OR
It can't be both.
I have a real problem at Christmas. We teach our children not to lie, yet we lie to them about Santa giving presents. I would like to explain my convictions.
Besides the lying, there is a real plan by Satan himself to take away from anything to do with Christ. He wants to confuse us, make things seem harmless that are really anti-God and get our minds to ok things that are substitutes for true Christian living.
Santa draws a bigger crowd that Christ. How does he do it? By becoming a tangible counterfeit. I just made a small list of some of the attributes of God and of Santa.
| Christ/God | SANTA |
| Loving | Loving |
| Knows everything | Knows everything |
| God is Good | Santa is Good |
| God is faithful | Santa is faithful, once a year |
| God is personal | Santa knows each person |
| Is from a different world, yet lives here | From a different place, yet travels here |
| All powerful | Can make reindeer fly. |
| Loves to give to His Children | Loves to give to all who are good |
| Watches us all the time | Watches us all the time and records what we are doing, good or bad |
If we are telling our children that there is a Santa and later they find there is not how will this not only conflict with you telling them not to lie, but also their relationship with the Lord? We can't see God. Yet it takes faith in an unseen being to be saved. Will this not throw doubts on their faith?
I look at anything that is a counterfeit Christ, or anything that pulls our attention from the real meaning of the day (same goes for Easter bunny etc) as a form of an anti-Christ that is put there by Satan's design.
I know it is hard to buck the world. I never told my kids there was a Santa, they never believed it and thought it was just something funny that people believed in. I remember one year I had my 2 yr. old in the shopping cart and a man behind us was asking her if Santa was going to come and bring her lots of things. She just smiled, and then the man , maybe in his 40's, went on for a bit and she just smiled some more. As we were leaving him, my 2 year old said "I guess his mommy never told him there was no Santa"!
We had people not want our kids to play with their kids when it was near Christmas, Christian parents! who thought that it would ruin the day for their kids if our kids told them.
"Speak the truth in Love" "Teach your children" "Lie not to one another", the Bible is clear about what we should be telling our Children and teaching them. Take a stand for the Lord and bring out the joy of what God did for us and that we give because HE gave the greatest gift of all HIS SON!
5 comments:
Have you ever noticed the similarities between Satan and Santa? look at their names. Same letters, different order. Satan's place is hell- flames forever. Santa comes down the chimney- yet the fire doesn't harm him. Santa has his elves who do whatever he says- Satan has demons.
Seems a little odd to me.
As a parent myself I can't understand how parents would spend that much time and money Christmas shopping, only to say that some made up guy did it all!
We refer to Santa as Satan Clause. I'm sure people love hearing us walking through stores saying that! After all we're ruining the "magic" of Christmas right?
I'll leave the same comment here that I left on Jes' blog. :-)
Neither Paul nor I grew up believing in Santa, so for us he isn’t an essential part of Christmas, and so we will be raising our children the same way. We also feel that if we put less focus on Santa, then we can put more focus on Jesus. We don’t think Santa is "evil". We will avoid Santa decorations in our own home until our kids get old enough to not be confused and understand what exactly the Santa story is and why it’s just a story. We enjoy movies like "Miracle on 34th Street" - but maybe we’ll lay off them for a few years when our kids are young. Perhaps we’ll change our minds, but that’s where we stand right now. I don’t think it’s a big deal. For us, we just feel that it will be easier to keep our kids’ focus on Jesus if we don’t play up Santa too much.
I’m not sure how I feel about the "I don’t want to lie to my kids" argument. Yes, I hope I don’t lie to my kids, but I wonder if practically we do anyways. Like when my parents explained to me at age 6 why I couldn’t wave around the middle finger. :-) (This was before I knew about the birds and the bees… I didn’t figure out the REAL meaning of the middle finger until I was in middle school.) I asked my mom if she ever lied to me, and she said she’d lie about presents or surprises I was getting - especially if I had asked her outright about it. For me, the lying-to-your-kids aspect of believing in Santa isn’t as much of a motivation for me to not preach Santa in our household.
I have to disagree with you. Shocking, I know. Anyway check out my reponse over at Jes' blog on this same matter.
I don't care if you lie to your kids or not. But I have a problem with other parents who expect me to tell my kids to lie so that their kids can keep believing in Santa.
Um, no. We're not out to wreck your holiday, but if the subject comes up, my kids WILL tell your kids the truth.
I'm all for tolerating different points of view on this subject. Mine is that I won't lie to my kids, and I don't expect my children to tell lies to be polite.
I told my kids not to lie, but to do their best not to just blurt out that there was no Santa. To my knowledge they never "ruined" Christmas for anyone. It was like what my 2 yr old did, just smiled and then said something to me privately. It is a touchy subject, and I do not think people realize the seriousness of what they are doing with the Santa myth.
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