The great St. Nick Noble Lie Debate

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Hey Easterjoy, well, I won’t get bogged down in the Greek since that’s not the point of the thread, nor your point. I just don’t like to see hasty dismissals of “the weird kid” (even though Miserable and I myself have had our spats - you know I love you Miserable;))

And, I agree there’s nothing very wrong with Santa Claus, given a healthy non-obsessive relationship haha.

But I think your specific take and strategy is a very smart one. And a little more logically rigorous and fruitful, than the “It trains the kids on how to believe in God, saints, angels,” answer, because - come on. That… do I need to point out the problems with that? 😃

Anyway, how about this: since the vast bulk of us (including myself) like the Santa thing in one form or another, do any of us see any dangers? Any, possible problems for your kids with the Noble Lie as it is usually practiced? How do you address them if you do see them?
 
My husband and I made a point not to “do Santa”. Well, our young children still believe in Santa who brings presents, etc because of school. I have even told them that Mommy and Daddy are Santa and give them all their presents, but they don’t believe us. sigh

We are not totally grinchy because we do make a big deal for St. Nicholas’ feast day, as good Eastern Catholics do. We tell them the St. Nicholas tradition from my husband’s home country - that he brings good children chocolate and beats naughty children with a stick. They laugh and tell us that St. Nicholas doesn’t beat naughty children with a stick. If they were older, I would have my husband do that in the middle of the night as a joke. Maybe in 5 years. 😃
 
Jesus says St. John the Baptist was Elijah. Obviously, John was not really Elijah, but neither was Jesus lying. Rather, John acted in the spirit of Elijah. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with acting in the spirit of St. Nick, the Magi, etc., while simply saying it is St. Nick doing these things, just like Jesus said of Elijah. 🙂 (of course, the nuance can be explained when appropriate).
 
claymcdermott said:
Hey Easterjoy, well, I won’t get bogged down in the Greek since that’s not the point of the thread, nor your point. I just don’t like to see hasty dismissals of “the weird kid” (even though Miserable and I myself have had our spats - you know I love you Miserable;))

And, I agree there’s nothing very wrong with Santa Claus, given a healthy non-obsessive relationship haha.

But I think your specific take and strategy is a very smart one. And a little more logically rigorous and fruitful, than the “It trains the kids on how to believe in God, saints, angels,” answer, because - come on. That… do I need to point out the problems with that? 😃

Anyway, how about this: since the vast bulk of us (including myself) like the Santa thing in one form or another, do any of us see any dangers? Any, possible problems for your kids with the Noble Lie as it is usually practiced? How do you address them if you do see them?
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The main problem I can see with the Santa myth is when it is used to see a saint as someone to use rather than someone to imitate.

The saints are powerful advocates and in the economy of grace they are our allies. It is a great mistake, however, to see patron saints in either a “I know a guy who has an ‘in’” kind of way or in an impersonal way that does not recognize that they are still very much alive and there to listen to us and pray with us, rather than simply being “inspirational dead guys.”

It also doesn’t hurt our children to know that the saints (and other famous living people, for that matter) are subject to popular and romantic mythologies. Those need to be taken with a grain of salt and kept separate from those aspects of a saint’s life that the Church has investigated and can confirm as true. When the folk tradition part of the Santa myth comes to light, it can be explained that just as George Washington, a real person, never chopped down a cherry tree and said, “I cannot tell a lie,” just so there are romantic tales going around about the saints that cannot be confirmed, even though the existence and exemplary life of the saint can be established as a fact.
 
Our German Catholic forefathers did a heckuvalot more roleplaying games for a heckuvalot more holy days than we do. I guess we just don’t have as much imagination and homemade fun.
 
Mintaka said:
Our German Catholic forefathers did a heckuvalot more roleplaying games for a heckuvalot more holy days than we do. I guess we just don’t have as much imagination and homemade fun.
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Oh, I remember when the good ol’ Germanic Santa came at the end of our school pageant when I was in grade school. Wow, he was LOUD! My older brothers and sisters said he had a good deal to say about coal, too, when they were little.
 
Mintaka said:
Our German Catholic forefathers did a heckuvalot more roleplaying games for a heckuvalot more holy days than we do. I guess we just don’t have as much imagination and homemade fun.
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Right.

I see it less as “fooling kids for Jesus” and more as “demonstrating in a concrete way God’s love for us as well as the saints’.”

There are a few exceptions to this, but most children really have no problem getting this when they are older, and then turning around and keeping it up for younger siblings.

That said, of course there are bad ways to do Santa. But it’s a Christian tradition.
 
Ah, the great Santa debate… It has become the yuletide version of Harry Potter and spanking all stuffed into one big stocking.
 
