This year, as my twins turned 5 years old, I had to take a position on the Santa Claus question. Do we buy into the Santa lie and encourage our children to believe in a fairy tale in order to keep the magic of Christmas alive? Or do we we tell them the truth and risk becoming the Grinch and robbing their childhood of magic and wonder?
I'd been able to avoid the Santa question altogether for the past 5 years.
We never really did Santa Claus, but we never told them that he wasn't real either. When they were 4 years old, they were so amped up about GIVING (and also getting) presents, that they didn't even really pay attention to Santa.
They didn't write him letters. They didn't make a list of more stuff that they want. They got 2 gifts marked "from Santa", but were so excited about ripping everything open that they didn't even notice who gave them what.
But this year they asked. They asked me if Santa Claus was real. And here's the thing: I couldn't lie to my kids. And I didn't want to take the whole evasive "What do you think?" strategy and encourage them to believe without ever actually, explicitly, lying to them.
Why We Don't Do Santa Claus
The simplest reason for our not doing Santa Claus is this: I don't want to lie to my kids.
I friend of mine, with kids a few years old, once told me, about the Santa issue, that "we have a no lying policy in our house." And they didn't do Santa Claus because they valued honesty over the other things that may come out of playing along with the Santa lie.
I was really impressed with that. We have a no lying policy in our house.
That encourages openness, honesty, transparency, and trust. Our kids can trust us because they know we won't lie to them. And we don't want them to lie to us either.
Of course, as a Christian family, we also believe that Christmas is not just about presents. It's not even about love and relationships and spending time with your friends and family.
It's not about getting presents. It's not about giving presents.
It's not about hot chocolate and candy canes and sitting in cozy pajamas in front of a warm fire.
It's about the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Christmas is that singular point in history where the Creator of the entire universe entered into His creation as a human being, as a tiny, screaming infant.
It is that point in time where God entered into our human condition, ultimately descended even into death itself, in order to lift up the whole thing, in order to take us up into new life and to redeem the ENTIRETY of creation.
The big-ness, the magic, and the wonder of Christmas as that point in time when the immutable Creator of every single thing chose to become one of us far outweighs the magic of flying reindeer and presents delivered down chimneys.
Ultimately, we want Christmas to be about Jesus. Not about us.
How We Told Our Kids about Santa Claus without Lying
The way that the kids found out that Santa wasn't real was this:
For the past few years, I have been teaching them about Saint Nicholas, the real Santa Claus who lived a really, really long time ago.
This year, while we were watching a Christmas movie about kittens saving Christmas, they asked me about the real Santa Claus. The one in our world.
"Well..." I told them. "The real Santa Claus was Saint Nicholas who lived a long time ago and who gave presents to poor people in secret."
One twin asked me when Santa's birthday was. (Christmas is Jesus' birthday. So when is Santa's birthday?)
To which I responded with Saint Nicholas' birthday. In 270AD.
And my kids aren't dumb. (In fact, I think that no kids are dumb.) They figured that one out.
The real Santa Clause lived almost 2000 years ago.
So that means that this magic guy in a red suit with flying reindeer isn't real.
Good logic, kids. Well done.
Why Do We Have Santa Claus? Where Does He Come From?
The fact is that Saint Nicholas was a really impressive human being.
Focusing on Saint Nicholas is a great way to explain Santa Claus to your kids without lying.
The Santa lie is...well...sort of a lie. There is no magic person who lives at the North Pole and flies around in a sleigh with reindeer, delivering gifts.
But there was a guy who lived a really long time ago who gave gifts in secret. And that's where the Santa Claus....maybe we should call is a myth...where the Santa Claus myth came from.
Saint Nicholas was born in 270 AD. He lived in a place called Myra during the reign of the Roman Empire. And he basically gave gifts to people in need when it was dangerous and illegal to do so (this was during a time of intense persecution of Christians by the Romans).
There are many different stories about Saint Nicholas circulating. Some stories tell of Saint Nicholas saving his people from famine, sparing the lives of those innocently accused, and of giving bags of gold in secret to the family of three young girls who were going to be sold into slavery (and thus saving them from their fate).
The BEST way to explain Santa Claus to young kids, I've found, is with Veggie Tales.
You can get a copy of the Veggie Tales movie about Saint Nicholas here. (I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone with kids under the age of about 8.)
By tying stories of the real Saint Nicholas into Christmas, we were able to maintain the magic of Christmas, and the magic of giving presents (sometimes in secret) without lying to our kids.
How We Make Christmas Magical Without Santa Claus
It struck me as quite strange when some people objected to my not doing Santa Claus because it would rob Christmas of it's magic.
In reality, there are plenty of ways to make Christmas magical without including Santa Claus (the mythical flying version that is popular now).
Here's a list of something things that we do that keep Christmas magical without Santa Claus.
1. We give presents in secret.
My kids LOVE this one. Last year, we gave cookies to our neighbours, and we even got a secret present in return, hanging on our doorknob one day!
(I can't tell you how excited my kids were to get a REAL secret present! One that showed up without any of us knowing what it was or where it came from. One that came from a REAL person, where I wouldn't have to explain to my kids later that it was actually me.)
We also dropped off a handmade gift at a friend's house without telling her.
We wrapped the gift. I hyped the kids up about it. We drove to her house and parked just down the street. Then we hung the gift in a bag on the doorknob and ran away.
This was amazing. So much cooler than Santa Claus!
I left a note, but not with my name on it. I didn't ask her about it later. We just left it to be a magical little gift that showed up on her doorstep.
And what is hands-down the best thing about this: my kids get really excited about giving. And giving without getting anything in exchange.
(We have another secret gift planned this year, and my kids are pretty excited to sneak it onto another doorknob and run away.)
2. We give a gift to someone who really, actually needs it.
Ever year, I let my kids pick out a gift from the World Vision catalogue to send to kids in real need.
This year, they picked a pig and some chicks.
And they were excited about it. And about what they would get to pick next year.
We also have some hand knit scarves and hats that we are going to bring to a coffee shop downtown. They are located in the highest need neighbour in town, and they have a clothesline where people can donate warm winter things (and those who can't afford a scarf can just come and take a handmade one). My kids are also excited about this.
3. We CELEBRATE.
We celebrate the birth of Christ. What is more magical, after all, than the fact that the Creator of the entire universe entered into history and became a baby?
We have a birthday party (sometimes 2 or 3) for Jesus. We bake a cake. We decorate. We play games. And we talk about God's love, and about any hard questions that they may be struggling with.
We also have pajama days. We go see Christmas light displays. We stay out past our bedtime. We go for ice cream.
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What's common to all these things, I think, is that we focus on honesty, on love and compassion, and on the real magic of our relationship with our Creator.
We don't buy into the consumerism of making a list of stuff that we want. The kids give me some ideas of what they'd like for Christmas, but they know that it isn't all about stuff and it isn't all about them.
And guess what? Kids can get excited about baking cake and giving presents in secret. Just as excited as they can about flying reindeer and present delivered down chimneys. Perhaps even more.