Here comes Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas?

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This is the first time I’ve tried to create a poll, so I hope it works out. Consider this a practice run!

I’d like to see just how people approach the topic of Santa Clause.

I have two children (a 2 1/2 year old and infant). My concern is how to emphasize the ‘religious’ aspect of Christmas, and not so much the ‘secular’. I really dislike the ‘gimme’ attitude and ‘commercialism’ of Christmas, and would like to translate that to my children. I’d like to know what ways other Catholic (and Protestant) parents use to emphasize the Christ in Christmas.

Besides the general question, I’d like to focus, with the polling questions, on the entity of Santa Clause.


  • *]With your young children or grandchildren, do you refer to the man in the red suit as ‘Santa Clause’?
    *]Do you refer to the man in the red suit as ‘Saint Nicholas’ only’?
    *]Do you pretend that Santa Clause exists?
    *]Do you tell the children that he (Santa) is a nice story, but not real?
    *]Do you completely ignore the story of Santa Clause?
    *]Do you incorporate all of it together, the religious aspect and the secular?
 
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Rae:
This is the first time I’ve tried to create a poll, so I hope it works out. Consider this a practice run!

I’d like to see just how people approach the topic of Santa Clause.

I have two children (a 2 1/2 year old and infant). My concern is how to emphasize the ‘religious’ aspect of Christmas, and not so much the ‘secular’. I really dislike the ‘gimme’ attitude and ‘commercialism’ of Christmas, and would like to translate that to my children. I’d like to know what ways other Catholic (and Protestant) parents use to emphasize the Christ in Christmas.

Besides the general question, I’d like to focus, with the polling questions, on the entity of Santa Clause.


  • *]With your young children or grandchildren, do you refer to the man in the red suit as ‘Santa Clause’?
    *]Do you refer to the man in the red suit as ‘Saint Nicholas’ only’?
    *]Do you pretend that Santa Clause exists?
    *]Do you tell the children that he (Santa) is a nice story, but not real?
    *]Do you completely ignore the story of Santa Clause?
    *]Do you incorporate all of it together, the religious aspect and the secular?
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I feel blessed that my mother never lied to me about Santa Claus. From the beginning she told me that he was a fable… but instructed me to be nice and not burst the bubble for any other children who believed in him. Since I was raised in a Protestant family St. Nicholas was never discussed. The emphasis was always on the birth of Christ. :love:
 
As an Eastern Catholic, we focus on St. Nicholas. (some Eastern Catholic Churches are named after St. Nicholas).
The real St. Nicholas was an Archbishop of Myra and lived in the 4th. century. He was originally a rich man and would take bags of gold coins and drop them into homes of the poor during the night. That is how his legend started.

Go with God!
Edwin
 
I let my childre believe in Santa, but I did keep St. Nick alive every year (my Europena heritage). I don’t think it hurt anything. I didn’t go overboard with the secular stuff. Now, my kids are ages 14 to 28
(4 of them) and we pick a name and make one gift for that person. It will be our third year of doing this. It keeps us out of the stores, and lets us celebrate the religious aspect of the season. We really like our gifts too.
 
Christmas for the very young ones should be about fun, joy happy family memories. Santa Claus for young children is good innocent fun. As they get older they will understand the real meaning of Christmas, my little boy loves the story of Santa but also learns at school and reminded at home about the birth of Jesus.
I always loved the Santa story when young and now as an adult remember it as a happy family time also
 
I just let children be children and don’t steal their childhood away from them too quickly.
A priest here does his Santa thing every Christmas and brings the children up to the front of the Church and gives them presents, just looking at the wonderment on their little faces is worth a million $$$$$ or £££ 😉

Later on when they eventually find out about Santa, I tell them about Saint Nicholas, anyway what about the tooth fairy, Alice in Wonderland and so forth.
Many people read novels that are fiction, so it seems like it a little bit of escapism from the real world.

Anyway Santa rocks http://pages.prodigy.net/rogerlori1/emoticons/dancing_santa.gif

http://pages.prodigy.net/rogerlori1/emoticons/19.gif
 
We really focus on St. Nicholas. My kids do get gifts from Santa Claus as well. We have a book by Tomie de Paola called “Hark, A Christmas Sampler” and it talks about all the different legends of “Santa Claus” and the like. There’s Old Bafena, St. Nicholas, and many others from different cultures. Of course we KNOW St. Nicholas was a real person. My kids enjoy the DVD put out by CCC productions on St. Nicholas. We do about three or four days worth of St. Nicholas activities during Advent.
 
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Scott_Lafrance:
Good on ya, Edwin. Today is the Feast day of St.Nicholas.
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As an Eastern Catholic, this is a MAJOR Feast Day. We celebrate this day in the order of any major Saint of the Church.

In order of importance for our feastdays:
God (Father, Son & Holy Spirit)
The Theotokos i.e. the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Apostles
St. John the Baptist
St. John Chrysostom
St. Basil the Great
St. Gregory the Theologian
St. Nicholas
 
Somebody told me yesterday that Santa Claus, not St. Nick, is a creation Coca Cola made in the early 1900s to advertise for their company. That is why he wears red and white. Has anyone else heard this?
 
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StratusRose:
Somebody told me yesterday that Santa Claus, not St. Nick, is a creation Coca Cola made in the early 1900s to advertise for their company. That is why he wears red and white. Has anyone else heard this?
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That is in essence true, although it doesn’t negate the authenticity of St. Nicholas of Myra, whose feast day was yesterday.
 
I remember the moment that I stopped trusting my mom. It is the same moment that I found out that she lied to me about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

It may be “innocent fun” to lie to innocent little children. But how will they trust you about the existence of God if you have lied to them about Santa?

