Santa Claus is coming to town. Or, is he?
I never believed in Santa Claus growing up. Being raised in a Christian household, my parents worried that once we found out "the truth" about Santa, we might also be mistaken that the Baby Jesus part of Christmas was also just a myth.
I never minded this decision. They still let us play along with the Santa games. Gift tags under the tree would be signed by him (complete with the irony that his hand-writing looked suspiciously like my mother's.) I didn't care who was bringing the presents, as long as they came! And, we'd still get to go visit him at the mall every year to sit in his lap get our free candy cane. I would never even tell him what I really wanted. I knew that information was useless in the hands of a complete stranger. I would just blurt out a generic answer like, "doll!" all the while fixating my attention on the elf with the peppermint stick prize in her hand standing at the exit gate. It seems a little creepy now that I would willingly sit in a man's lap, that I knew wasn't Santa Claus, just for the free candy. But, I guess candy canes were harder to come by when I was six, so it was okay.
And, of course, there was the added fun of getting to ruin the Santa secret for all of my friends who did believe, no matter how much my parents lectured me not to. (I guess here would an appropriate place to apologize to my grade school friend, Julie, for breaking the news that the jingle bells she heard Christmas Eve 1981 were most probably being rung by her older brother.) I was a very practical and logical child. It would frustrate me to have playmates that were too naive to take a look at the cold hard facts.
As I became an adult, I was still indifferent to the harm of believing in Santa Claus. Plenty of Christians I know use him as a part of their Christmas celebrations. But, then way on the other end of the spectrum, were the ones who claim that it's my spiritual obligation to "hate" him. Maybe these are people who took Charlie Brown's lesson of commercialized Christmas-ism to the nth degree. But, the one argument that helped me choose a side on the great Santa debate surprisingly came from an episode of Seventh Heaven. One of the P.K.s (that's "pastor's kids", for the unchurched) had someone ruin the Santa secret for them on their very special Christmas episode. And, like my parents predicted long ago, the child started questioning the reality of Jesus's birth as well.
Well, Reverand Camden, being the wise soul that he was, sat the wee one down and found a brilliant happy medium. He told the story of the real Saint Nicholas. The historic St. Nick was born into a family of great wealth. Upon his parents' death at his young age, Nicholas could have been set for life, but instead chose to share his wealth with the needy. He eventually gave away all of his earthly belongings and became a bishop in the Christian church. He was imprisoned during the Christian persecutions, but later released and continued on with his ministries. The story of Saint Nicholas became elaborated throughout the years and he somehow, eventually, became mystified as Kriss Kringle and then Santa Claus. So, as Rev. Camden would explain, St. Nicholas is a wonderful figure of Christian charity to accompany our celebrations of The Nativity.
This episode of Seventh Heaven is probably a decade old by now, but it fortunately stayed in the back of my head. Because a few years ago, during one of my Bible lessons with my brother's kids, the confusion of Jesus/Santa/Christmas arose and Reverand Camden's message came rolling out of my mouth, much to my surprise, but with great thankfulness in my heart. I even soon found this child-friendly animated version of the story of St. Nick that has now become part of our Christmas movie viewing tradition. (Click link for DVD info.)
So, at the end of this Santa-searching journey, my Christmas verdict has become crystal clear. Jesus is the true reason for the season. But, please don't ask your kids to hate a saint.
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