only about Jesus. And family. And thankfulness.
We were finding it hard to focus on Jesus when the girls were thinking about Santa and getting lots of Christmas presents. Katelyn started really asking about Santa so we finally told the girls the truth. They weren’t really bothered by it. Plus, they were still young enough for it not to rock their world that the jolly man didn’t really exist! We did give them the order that they may NOT TELL THEIR FRIENDS THE TRUTH ABOUT SANTA. We explained that many children still believe in Santa and that they would ruin the surprise if my girls walked around telling their friends he doesn’t exist. I know that “doing Santa” is a personal decision for each family and it’s not my job (or my children’s) to take away that choice from them.
We haven’t erased Santa completely from our home. We are actually going to learn about Saint Nicholas and who he was and where Santa originated from. The character of Santa is actually derived from a man who did some wonderful and charitable things!
We still read stories about Santa and watch Christmas cartoons with him in it. Then there’s the Christmas songs on the radio. But we do all of these things knowing that the spirit of Christmas is Jesus. And we read lots of books and listen to lots of Christmas songs that talk about Jesus’ birth and real reason for the season. I will share some of the Christ centered Christmas activities we’re doing in a later blog post.
These are some thoughts we had that really helped make the Santa/no Santa decision for us:
1. Do I want my kids being good because it’s the right thing to do and GOD is watching? Or because an Elf is going to tell Santa about how good or bad my kids are being and that reflects on how many gifts they are getting. I didn’t want my girls only focused on getting lots of gifts.
2. How could I, in good conscious, let Santa play the starring role on the day we celebrate our Savior’s birth? I felt like trying to do both would only confuse our girls.
3. In trying to teach our girls responsibility with money, being happy with less and being thankful for what we do have, I want them to know it is us who buys them their gifts. Not only do we want to set a good precedent but I don’t want Santa getting credit for our hard work! And trust me, our girls get plenty of gifts. Whether they get 5 or 15 gifts we want them to be thankful for their gifts and understand that hard earned money was spent on their gifts. And that our family isn’t going into debt so they can have a ton of gifts to open.
4. We want them to understand that their behavior is not going to affect how many gifts they get. Being extra good isn’t going to get them more and more gifts and being “bad” isn’t going to make us buy them less. We’re not going to hold a grudge the whole month of December for any kind of naughty behavior and on Christmas morning give them a lump of coal. Our parenting should reflect love, mercy and grace. We deal with naughty behavior as it happens, they apologize and all is forgiven. We don’t keep a Naughty Or Nice list.
The elf still makes his appearance each Christmas season. But it’s not to keep tabs on my girls’ behavior. Each night I hide him before I go to bed and the girls can’t wait to wake up the next morning and try to find him. Then once he’s found they hide him for me. I think this will be a fun tradition to start.
I write this blog post to share with you how we celebrate Christmas and “do” Santa etc. Not to judge or tell others how they should do it. As I mentioned before, each family has to celebrate Christmas as they feel lead to. I hope I was able to coherently and concisely convey my heart on this subject!
How do you celebrate Christmas? Do your kids believe in Santa?
