Santa Claus

It happens every year. Someone comes up to Hannah and says, "Have you gone to see Santa yet??? What's he gonna bring you? Have you been a good girl?"

So, now that she's finally old enough to understand I gave her the "Santa" talk.

We don't celebrate Santa in our house; same reason we don't celebrate the Easter bunny. (Oh, we still give our kids candy on Easter but it comes from Mom and Dad and is just a part of celebrating the real reason for the holiday). Chris and I want Hannah and Caden to grow up knowing that Christmas is about Christ's birth, the reason we give presents is to celebrate that Christ gave us the greatest gift, His Son. To us, Christmas is a CELEBRATION of all that Christ has given us through his precious gift.

We also want our children to know that they get presents from us regardless of how bad or good they've been. We love our children, not because of what they do, but because of who they are, and that is why we give them gifts. We just don't want them thinking they have to DO something in order to receive good gifts. I know some of you think we're crazy, but I do think we need to be very careful about the messages we're sending our children.

Now I realize that our views on Santa Claus are probably a lot different then yours...that's OK. I don't think that Santa is the devil incarnate, and that everyone who brings their kids to sit on Santa's lap is not teaching their kids the real meaning of Christmas. Chris's family always got a present from Santa every year and he turned out normal! :)

So, we just told Hannah "some people celebrate Christmas with Santa Claus, he's just a made up pretend man who brings presents to children who've been good for Christmas. We give you presents because we love you and you're our child. We celebrate Christmas as Christ's birthday and we give gifts as a part of celebrating Christ giving us the BEST GIFT EVER!.. JESUS!!!"