Crucifying Santa
There's been a bit of discussion happening today at Ruth's blog (here and here) and at Rodeo's blog (here) about jolly old St Nicholas.I've expressed many of my views already in the comments sections of both those blogs.
In short, I think Christians can get a bit too hung up about Santa. In my view Santa is not an anagram for Satan. Further, doing the whole Santa thing with your kids is not lying to them (there's a difference between make believe or fiction on the one hand, and lying on the other hand). We don't need to get all santimonious about this.
Ruth pointed to the new Christmas cards that FEVA (the Fellowship for Evangelism in the Visual Arts) have put out, many of which take pot shots at Santa. Some of them border on offensive (see the picture to the left).
Let's use Christmas to point people to God's amazing gift to us in Christ, but this kind of thing can just be a turn off for people. Let them be offended by the message of Christ crucified, rather than by us crucifying Santa!
(By the way, Ruth had some excellent ideas on her blog as to how to explain the whole Santa thing to your kids, and I may well borrow her suggestions.)
posted by Andy M @ 11:05 pm
3 Comments:
I've been thinking about Rodeo's point on his blog - in response to your comment there - about his wife being really disappointed in her parents when she discovered Santa wasn't real...
How do you think parents can/should show children that the Santa game is just that - a game??
I mean, I agree, parents don't have to be lying to their children to 'do santa', but how can parents make sure they are being obvious that is it not the truth, i.e it is fiction??
I was going to say I don't have a problem with Christians 'playing Santa', but then I realised I really actually do...
Hmmm...
I'm not going to take anyone to task over it, but I think it's something people really need to think and pray about, rather than just falling in with the current culture. Santa will be around, the rest of the country will guarantee that, so our kids need to understand what the deal with him is, but do we need to join in the game?
santimonious - great pun Andy.
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