Is Santa Coming to Town?

There have been a lot of discussions lately revolving around whether it is right or wrong to "play Santa" as a Christian. While I am NOT going to jump into whether it is or is not, I am going to share with you what I have been considering, and the decision PJ and I have come to on this subject.

Who is Santa? Santa Claus is a fictional character. There's nothing wrong with fiction. It encourages our children's imaginations, and builds their creative skills, which are very useful later in life :)I know what you're saying, "Santa Claus was real". Ok, no, he wasn't. However, Saint Nicholas was real. He was a great man who did wonderful things for the people of his village. He is a great example of Christian love to our children. So, what should you do? Only you can decide that.

We have decided that we will not play Santa in our home with Nate. It was done with JRay, and he figured out the truth on his own, and was not hurt that we "lied" to him, or anything of the sort. So, again, I'm not saying it's wrong to play Santa. What we have prayed over, and decided to do, is to let Nate play along in all of the Santa fun, but teach him that Santa is just a man in a suit, and the "actual" Santa Claus is not real. We will teach him the story of Saint Nicholas, and explain to him how God can use people to help others and change the lives of others, but it is ultimately God who is in control. On Christmas morning, we will have a birthday party to celebrate Jesus's birthday. And, we will have a cake, and ice cream maybe, and we will allow the children to open a couple of gifts from us and one another. And, while they're doing this, we will teach them about God's gift to us through Jesus. How Jesus was our gift from God, and about the gift Jesus would later give us in eternal life.

Now, from that, we move onto the Christmas tree. So many people say I am a hypocrite if I want to exclude Santa, and still have a tree. After all, it's "Pagan". Yes, the Christmas tree has Pagan origins, BUT, that was in celebration of Winter Solstice. We're not celebrating Winter Solstice. We are celebrating Christmas. To me, the Christmas tree symbolizes the gift of eternal life Christ gives us. The evergreen tree lives all year, and never dies (unless you cut it down, and even then, its stump will regenerate a NEW tree). What better example of Jesus Christ?! When all other trees die in winter, the evergreen stands tall and strong, and is still there as green as it was come Spring! Decorating this tree symbolizes the beauty that Christ brings to our lives! The lights that shine bright symbolize Christ's love, that we should be carrying to a dark and dying world! At Christmas time, as symbol of this, I leave my Christmas lights on 24/7. I do not turn them off when we go to bed. When I wake up during the night, I see the glow coming from the living room, and am immediately reminded of God's everlasting love, that never dims or goes away! How beautiful an image is that?!

So, anyway... this isn't a "holier than thou, if you don't do it my way you're a sinner" post. It's sharing with you how we came to the decisions of celebrating Christmas the way we do. I feel that in this dying world, Christians are constantly under attack. Christmas is no longer Christmas... It's "Holidays" and "X-Mas", essentially removing Christ from the spirit of the holiday, and turning it into a commercial circus to emphasize buying one another's love. Jesus already paid that price. All we need to do is accept it! So I feel that it is more important to emphasize the gift that God gave us in His son, and concentrating on keeping the CHRIST in Christmas. And while I do not believe that it is wrong to play Santa, I feel that it is just more important for my family, per my own convictions (well, mine and PJ's), to concentrate on remembering the REAL reason for this season, and teaching our children to stand on what is REAL, and to not give in to the world's attempts to remove Christ from the holiday all together :)