Santa's Not Real... And That's Okay.

 "I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manager.' And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!'" 

- Luke 2:10(b)

Sorry if I've burst your bubble with the title of today's blog. But I figured if you're old enough to be on Facebook you're old enough to know the truth. (wink)

But in all seriousness, this is a topic I hadn't expected to blog about. I know I've been MIA the last couple of months due to vacations and honestly, just a lack of blog ideas. Yes, the kids fill me with plenty of inspiration, but I also want to be able to write about more than just my kids and how they teach me about my faith. (as great as that is!)

So just yesterday inspiration struck in the most unusual way. There is another blog going around my Catholic friends' circles on Facebook. At first I had no intention of reading it. The topic was about whether or not your family should promote the tradition of Santa Clause or Not. By the title I could tell it was Pro-Santa. Then a very heated debate arose on one of the posts of this blog and I felt it worth sharing a comment about the blog itself. I had planned on leaving it at that. Of course throughout the day I noticed more friends posting this blog and continued not to think much about it. My phone died and I went on with my day not thinking anything of it.

Around 11pm I went to bed and finally got around to plugging my phone back in. I was a bit restless so I rolled over in the dark and checked my updates. There I saw that the blog had been reposted yet another time... this time by my wife.

In the dark:

Me: You posted that Santa blog huh?
Wife: Yeah, why?
Me: I don't know... Surprised I guess. I just thought it was a pretty negative blog post.
Wife: You haven't read any of the other blogs coming from the other side have you?

No... no I haven't. I don't plan to either. You see, my wife and I are Santa people. We dive full into the Christmas tradition. I'm fully aware that there are people out there that don't support the Santa tradition (some are good friends of ours) and I'm fully okay with that... and as far as I know they are fully okay with us.

You see why I hadn't intended on blogging about this? I didn't know there was anything to blog about. However, I found yesterday's blog to be very... aggressive. I didn't feel the author took the "other side's" reason's very seriously and honestly made a few connections between faith, tradition, and children's well being that simply weren't there, all in the name of Santa and the well being of...faith, tradition, and a child's well being.

So my beautiful wife explained to me last night that there are apparently many, many, many, blogs and posts on the opposite side of the proverbial wall that are just as... aggressive. As a "Santa" person she felt the need to pass along the other blog to show that, "hey, you know what? It's okay to believe in Santa."

So I'm here... I guess, to try and walk down a delicate line that says "you know what? It's okay to believe what you believe." As a Santa guy myself I'm not here to sway "the other side", I'm here to say that there isn't "another side." We're all in this together.

We start decorating early. The day after Thanksgiving we go out and buy our tree and start emptying all the decoration boxes from the basement. On the first day of Advent we sit our kids down and begin reading them Salvation History stories from the Bible via a Jesse Tree tradition we have where after we're done reading the story the kids get to place an ornament on the tree. (As you can see from above these are the only ornaments we wait to put on the tree!).

Come December 6th (the Feast of St. Nicholas) a few things happen. First, we break out our St. Nicholas story book and read to the kids about the true story of an amazing man and Saint in the Catholic Church. This usually becomes a favorite bedtime story throughout the Christmas & Advent seasons. We fill our Christmas stockings with goodies and open them that day. (A new tradition my wife introduced to me! I always had to wait until Christmas day to open my stocking growing up- thanks honey!).

But gifts aren't the only thing Santa (or St. Nick) brings...

He also brings...

Tinsle.

Our Elf on the Shelf. Apparently there is some controversy about Elf on the Shelf as well. From what I can tell the complaint against Santa & Tinsle besides taking away from the sanctity of the season and adding to the materialism that is so prevalent in our world, that it also promotes lying to your child.

I can actually understand this. I see it. I can see how this is viewed as lying. And I guess I'm okay with it.  You see, at the age of 4 I can already tell that my kid(s) aren't idiots. (I'm not saying yours are- I'm just speaking from experience here). Bob knows Tinsle isn't real. We read the book explaining the rules and he sees the pictures of their elf interacting with the kids in the books. He doesn't ask why Tinsle doesn't do that with him. He knows he's not real. Now, he doesn't know how Tinsle moves from room to room. He has noticed that Tinsle basically only moves when he is sleeping. But what it comes down to is he just has a ton of fun trying to find Tinsle in the morning or after a nap. Sure we go along with the story that Tinsle goes back to the North Pole every night and reports to Santa (St. Nick) all that Bob and Mary had done in the day. But we don't rely on that for our parenting. It's a small reinforcement that really, we don't want to rely on. 

We don't want our kids to be good simply because they know they'll get something in the end for being good. We want our kids to be good people. Just cause. 

