For as long as I have been a mom I have struggled with the concept of Santa. As a child I loved it- the excitement, the thrill of Christmas morning. Some of my best memories are having sleepovers with David, both too excited to fall asleep, him pretending to hear hooves on the roof. Often we would wake up around 3 am and run downstairs to see what Santa had brought. Our poor parents!
As a Christian I have struggled with it- what is going to be the focus for our family at Christmas? Even if we can afford a certain extravagant present that a child wants is it really the right thing to give it? How do we handle questions that the kids ask like "if Santa is real then why don't the children in orphanages get presents? You told us mom that the kids in Nicaragua didn't have toys when you went there." Isn't Santa in some ways the opposite message of what Jesus preached?
Santa- "be good, I'm watching, and you will get a gift, whatever you ask for on your list."
Jesus- "There is nothing you could ever do to earn or to deserve the gift I have given you but I did it anyway because I love you."
I have been very intentional to never lie to the kids and this year in particular we had a lot of conversations with James and Harrison about Santa. I jokingly said to James one day "you better be sweet or I'm telling Santa no presents for you" (something I have been intentional to NOT say in the past) As soon as the words were out of my mouth I said, "James I shouldn't have even joked about that." I then went on to remind him that the reason our family gives gifts at Christmas has nothing to do with him or the other kids being naughty or nice, it actually has very little to do with the wise men presenting gifts to Jesus. The reason mom and dad give him gifts is to show him just a tiny taste of the extravagant gift that God gave us through Jesus. Jesus, coming down to earth to save us, not because we are good or nice. Not because we deserve it or did something to earn it, only because of His deep love for us. We also have had conversations about how the tradition of Santa partly comes from Saint Nicolas who had a heart for helping the poor and sharing the love of Jesus with others. This year we tried to relate this to how we can help others and share Jesus and be a "Santa" in their lives. For instance when James and Harrison picked out the gifts for their angel children I reminded them that we weren't doing this so this kid could have something under their tree, we were doing it to share Jesus in a tangible way. We were getting to participate in the tradition of Santa for these kids.
Anyway for a family who purposely does very little about Santa we sure took a lot of pictures with him this year! I have also told the boys that there are many things that we pretend to believe in because it's fun (hello current Mario and Minecraft obsessions) and that it's also ok to have the fun of the Santa traditions. This ended up being a super fun brunch with some of our friends and we ended up with some of my favorite Santa pictures to date!
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| Lined up waiting for our picture. The boys gave me grief but I love their bow ties! |
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| Time for breakfast! I always feel sorry for the guy at the waffle maker when I come up and say, "I'll take six waffles as fast as you can make them please" |
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| The big kid table. They thought they were hot stuff getting to sit alone. They did great! |
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| We try to go to brunch with this crew every few months and this was actually the best we have done with the kids (all 9 of them)- everyone ate well, when they were done they colored and read books, etc. while the adults chatted. We are making progress people! |
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| Oh Andrew! |
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| While we were eating the photographer came up to me and asked if he could use our picture on his website because he thought he got some great ones. I could not believe he was able to get a good one because we almost never have pictures where everyone looks decent! |
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