Santa

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My wife and I were talking about the Santa thing …

Our son is only 15 months…so it has yet to come up.

But currently we are tending towards this approach:

Not telling him there is a Santa …but rather while keeping Jesus and his birth as center and primary and absolutely reality…

But

Making use of the “fairytale” aspect …to give him a childhood “magic” and “mystery” …for his childhood…

How?

By introducing the idea that in addition to gifts that we give each other…

That “some say” Santa brings gifts on Christmas eve …and *some say *other things…in fact in the city where Mommy grew up…many said “an Angel” brought the gifts…

(my wife is not American and in her area they do not use “Santa” but an Angel)

But on Christmas morning…all over the world…(good?) little children awake to find that under their tree…a great surprise…presents!

(in a way it makes it a sort of “mystery”…)

To keep the “magic” of childhood imagination.

Of course in this culture all sorts of people will then approach our kid and say “so what did Santa bring you?” or “What did you want him to bring?” etc…so this solves this…and the difficulty of our kid telling others that there is no santa etc…

And I can still read him the “Night before Christmas” (as a story) and my wife can read to him about the Angel…and it can be fun 🙂 (akin to other childhood fantasy)

And tell him too about the real St. Nicholas…

So this I think can keep on the one hand from any question of lying…and also preserve for our kids “both” ideas…both cultures …my Protestant Family (I am a convert…) had Santa…and my wife’s Catholic Family had an Angel in her area of her country…

It keeps the reality of Jesus! and his centrality…(this will be a big focus!) and also the playful fantasy of childhood…the wonder…both theologically and of childhood fantasy…

It seems a good via media.

In Media Stat Virtus. Virtue stands in the middle.
Such is our current thinking…which is open to revision 🙂 and it seems this can avoid any question of a lie… (certainly do not want to lie…I know this is a divided topic as to if it is a lie…) or appearance of it perhaps…and retain certain good things…and deal with the culture…
 
My wife and I were talking about the Santa thing …

Our son is only 15 months…so it has yet to come up.

But currently we are tending towards this approach:

Not telling him there is a Santa …but rather while keeping Jesus and his birth as center and primary and absolutely reality…

Making use of the “fairytale” aspect …to give him a childhood “magic” and “mystery” …for his childhood…

How?

By introducing the idea that in addition to gifts that we give each other…

That “some say” Santa brings gifts on Christmas eve …and some say other things…in fact in the city where Mommy grew up…many said “an Angel” brought the gifts…

(my wife is not American and in her area they do not use “Santa” but an Angel)

But on Christmas morning…all over the world…(good?) little children awake to find that under their tree…a great surprise…presents!

(in a way it makes it a sort of “mystery”…)

To keep the “magic” of childhood imagination.

Of course in this culture all sorts of people will then approach our kid and say “so what did Santa bring you?” or “What did you want him to bring?” etc…so this solves this…and the difficulty of our kid telling others that there is no santa etc…

And I can still read him the “Night before Christmas” (as a story) and my wife can read to him about the Angel…and it can be fun (akin to other childhood fantasy)

And tell him too about the real St. Nicholas…

So this I think can keep on the one hand from any question of lying…and also preserve for our kids “both” ideas…both cultures …my Protestant Family (I am a convert…) had Santa…and my wife’s Catholic Family had an Angel in her area of her country…

It keeps the reality of Jesus! and his centrality…(this will be a big focus!) and also the playful fantasy of childhood…the wonder…(both that theological-reality wonder…and the wonder of childhood-imagination).

It seems a good via media.
Such is our current thinking…which is open to revision and it seems this can avoid any question of a lie… (certainly do not want to lie…I know this is a divided topic as to if it is a lie…) or appearance of it perhaps…and retain certain good things…and deal with the culture…
 
I’d go with your wife’s tradition for two reasons: (1) she is a woman, and women are usually best at transmitting these things; (2) her tradition thrived alongside her Catholic faith in her family.
 
johnpfmcguire said:
I’d go with your wife’s tradition for two reasons: (1) she is a woman, and women are usually best at transmitting these things; (2) her tradition thrived alongside her Catholic faith in her family.
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We are preserving both…and again…want to not even approach the idea of a lie…but keep the mystery…the wonder…

and we live here in the US where everyone would say it was Santa anyhow…

(can you imagine…every other kid gets something from santa and our kid from an angel?? )

…and we will both be very much involved in this…

I think what I wrote above is where we are heading…and it makes sense to us.
 
