How do you handle Santa Claus in your church and at home?

Forum category

The church I now pastor had, before my time, a tradition of Santa Claus giving out candy at the church Christmas Dinner. We handled the situation by eliminating the dinner (everyone is too busy anyway). In time, we had some people who were very anti-Santa. Some people brought up their children to believe in Santa Claus, others used the Santa motif, but taught their children it was pretend, and then others, like us, were concerned that if our children found us untruthful about Santa, would they think that Jesus is also a myth?

In our church, we reached a consensus that if people wanted Santa, they could get him at the mall. But Jesus they would get at church. And we simply allowed people freedom to make their own choices. Until we had a guest speaker who railed and ranted against Santa from the pulpit, which caused a bit of controversy (that soon settled down, in a way; nonetheless, a few who included Santa sometimes felt looked down by those who didn’t; this wasn’t the case, however; at least not IMO).

BTW, none of the choices preclude teaching about the real St. Nicholas.

What is your view?

Poll Results

How do you handle Santa Claus in your church and at home?

Santa is good in both church and home. Votes: 0
Santa is not welcome in church but we did/do Santa at home, but kids also know about Jesus. Votes: 2
Santa is not welcome at church, but we include/included him at home as a myth. Votes: 7
Santa is not welcome at church nor at home, but we are okay with other people promoting Santa at home or in secular environments Votes: 10
Santa is evil: we should preach out against him and refute this Christ substitute. Votes: 1

(Migrated poll)

N/A
0% (0 votes)
Total votes: 0

Discussion

Option four for us. I’m not on a crusade against Santa but it’s something we won’t teach our kids. Thankfully our church doesn’t do anything about Santa.

My mother was death on Santa Claus. One of her stories was of four year old me refusing to colour a picture of Santa in Sunday school. He was banned from our house forever.

Speaking of my mom, she will be 98 next Tuesday, if she makes it. She is sinking fast. So although this post is somewhat tongue-in-cheek to start, it brings back memories of a wonderful godly mum.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I selected option 3, which was the closest. My wife and I figured our kids were going to be exposed to Santa Claus everywhere, including from friends, so we taught every year until they were old enough to be solid in their thinking that he is a myth, extremely loosely-based on the real St. Nicholas. We didn’t put up figures of Santa, but we didn’t ban playing any Christmas music that mentioned him either. We just made sure to emphasize every year the real meaning of Christmas both at home and at church. The churches we were a part of didn’t use or reference Santa Claus at all, which was great, since that helped firm up that Santa Claus was not a part of the Christian celebration of the first Advent.

Dave Barnhart

We don’t do the Santa Claus thing, but we do tell our kids about the history of St. Nicholas.

On the light side, I wanted to joke “we make a big statue of Santa Claus out of straw in the front lawn and burn him in effigy each December.”

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

When my son was about 4 or 5, we went to a local farm where you choose and cut down your own tree. They have a barn where they sell cookies and hot chocolate and cider.
They had a Santa in a chair for photos. I told my son, “We’re not gonna do that - it’s not the real Santa.” (This was an unplanned comment on my part)

In the jeep on the way home

Son: “Why did they have a fake Santa?”

Me: “People like to have pictures with someone that looks like him because he was a very nice person.”

Son: “What did he do that was nice?”

Me: “He gave presents to people who had little money. Especially children,”

Son: “Wow. We should go meet him.”

Me: “Well he’s from Turkey.”

Son: “ok let’s go there”

Me: “Well Turkey is far away.”

Son: “ok let’s go there”

Me: “Well also he lived like 1600 years ago.”

— ( long silence ) —

Son: “Wait! Santa is dead?”

Me: “uhhhhm”

— Later that night we go to a Christmas parade on our Main Street. The last thing in the parade is always a car with Santa waving to everyone. —

Son was standing on the curb with other kids and mommy and I are about 5 feet back with the other parents. When Santa goes by, Son turns around and yells about as loud as he can, “Daddy! Everyone must be so excited! They all thought Santa was DEAD!!!!”

The other parents are looking at me.

Way to kill everyone’s joy!

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Fresh out of college I became a junior high math teacher. The first year I must have made some comment in class about Santa not being real, because one of the 7th grade boys went home all upset. He still believed in Santa. I was dumbfounded that anyone would still believe in Santa at 12 years of age.

That first parent-teacher conference was a little bit tense.

https://twitter.com/ChrchCurmudgeon/status/1466430221876350979

To the tune of, “Up on the Housetop.”

Up at Nicæa, bishops pause – Arius and Santa Claus!
One claims a time when the Son was not;
One says that’s a heretical thought.
Ho! ho! ho! Who’s gonna go?
Ho! ho! ho! Who’s gonna go?
Off with a right hook, good St. Nick;
Down goes the dirty heretic.

My family and I are practicing this for a special this Sunday.

I didn’t find quite the right option above. When I was a child, I made it a point to tell some other children Santa wasn’t real. We’ve never done the Santa thing at home or at church. We don’t freak out when the mythical Santa shows up on a Christmas card or wrapping paper. The naughty-or-nice theology is Pelagian to the core. Some mythology is better than others. There’s a mug out there with Santa saying, “You’re all naughty” and referencing Romans 3:23. I might get that some day, except I already have too many mugs.

Michael Osborne
Philadelphia, PA

….the claim that Nicholas beat up Arius only appeared around the year 1000, so it’s probably not true. But fun song.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

But you have to give me this: it is much more likely that he beat up Arius than that he comes down my chimney. I mean, we don’t even have a proper chimney.

Michael Osborne
Philadelphia, PA

The “Santa isn’t real” discussion occurs every year and it is no more helpful now than it ever has been. It’s even worse than the “Don’t change time” debate every spring and fall. Or worse than the “Halloween is worshipping the devil” debate.

Of Santa Claus is real. My wife is married to him at our house. It’s totally fine if my kids think for a while that came from somewhere else.

Losing our imaginations takes a lot of enjoyment out of life. If your children believe in Santa Claus wrongly, then teach them better. But it’s hard to understand why this is such a big deal. Our kids read books filled with fictional characters. And we don’t go out of our way to correct that in most cases. They figure it out in time. My guess is that believing in Santa is one of the least of the problems facing our families today.

My wife and I planned to never let our children believe in Santa, but after years of trying to conceive, we adopted through the state foster program. Our kids came to us at 5 and 2 (they are now 8 and 5) believing deeply in Santa. We agreed to not come down with the “Santa is fake” hammer on them. Now we are to the point that the nice gifts come from Mom and Dad and their smaller gifts and stocking stuffers come from Santa.

No wisdom, no understanding, and no counsel will prevail against the LORD. Proverbs 21:30

Santa is not a part of our Christmas celebration proper, simply because it doesn’t fit. We don’t tell our daughter that her presents came from Santa. Because they didn’t. And lying is a sin.

But we do feed our daughter stories about Santa, just as we feed her stories about missionaries, hobbits, pioneers, and talking rabbits. As a myth, it’s a pretty decent one, and one that’s sprung from the Christian traditon.

Josh Stilwell, associate pastor, Alathea Baptist Church, Des Moines, Iowa.

Fun and Mental

For our boys, Santa has always been real, but they knew who he was. When they were little our friend Tom would dress up as Santa for the local Bank’s open house. He would hand out candy canes and the boys loved getting candy from him. We told them who he was and that he liked to dress up because he liked kids. Therefore our boys knew that Santa was really Tom, but they just called him the candy cane man. They came to realize that with the right outfit anyone could be Santa. I do not think it diminished the fun at all for them, but it also did not compromise the truth.