Christmas 2011

Christmas came & went in a flash this year.  We stayed home, enjoyed time together & extra days off for our daddy.  We talked a lot about Jesus' birthday and enjoyed a birthday cake in his honor on Christmas night.  It was a really good time other than Seth, Vanessa & Jaxson all being sick (thank you CVS for being open on Christmas Day!).

One of the biggest developments for us this year was trying to make a firm and final decision on how we were going to do the whole Santa thing.  We have been talking it over & really just avoiding it with the boys.  However, being in school this year meant more exposure to the Santa story and therefore the necessity for an actual decision of where we would go with it.  In past years we have just avoided the mall (we actually avoid the mall all year long :) and never really mentioned anything about Santa coming, we just did Christmas.

We decided that this quote pretty much sums up our take on Santa:

"Thinking About Santa...For several reasons, we have chosen not to include Santa Clause in our Christmas stories and decorations. First, fairy tales are fun, but we don't ask our children to believe in them. Second, celebrating with Santa and manger will postpone a child's clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. 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 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. 

But at the deeper level that young children can't comprehend yet, he is not like God at all. For example, does Santa really care if we're bad or good? Think of the most awful kid you can remember. Did he or she ever not get gifts from Santa? What about Santa's spying and then rewarding you if you're good enough? That's not the way God operates. He gave us his gift--his Son--even though we weren't good at all. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" Romans 5:8. He gave his gift to us to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough. 

Helping our children understand God as much as they're able at whatever age they are is our primary goal. But we've also seen some other encouraging effects of not including Santa in our celebration. 

First, I think children are glad to realize that their parents, who live with them all year and know all the worst things about them, still show their love at Christmas. Isn't it better than a funny, old make-believe man who drops in just once a year? 

Second, our children know our family's usual giving patterns for birthdays and special events. They seem to have an instinct about our typical spending levels and abilities. Knowing that their Christmas gifts come from the people they love, rather than from a bottomless sack, can help diminish the "I-want-this, give-me-that" syndrome. 

And, finally, when children know that God's generosity is reflected by God's people, it tends to encourage a sense of responsibility about helping make Christmas good for others." 

- taken from "Treasuring God in our Traditions" by Noel Piper {emphasis mine}

We are not extreme nor are we trying to take the fun out of Christmas. We have not rid our house of santa memorabilia and Jaxson is in love with the 'Polar Bear Express' movie :) We simply talk about the story as if it were a story. They act out Santa in the same way they act out Handy Manny (with their own imagination, not our painting of the Santa story picture). When we talk about the gifts under our tree, we talk about celebrating a birthday. The story of Santa is great fun, but we refuse to run the risk that our kids will be one of those kids who stands to defend Santa and believe with 100% certainty that he exists (because WE have convinced them so), and therefore break down their trust of us to any degree once we have to break the news to them.  We haven't specifically told them 'there is no Santa,' but we keep pointing them back to the story of St Nicholas.

Other than that, we had a normal family Christmas :)  We actually spent the entire month reading Christmas stories & counting down on our advent calendar.  I individually wrapped 25 of our Christmas books and we put them in a box by the tree.  Each night the boys rotated who opened the advent calendar & who picked the book.  It was a wonderful time of excitement & expectation.

Some favorite Christmas gifts this year were Xbox with kinect (along with a TON of games), new watches, binoculars, an awesome Christmas book that has a voice recording of some of our favorite people reading the story, a kick-able piano play gym, bilibos, thermos coffee mugs, a photo book of pictures from our trip to California this summer, Lego Duplos, family games & lots of new clothes.  Thank you to everyone who so generously gave gifts to our family this year.  And a special thank you to God for the gift of his own son.  We are greatly blessed!