No, I didn’t mean to contradict your resolve, just being honest about what tends to work.
 
Rolltide said:
Santa Claus is based on a real person, St. Nicholas, who was a third century bishop in what is now Turkey. He did, in fact, leave gifts for poor children in the town that he lived in. So, the modern story is simply a highly exaggerated version of a real tale. I don’t really see the harm in letting a child believe in Santa Claus, although I was taught about his historical role as well as soon as I was old enough to understand. I would also make sure to emphasize that the holiday was about the birth of Jesus first, and that Santa’s role is quite secondary.
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Exaggeration? I never recalled the Bishop of Myra was living in the North Pole, rode around on a sled and raindeers, and was an elf. I don’t think there’s anything in the modern secular image of Santa Claus that even resembles St. Nicholas.
 
The Bishop of Myrna did wear the dress Santa Claus wears, though he wasn’t nearly as fat: the fat Santa was basically Coca-Cola’s idea (setting a precedent for all of the U.S. it would seem).
 
The only time your children should be concerned with St. Nicholas is while the Church is celebrating his Feast Day (yesterday). He was a Roman Catholic bishop who gave away all his wealth to serve the poor, was imprisoned for his Faith, and had ZERO tolerance for heretics, I might add.👍 Humble man. Great saint. Let the rest of this Holy Advent season be dedicated to celebrating the birth of Christ in our hearts and homes. Remember, we’re Catholic Christians…we don’t follow the guidelines society has deemed fit for “Christmas.”

Who’s going to the vigil Mass? Midnight Mass? Christmas Day? 🙂
 
Reservoir_Dog said:
Happy Holidays.
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you mean “Happy Winter Feast”

for to say happy Holidays…brings to mind “Holy-days” and would not want to do that!😉

Rather Happy winter feast…

oh wait…for some it is summer…w

ell heck…I guess happy “December Celebration”
 
Yes, that jolly old Saint Nicholas slapped Arius is a matter of historical record. (A man after my own heart!) Also, is “Happy Holy Days” acceptable?
 
johnpfmcguire said:
Yes, that jolly old Saint Nicholas slapped Arius is a matter of historical record. (A man after my own heart!)
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The church in the west came within a hair of being arian, with roman catholicism confined to southern italy and maybe the celtic fringe. Don’t deny it.
johnpfmcguire said:
Also, is “Happy Holy Days” acceptable?
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Certainly not. And there’ll be Consequences.

Seasons Greetings from Hallmark.
 
No one’s denying anything that’s true, sir. We don’t need to. Would you describe youself as a Puritan sort of Anglican?
 
Reservoir_Dog said:
The church in the west came within a hair of being arian, with roman catholicism confined to southern italy and maybe the celtic fringe. Don’t deny it.

.
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I not so sure it was " within a hair" etc…I think that is to overstate things. But yes many “persons” in the Church became Arian at the time…it was a contagious plague.

But I would add too that it was not “The Church”…the Church always remained faithful to the reality of who Christ is.
 
johnpfmcguire said:
No one’s denying anything that’s true, sir. We don’t need to. Would you describe youself as a Puritan sort of Anglican?
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I’d describe myself as the spiritual successor of Mr. White in the movie, Reservoir Dogs.
 
Bookcat said:
I not so sure it was " within a hair" etc…I think that is to overstate things. But yes many “persons” in the Church became Arian at the time…it was a contagious plague.

But I would add too that it was not “The Church”…the Church always remained faithful to the reality of who Christ is.
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Well, germanic tribes were Christianized by arian missionaries, or they were pagan. Those tribes rolled over the western empire and would have imposed arian christianity on the catholic gallo-romans. But the warlord who ended the last roman enclave in the west (the Domain of Soissons) was a Frankish pagan who married a Burgundian. The Burgundian court was arian, except for that woman, who was roman catholic. Because she was roman catholic, Clovis was eventually baptized RC, and Clovis proved to be the strongest of the germanic warlords. Hence… the west remained trinitarian.
 
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