Jesus versus Santa

Jesus vs Santa, true meaning of Xmas

I’ve hesitated to write about the topic of Jesus vs Santa because it can be a surprisingly divisive topic in church and family cultures. However, the holiday season is upon us and I think it’s interesting and even helpful to hear differing perspectives on how parents handle the issue. I would love to hear your perspective as well.

Here’s mine.

The church cultures in which Mollie and I raised our kids have been theologically conservative, highly biblically literate, and conducive to sincere devotion in following Jesus. I got the impression over the years that our family held the minority position in those churches in that we openly practiced the Santa tradition. (Either that or there were a lot of parents doing Santa Claus and keeping quiet about it!)

For some no-Santa Christians, the idea of Christians practicing the Santa tradition can seem incomprehensible. I don’t care to sway anyone to my position, but for what it’s worth I thought I would share my reasons why my wife and I chose to follow this secular holiday tradition. Our reasons may surprise you, because they ultimately have to do with Jesus.

Following are my responses to the most common reasons I’ve heard for not observing the Santa tradition:

1) We want Jesus to be the focus of Christmas in our family
Indeed. Of course we wanted this for our family as well. However, it’s not an either/or issue. I know this because I was raised in a Christian home that kept the Santa tradition, yet I and all of my sibs love Jesus today, and none of us believes in Santa Claus anymore. I can remember as a kid that, even though my imagination excited me about Saint Nick, my parents also taught us that the real reason for Christmas was the birth of Jesus. I believed them, and it made perfect sense to me.

I definitely got the idea that Jesus and Santa Claus were somehow on the same team.

Later, as a young parent, I had what I saw as a strategic reason for keeping the Santa tradition. From the time my children were small, of course they learned about the story of Jesus and His birth. However, I knew they could only understand so much, and I certainly couldn’t expect them to sit around and stare at their navels pondering Jesus all Christmas season. So we enlisted Santa Claus to help make the season of Jesus’s birth more exciting for them. We knew they would eventually drop the Santa belief as they left childhood, but I believed there would remain with them very positive feelings and fun memories that they would carry with them into adulthood. The reason behind it all would always be Jesus.

I believe this has proved to be true.

2) I’m not comfortable lying to my kids
I completely agree with this one. Our kids assumed Santa was real mostly because of songs and stories and the input of extended family members. Christmas mornings pretty much convinced them. However, as they got older and directly questioned us, we made it a point to never to lie to them.

However, I used it as a way to encourage critical thinking. I told them that I wanted them to figure it out on their own. I told them that all of their lives people would tell them things that were not true and that they needed to learn how to discover what is true. This wasn’t a very satisfying answer to them, but then it became sort of a game. They would begin to give me arguments and I would try to argue the other side. If their argument was a good one, I would say “that’s a good argument!”

More importantly, for each child I also used this moment to underscore the truth, saying something like: “I will tell you this – the story of Jesus and everything in the Bible is definitely true, and Mom and I believe it.” I wanted them to be rock solid about that.

I think there is something very healthy about a child learning to critically engage in figuring out the truth, even when it is against his or her interest to do so.

3) Christmas is a pagan holiday. Christmas trees and Santa Claus have pagan origins.
I have always thought this was a lame argument for several reasons. Primarily, regardless of what December 25 meant many hundreds of years ago, today, in America, it is not a pagan holiday. For followers of Jesus it is a time of remembrance and celebration of the birth of Jesus.

True, no one knows the date of Jesus’s birth. This is also irrelevant. So the church randomly picked a day to celebrate the birth of God’s Messiah. Or maybe the date is not so random, and the church picked a popular pagan holiday and redeemed it to become a holiday celebrating the true Creator. I just don’t see how that’s a bad thing. Even today many Christians attempt to do the same thing with Halloween.

Christmas is arguably not a biblically condoned holiday, but that does not make it a harmful practice. Behind this objection there seems to be a concern that the whole of Christendom is somehow accidentally participating is false worship because of the holiday’s origins. But worship is intentional and conscious. I have yet to see biblical support for the idea of someone accidentally worshiping Satan. I’m willing to be proven wrong on this.

4) I don’t want to encourage materialism and selfishness in my kids.
Another great reason. We didn’t want to encourage those things either. I probably don’t need to say much here though. I think we all recognize that Christmas has become very commercialized and money driven. Many people go deeper into credit card debt during the Christmas season. Not good.

I’ve heard a lot of great strategies that families use to get around this. Some don’t do gift giving at all. Some do, but make a point to give to a needy family each year as well. Some work at a shelter as a family as part of their Christmas season, serving those less fortunate than they are. Some do gift giving but limit the dollar amount that can be spent. Please feel free to share your ideas or traditions in the comment section!

But as for the topic at hand, it certainly hasn’t been my experience that observing the Santa tradition will necessarily encourage materialism and selfishness. My opinion is that the example of the parents over the long haul is foremost in encouraging or discouraging a materialistic lifestyle. In fact, ironically, Santa only exists because of the generosity of parents toward their children. When children figure out that it was mom and dad all along, this arguably encourages gratitude and models selfless giving to them.