FrenzyJen said:
St. Nicholas was a real person, and Santa Claus is just a different name for Santa, so yes, Santa was real, if not in the way society paints him. Kind of how Emmanuel (Jesus) was real, even though society says a lot of non-truths about Jesus.

As for our house, we absolutely do Santa, but I also don’t lie about it. I do a lot of “What do you think?” and when that stops working, they are old enough to know the truth anyways. 👍
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This.

Telling your children stories – Including stories about Santa Claus – Is not “lying to them”. :rolleyes:

Lying to your children is: When they come to you with skepticism – Whether self-discovered or because *Johnny at school told them *-- And ask *“Is there really a Santa Claus?” *and in a misguided attempt to preserve their innocence you lie and say “Of course there is dear. Now go write a letter to the magical, flying, fat man.”

That is lying.

:twocents:
tee
 
Maximilan_Kolbe said:
Ah, the great Santa debate… It has become the yuletide version of Harry Potter and spanking all stuffed into one big stocking.
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I think you mean: The Harry Potter debate is the year-round version of this one.

And don’t even get started on c!rc#mc!s!0n.

tee
 
Year round debate? Harry Potter is for badly written for anyone over thirteen, and that is a year round* fact*.😃

PS I realize what you’re actually talking about - I just wanted to say that I don’t see the hype. haha
 
tee_eff_em said:
This.

Telling your children stories – Including stories about Santa Claus – Is not “lying to them”. :rolleyes:

Lying to your children is: When they come to you with skepticism – Whether self-discovered or because *Johnny at school told them *-- And ask "Is there really a Santa Claus?" and in a misguided attempt to preserve their innocence you lie and say “Of course there is dear. Now go write a letter to the magical, flying, fat man.”

That is lying.

:twocents:
tee
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Yes. There gets to be a point when your child might ask, “Is there really a Santa Claus?” and you have to say, “Do you mean do I know that the presents you have gotten that were marked ‘from Santa’ did not come from the North Pole and were never in a sleigh? I can tell you I know the presents you got personally did not come from any such place. That is a folk tale, it is for fun and parents tell it to their children because their parents told it to them and makes the surprise more fun. Am I going to tell you who really gave those gifts to you? No, because that person wanted to give those to you in secret, which St. Nicholas was famous for doing, and I can keep a secret. If someone at school starts telling other kids that there is no Santa Claus I think I’d say, ‘Well, there is someone going around giving presents in secret, and they don’t need busybodies like you spoiling the fun. If you don’t want the presents, then don’t open them, but don’t be a Grinch.’”
 
My grandchildren’s ages range from 3 to nearly 8. The two oldest spent around 3 years at school, but they have all been homeschooled for the past year. Exposure to Santa Claus (or Father Christmas, as he is more usually called here) now is limited to what they see on TV.

From little they have been told that Father Christmas only gives gifts to children who don’t have a mommy or daddy, for the rest their gifts come from their parents and granny. As they have gotten older we have added to our family legend: Father Christmas does come to check that there is a mommy and daddy in the house, so they can leave a snack for him if they wish, some years they do and some they don’t, generally they are quite sleepy after the half hour drive home from vigil mass and go straight to bed.

Three of the children like fantasy, the fourth is extremely materialistic and seldom grateful for the gifts he gets - yes we are concerned about this characteristic. For this reason we are keen to lay Father Christmas to rest and give St Nicholas his proper place. On the way home from Mass this year the eldest whispered to me that she did not think Father Christmas was real, and then spoke about the snack she wanted to leave out for him, so she seems ready for a real story. She is also the one who made up ‘the legend about the confusion foxes’ that lurk in stores at this time of year.

We have spoken about legends in general and how sometimes facts and truths get changed as a tale is told over and over. During the course of this year I am going to tell the story of St Nicholas and how he was changed to Father Christmas, and how Father Christmas has become commercialized over the years, with the caution not to spoil other families’ Father Christmas legends.

It is very much something for each family to decide for themselves.

As a footnote, one of our elderly Augustinian nuns was ‘shocked’ at our Father Christmas legend.
 
Lying ought to be out of the question and to assert a falsehood is to lie. The attempt to deceive is wrong on two counts, firstly because parents have a duty to teach their children about the nature of reality (and to assert that a man flies around on a sleigh and delivers presents to millions of children down the chimney in one night is to distort the truth about the nature of reality in a great way), and secondly because they have a duty to set good example. When parents tell children that Santa does these things they really are asserting that these things are so - they are not just speaking figuratively or jokingly- and so they really are lying, as well as deceiving in a matter where they have no right to deceive.
 
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