I’ve taken a lot of flack about not playing the Santa game with my kids, but they trust me. They know that my “yes” means yes and my “no” means no. They know that every word out of my mouth is the truth.

With my kids we have always focused on the birth of Christ during this season.

Hmmmm…Santa or Jesus…Which would God want us to focus on? :hmmm:

“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua
 
St. Nicholas was an actual person, the Bishop of Myra in the 4th century, was persecuted under Emperor Diocletian and spent time in prison, was release under Emperor Constantine, and was present at the Council of Nicea in 325 and help fight the heresy of Arianism. He is the patron saint of children and mariners, and is held in very high regard in the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

Since one can only attain canonization by following in the footsteps of Christ, you comparison of “Santa or Jesus” is moot. Jesus gave us the rules, St. Nicholas is one of them who follow them. Now, if you mean the hocus pocus about a fat bearded guy in a red suit with flying caribou, I agree. But, if you are trying to obliterate from memory, or trying to state that “Santa Claus” (which is the Americanization of the Dutch Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Niklaas, which is Dutch for St. Nicholas) never existed, you would be patently wrong. Church records verify his existence and death.
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Redeemed:
I remember the moment that I stopped trusting my mom. It is the same moment that I found out that she lied to me about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

It may be “innocent fun” to lie to innocent little children. But how will they trust you about the existence of God if you have lied to them about Santa?

I’ve taken a lot of flack about not playing the Santa game with my kids, but they trust me. They know that my “yes” means yes and my “no” means no. They know that every word out of my mouth is the truth.

With my kids we have always focused on the birth of Christ during this season.

Hmmmm…Santa or Jesus…Which would God want us to focus on? :hmmm:

“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua
Click to expand...
 
I traumatized a cashier the other day by telling her that I told my four year old that Santa Claus is not real. The cashier put her hand over her mouth and said “You didn’t. How could you do that?”

I told the kids that parents are the Santa Claus and that they buy gifts for their kids and just tell them that it is from Santa. The Cashier thought I was nuts. I explained to her that our kids only get three gifts because that is how many Jesus got. I also explained that I did not want my kids growing up to quesion why Santa gave their friends tons of gifts while they only got three. Now the “blame” and responsibility is right where it belongs…on me.

I also told my kids about St. Nick and what a good man he was and that the story of Santa is based on that.

If our country worked as hard on teaching our children about Christ as we do about Santa then this would be one amazing country.

I don’t see the point of lieing to my children. Seems like a bad precedent. Also, I refuse to raise greedy and selfish children. I clearly remember as a child being very disappointed with Santa. Then I was shocked when I saw how many gifts a neighbor and my cousins got. I couldn’t imagine that many gifts. I didn’t understand the inconsistency. I also remember thinking at that young age that the number of gifts those kids got was excessive.

My next challenge is to get my extended family to stop buying so many gifts for my kids. We asked and begged them to stop buying gifts or at least to stop buying toys. Thus far they have just ignored us. We will see how they do this year.
 
I see no harm in being indulgent on children for one day out of the year. I mean, Jesus, lying in a trough built to feed animals, outside in a stable during winter, was given gifts of gold, frankinsence, and myhrr. These last two were incredibly expensive, certainly not the types of things given to a pauper family, of which Joseph and Mary most certainly were. I understand that the Magi were wealthy and understood Jesus to be a king of sorts, they didn’t really understand what He really was.

Tempering that arguement, I agree that entertaining the fallacy of the American Santa Claus legend isn’t really helpful for kids. I teach them about the authentic St. Nicholas and what Jesus meant to him. I teach them that the “spirit of Christmas” is really the spirit of giving, not getting. I receive tremendous joy by giving my kids stuff, by watching the delight on their faces as they open their presents. I think that God receives the same joy when He gives things to us and we FINALLY recognize it. Imagine the joy in God’s heart when someone finally realizes the gift the Jesus was to us?
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St.Catherine:
I traumatized a cashier the other day by telling her that I told my four year old that Santa Claus is not real. The cashier put her hand over her mouth and said “You didn’t. How could you do that?”

I told the kids that parents are the Santa Claus and that they buy gifts for their kids and just tell them that it is from Santa. The Cashier thought I was nuts. I explained to her that our kids only get three gifts because that is how many Jesus got. I also explained that I did not want my kids growing up to quesion why Santa gave their friends tons of gifts while they only got three. Now the “blame” and responsibility is right where it belongs…on me.

I also told my kids about St. Nick and what a good man he was and that the story of Santa is based on that.

If our country worked as hard on teaching our children about Christ as we do about Santa then this would be one amazing country.

I don’t see the point of lieing to my children. Seems like a bad precedent. Also, I refuse to raise greedy and selfish children. I clearly remember as a child being very disappointed with Santa. Then I was shocked when I saw how many gifts a neighbor and my cousins got. I couldn’t imagine that many gifts. I didn’t understand the inconsistency. I also remember thinking at that young age that the number of gifts those kids got was excessive.

My next challenge is to get my extended family to stop buying so many gifts for my kids. We asked and begged them to stop buying gifts or at least to stop buying toys. Thus far they have just ignored us. We will see how they do this year.
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Under 7 Santa

Over 7 Saint Nicholas

We celebrate December 6th also

If they are capable of understanding Communion and Penance they should be able to understand Sainthood.

Santa is the equivalent of Barney the Dinosaur. Would you tell a child at Walt Disney World that there was a person in the Mickey Mouse costume?

I do think the consumer culture puts too much emphasis on the “magic” of being a child though.
 
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