The first 25 December 24ths of my life mark a family tradition that I will always cherish: Christmas Eve at Nanny and Papa’s house. Every year on Christmas Eve the family gathered to celebrate, and several characteristics marked our celebration. Thirty to forty people gathered including family, friends, and often others who had no family. My grandmother prepared a feast ensuring that the bounty of the Lord’s goodness was abundant among our family. The house was loud and active, full of excitement and joy to be with the family. Grandchildren were always responsible to share a talent with the family, maybe a play, a song, or a special reading. We read the biblical account from Luke 2:1-20 and prayed. There was one year no one stopped me, and I read the whole chapter, all 52 verses. (That’s when they knew I was called to preach.) Every person enjoyed an abundance of gifts.
One other tradition among our family involved the older grandkids hazing the younger ones. This typically centered on one of two storylines. Either a graphic story of Santa’s tragic demise was relayed — and subsequently his inability to bring gifts to our home. Or a regular “hearing noises on the roof” caused us to rush out the door in search of a near-sighting, only to be locked out or scared in the dark.
Now I know what you may be thinking. “What? He’s a pastor, and he celebrated Santa at Christmas?” Yes. Well, no, we didn’t celebrate Santa at Christmas. But, yes, part of our celebration involved Santa. I’m not sure when it happened, but to hear some speak it seems as though Santa’s participation at Christmas can only be idolatry for Christians. Excluding Santa from your Christmas celebration does not make one more distinctively Christian. But it can ruin the fun.
How is it that we can find Christian themes in every dark movie, lewd tv show, song, or other cultural expression, but when it comes to Christmas, Santa Claus is a bloated distraction that only confuses the Christian meaning of the holiday? I tend to smell some “unhelpfulness” in this.
I offer four reasons why I believe Santa can help your Christmas celebration, and why I would encourage you to use him if you so choose. (Obviously I’m not trying to press you against your conscience in this.)
1. Santa Claus was never intended to replace Jesus, but to point people to him. I can only speak from my family traditions, but then again, so can anyone else.
I was taught that the tradition of Santa began as a man who loved Jesus and wanted to give gifts to others, especially the poor, so they could experience God’s love, too. I want my kids to get this, and I want the world to know that Jesus is the giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17) and that every gift on this earth should remind us of “how much more” our Father God delights in giving the perfect gift of salvation to his children (Luke 11:13). Santa only confuses the issue when we talk more about him to our kids in December than we do about Jesus the whole year.
The world steals, perverts, and redefines many good things. Just because someone made Santa the purpose of Christmas doesn’t mean your celebration of the season must be defined by the same. Dad and Mom, YOU DEFINE YOUR CELEBRATION by placing Christ at the center of the traditions you build in your family. My kids now know there is no Santa. But they too still enjoy a little bit of the excitement and anticipation of waiting on that morning, as do I. Every gift, and each one we give, should point the recipient to the perfect gift and gift-giver, Jesus.
I personally testify that one of the reasons I am so confident in the Lord Jesus and his desire to give good gifts to me is because my mother and father were passionate about giving. If you’ve ever met my parents, you’ve probably experienced this by a gift you received from them as well. They sacrificed to make it happen not only at Christmas but throughout the year. My mom is notorious for including gifts that are worthless little trinkets. But even those worthless gifts remind me that she loves me and God does even more. I’ve never been to one counseling session or questioned God because I found out Santa was a sham, a total conspiracy of my parents.
At the end of your tradition and celebration, who gets the real credit (glory) for Christmas, Jesus or Santa?
2. Teach your children that there are rewards in this world for good behavior and obedience to authority.
This builds strong character and good morals. Merit and reward are not contradictory to salvation, but in harmony with it. Santa gets confused with Jesus when we confuse reward with free gift, obedience with salvation. Good works of any type, measure, or degree will never produce salvation. But salvation always produces good works. The fact that Santa isn’t Jesus means he needs to check his “naughty and nice list.” That list is all he’s got to work from. Santa can’t measure or deliver salvation, and his gifts are not our god.