So we really reinforce the fact that Santa is really St. Nick and that he comes and brings gifts not simply because our kids were good, but because it's the generous thing to do. Jesus came and gave us the gift of His life and the gift of our freedom. St. Nick saw this and wanted to imitate that (in his real life). Now Santa is just continuing the tradition of bringing joy to the world. When Bob gets too fixated on receiving gifts we make him think about what and who he can give a gift to (and why).We try to promote good habits with the resources that we have. For example, we've got a little manger that started out empty at the beginning of Advent. Whenever the kids do something nice (don't talk back, clean up without being asked, share or play nicely, etc) they get to put a piece of "straw" in the manager for baby Jesus.

We do this with Tinsle as well. And, well, we can have a lot of fun with it.

Mary is in the midst of potty training and Tinsle decided to lend a helping hand. (Yes those are panties around his legs.) This is how we introduced wearing panties instead of pull-ups to her. She peed in the toilet for the first time that day after putting the elf in there and she's super excited about wearing her big girl underwear!

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Tinsle wanted to show our Lady honor along with the family. So he's hanging out with her today:

The earlier blog mentioned that using Santa is not only a great way to encourage our children to use their imagination, but it was detrimental to our children if we don't. It was quickly retorted that we don't need Santa to encourage imagination. Our kids do just fine without him.

I couldn't agree more. We don't need Santa to encourage imagination, however it is a great way for me to "play" with my kids and even take it a step further and introduce some very adult topics (prayer, sacrifice, forgiveness, generosity, etc) to my kids in a fun way.

There is something special about the Advent and Christmas seasons whether you believe in Santa or not. The earlier blog quotes an old friend of mine from college, Deacon Matt McDonald, I want to share that quote here:

“We are called to be faithful, we are called be holy, and we are called to perfection. And perfection requires creativity. Santa Claus (Saint Nicholas) emulates Christ to us. In his humility and generosity, he shows us why Christ became incarnate. Our salvation is not something that we’re owed- it’s a complete and total gift that we do not deserve. He makes Christ touchable to us.”

There is something special when we encounter Christ. He leaves a mark on our hearts. Christmas is one of our first experiences (outside of Church- Baptism, First Communion, etc) that we experience Christ. There is a reason non practicing Catholics are sometimes called "Christmas and Easter Catholics"- because they only go to Church on those days. But think about that... they're going to Church. Is it ideal? No, but it is better than nothing and in a lot of cases these people don't know any better to begin with. 

 (A little something St. Nick brought for the kids on Dec. 6th!)

I think Santa can add to that "special"- or what we call "the magic of the season." He brings wonder and awe to our family. I remember that wonder and awe from my childhood. I loved it and that love carried over to my adulthood. Not just in a belief or desire to share Santa, but as I matured and started growing in my faith I was able to relate these feelings I first experienced as a child and apply them to something new and wonderful that I was experiencing as an adult. 

So that's a lot of Pro-Santa for a blog that is "walking the line". So here's the catch... you don't have to believe what I believe. There are some things that are Truth. There are some things that even if you're not Catholic we should all abide by. There are some things as Catholics that we all need to live by. Santa isn't one of them. 

In fact, if your kid one day is playing with Bob and he or she shares with him that Santa isn't real... I'm not going to care. I'll let Bob ask the questions he wants to ask and I'll answer them truthfully. Bob knows Tinsle isn't real... that doesn't mean he doesn't like him. Should your child have to lie to my child for my kid's sake? No! Could he try to avoid popping the bubble? Sure, but I'm not going to require your kid to question his own ethics for such a trivial thing.

(I'm the cute kid to the right sitting on my Pepere's lap)

I remember when I first learned Santa wasn't real. It had been brewing for a few years, but I'm a dreamer and I held on for a while. Every year we'd all go to church as a family. My parents would take me to the 6pm Mass when I was young and the rest of my family went to midnight Mass while I slept at home with a babysitter. As I started to get older they eventually let me start going to midnight Mass. We'd get home and Santa would have already visited. I loved this! It was so exciting! We couldn't open the gifts until the next morning, but they were still there! How cool was that!!!

So one year we all piled into the car and as my parents were pulling out I saw through the window my sister pulling out gifts and placing them under the tree. I'm not going to lie, my heart was a bit disapointed headed to Mass that year. When we returned sure enough Santa had delivered his presents. And I knew.  But that wasn't the death of Christmas for me. The "magic" still lived on. I see that more as a jumping off point in a long journey of maturity concerning the Christmas season. 

So I'm here to say that... everything's going to be okay. If your kids don't believe in Santa, you're not going to go to hell and neither are "we". As Deacon points out above, let's celebrate the real reason for the season. Jesus. We just all do it a little differently. I had always thought naively that the main differences in celebrating Christmas came from believers and non believers and different races and cultures. I was obviously wrong about that. But just as we wouldn't judge a non Christian friend for celebrating Christmas, nor should we judge a Catholic friend on whether OR not they celebrate Christmas using Santa. 

Thanks for taking the time to read! God bless,