Small feet patter into my bedroom early in the morning. My boys jump on the bed and joyfully announce that Santa Claus has come! They pepper us with questions. Can they open presents? Will my husband and I get up? Can they get their sisters? I say yes and smile as they run to wake up the rest of the house, their delight bursting at the seams. I begin to brew coffee and preheat the oven as my teenage girls walk up the stairs smiling and NOT complaining about how early it is, for once. My youngest lifts his stocking from the mantle and begins to excitedly proclaim everything he is pulling out. Socks, underwear, toothpaste, and small trinkets never looked so exciting! My teenage girls give me knowing glances as they have now become Santa’s helpers.
The night before, we tracked Santa and his sleigh as he flew around the world delivering presents. The anticipation was palpable as we tucked our boys into bed assuring them Santa only comes to homes where children are sleeping. My girls waited excitedly for the boys to fall asleep so they could fill the stockings and arrange the presents. The joy of the belief in Santa exists in a different way for them. They are now included in the joy of giving and the surprise of it all. These are joyful moments.
In our home, Christmas morning is about the surprise of gifts, imaginative belief, and the joy of being present with one another. However, in the afternoon, we make a shift. We bake a special red cake together, we pick up in our advent reading, the nativity pieces come off the shelf, and we celebrate the birth of our Savior. We worship, we pray, we read, and we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. These are holy moments. Not perfect, but if our hearts are in the right place, they are holy nonetheless.
I know many Christians that don’t incorporate Santa into their Christmas celebrations and by all means – you do you! As a Jesus follower, I understand the arguments against Santa Claus. The biggest argument being that the belief in Santa distracts us from the true meaning of Christmas, which is the celebration of our Savior’s birth. For my family, we have not found this to be so in our home. Nor have we found that the child-like belief in a joyful and giving mythical character, Santa Claus, has in any way confused our children about their belief in Jesus. My older girls, who now know Santa isn’t real, also haven’t followed the line of thinking that maybe, then Jesus isn’t real.
I think one of the reasons this has not been confusing for our children is that we strive to celebrate and worship Jesus every day. We make him a priority in the mundane and ordinary of our daily lives. Jesus is not just a character in a storybook that is pulled out on religious holidays like Christmas and Easter. He is the Savior of the world, all the time. And because of this, we talk about Him, we pray to Him, we meet him on the pages of Scripture, and we worship him privately and at church with brothers and sisters in Christ. We attend an Rgroup to be challenged and encouraged in our walk with Him, we disciple and desire to be discipled. This is a snapshot of our everyday with Jesus. We are not perfect in any of these things, and we have so much more to learn and surrender. But, in our home, Jesus and Santa aren’t even comparable. All year long, Jesus is worshiped daily as our Lord and Redeemer compared with a few days each December where we “believe” that a kind-hearted man gives presents to children of the world.
I’m so thankful for a God who gave us imaginations and stories. And that’s where Santa lives in our home, in the land of make-believe and child-like wonder. Jesus has and never will enter that realm. He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the One who Is and Is to Come. And we earnestly await the day, when unlike Santa, Jesus will come back, right every wrong, and establish his everlasting Kingdom. That gift is comparable to nothing else. Strive to put Jesus first in your life and the comparisons of other things you can “believe” in will not even be a temptation but just fun, joyful moments amidst the Holy.
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