A strong reward system for obedience would be a helpful addition to many parenting styles that I encounter today. Too often I witness parents using gifts to “bribe” kids away from bad behavior. This is a poor substitute and practice, makes for counter-intuitive parenting, and trains children to be rebellious, disobedient, and manipulative for selfish pleasures. Disobedient behavior needs firm discipline not “bribed obedience.”
Parents must diagnose disobedience. We must know our kid’s sins so we can lead them to fight for holiness. The only way a parent can cultivate a heart for Jesus is to measure obedience (law and discipline) in order to demonstrate grace (gospel). If there is no law and discipline, kids have no sense of need for nor understanding of grace. The gospel leads Christian parents to discipline our kids’ bad behavior and give them good gifts.
I hear many parents whine and ream their kids about bad behavior, yet exact no discipline. The bad behavior gets dismissed and the child gets whatever they want because the parents are trying to love them. The problem is when you fail to discipline bad behavior, you extract love from the equation. Then when you give a gift it cannot be out of love but must come from some other motivation. This pattern reinforces that selfish pleasures can be gained with enough whining, begging, or manipulation. It sets a child’s hope not on the parent’s love but on the parent’s love as a means to get what they want.
Santa doesn’t promise or provide what Jesus freely gives. Make sure your children know the difference and there will be no confusion. From my earliest days I knew I didn’t get gifts because my behavior earned them. I always expected a bag of switches but got a tree full or presents. When gifts came in such abundance from my parents I learned how much they really loved me, even when my behavior was bad. The parents who disciplined me hard (you know, in that way where “it hurt them more than me”), were the same ones who lavished their love on me with gifts. Discipline your kids’ bad behavior and give them gifts because you love them.
Ask yourself, “When the gifts are unwrapped, are my children more grateful or more demanding and emboldened with self-entitlement?”
3. When you celebrate Christmas, be clear that Jesus is real and Santa points to him.
Santa can be fun without destroying your kid’s conscience. You are the one that determines this. This doesn’t mean you have to be a stiff kill-joy of harsh truth about the man. Fun can be as much in the spirit of the celebration as in the actual words, how you talk about it as much as what you actually say. I knew Santa wasn’t real long before my parents told me and long before I let them know I knew. I didn’t want this good thing to end.
The time will come when they learn that Santa is not real. This shouldn’t destroy their self-image or worldview. If it does, you built something into them that was never intended and the sooner you stop that the better. Everything in this world will one day cease, but Jesus will never cease. The greater joy than getting gifts from Santa, in my experience, is becoming Santa and giving gifts. Learning who Jesus is and what he has done always leads to living like him.
If your celebration culminates more in gifts than in Jesus, it may be that you celebrate Santa too much. But if you celebrate Jesus throughout the month leading up to Christmas Day, in story, with your church family, giving and other ways, then gifts from Santa will not ruin your kid. They can train your kid to be a generous giver like Jesus.
Ask yourself; “Do our Christmas celebrations and traditions teach and train our family to be generous and live more like Jesus at all times?”
4. Story, fantasy, imagination, and fun that builds excitement and anticipation can be as active at Christmas, as a representation of something (someone) greater, as at every other time of the year.
Santa is not substitute for Jesus. His promise is not better, his hope not more worthy, his gift not greater glory. But he can be used to point us to the One who is greater, Jesus. Santa is only a picture of, a representation, and a broken one at that, of Jesus. He is not the full measure of Christ. But Jesus is the full measure of God, “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3). We should use everything we can in this world to point everyone we can to Jesus. Santa only gets glory if you give it to him. If you cherish Christ in your celebration and teach and train to worship him through your traditions, then all things will point to him in glory.
Lighten up, people. You’re not destroying your kid. You can build great family traditions that will be cherished for life without ruining a right theology of the true Christ. There’s as much room for Santa Claus at Christmas as there is room for any other imperfect signs in this world that point to our perfect Jesus. I’m not telling you to make him part of your nativity scene. But might I suggest you use him and get rid of that stupid, nightmare-inducing shelf-elf. Let Santa be what it was intended to be, a fun way to celebrate with your kids and build family traditions that last a lifetime.
This Christmas, build a family tradition of celebration that teaches your kids to love Jesus more because they cherish the family that trained them to love him more faithfully all year long.
“Hey, are those footprints I hear on the roof?”