On the positive side, there are a couple of other reasons that proved to be quite important to Mollie and me when we were determining what our family culture would be around Christmastime:

Extended family
I was raised by devoted Christian parents. Had Mollie and I refused to practice the Santa tradition on “spiritual grounds” I think it would have created an unnecessary offense against my parents and siblings. There were other things more important to us that my parents didn’t understand, like breastfeeding, homeschooling, and eating a whole food/organic diet. Creating a rift over something as fun and harmless as Santa Claus would have been just been super-annoying to my family.

To see it from my mom’s perspective: she and her 6 siblings grew up in St. Louis with an alcoholic father. As a result she grew up impoverished, and quit school after the 8th grade to start working. She told us that when they were young, she and her siblings would sometimes each receive an orange for Christmas.

So when she married my dad, I think she tried to make holidays with her own children everything that she missed as a child. I have wonderful holiday memories from childhood, and I still love the Christmas season. I think my mom would’ve been hurt had I implied that I saw her efforts as harmful.

Xmas 1960's childhood, reason for the season

Christmas morning with my siblings, 1962.

Joyful, Joyful
In our family, Mollie and I wanted to tip the scales in favor of making the Christian holidays transcendent and irresistible; something that our kids would look forward to all year long. Santa Claus is unnecessary. If you don’t include Santa in your repertoire of holiday traditions, I fully respect your decision. However, I would encourage you to figure out ways to make the holiday season an exciting and transcendent time for your kids, so that they will grow up loving the season of Jesus’s birth.

Ultimately, we all hope to see our kids continue to love the person of Jesus Himself.

For me the bottom line on Santa is this: he’s a harmless, if shallow, part of American culture. If we can figure out ways to use harmless cultural traditions to our advantage, I think that’s a good thing.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

My illustrated kids’ storybook, The True Story of Christmas, tells the story of Jesus in fidelity to the Bible, beginning with creation and the fall. Orders should be received by Dec 5 to ensure delivery by Christmas (or, please email me directly me with late orders at scottnmollie@yahoo.com.)

10 thoughts on “Jesus versus Santa

  1. I read a blog post a while ago where the dad had an interesting take on Santa… when oldest son got old enough to question Santa, he told the son that, yes, Mom and Dad were “Santa”, but Santa needed lots of helpers. He encouraged his son to see someone in need but give to them secretly, just like Mom and Dad did for the kids at Christmas. That sparked the son to do secret acts/gifts of kindness throughout his growing-up years (and it will probably last through adulthood, too!). I thought it was a great way to teach the transition from getting to giving!

    • Hi Trisha,
      I love that idea. And it sounds like something Jesus said on the Sermon on the Mount. It would be fun to hear some of the stories from that blogger’s son.

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

  2. Great article Scott and full of wisdom. I grew up the same way and did the same with my kids. I told them that Santa Claus was a nice story that we could all enjoy. I also must admit that Polar Express is one of my favorite movies and I get a lot of laughs out of Elf.

    But I don’t think it is Santa vs Jesus. I think Christmas is now “Family, Fun, Good Times, Celebration, and … for those who are religious … there is a nice story about Jesus. It’s as if the original meaning of Christmas is being swallowed up by everything else.” Last night Kathy and I took a walk through our neighborhood. Lots of decorations are already up. We were surprised there is so much already. In all the decorations we saw two Nativity sets – ours being one of them. Those who go beyond putting up lights have all kinds of teddy bears, Santa displays, penguins, and various other funny little creatures. Two new ones this year are Spider Man and Mickey Mouse. I’m still trying to figure out what they have to do with Christmas.

    It’s like there is this loud noise, this loud distraction – like a carnival man in a funny suit with a megaphone saying “Come over here and look at these pretty and fun things.” In the meantime, in an obscure corner we find Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. But I guess that is the way it has always been and the kingdom of God remains a mustard seed planted in a garden or yeast hidden in dough quietly working its purpose in the world.

    • Jonathan,
      All true. Our American “culture” is ridiculously full of distractions. I suppose it’s part of the price of wealth and freedom.

      I suspect that people yearn for transcendence during the holiday season. It’s almost as though we are wired to want times of escape from the ordinariness of everyday life. Even God commanded feasts and festivals for ancient Israel. But maybe when you take God out of the holiday, you are left with a fat magical elf, Spiderman, and Mickey Mouse.

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts. May God bless your efforts in sharing His story this Christmas season!

  3. Our children are grown with families of their own. When it comes to the “grands” we seek always to share an experience with them – go to a bell choir concert, go to an art museum or museum of nature and science – experience something with them – as our gift of time and presence = our present, our gift.

    Sometimes something interesting comes up not near the Christmas Holidays or a birthday. No matter. It is sharing time and experience, possibly learning something together that is our gift to one another. We’ve rec’d some sweet thank-you’s for our unconventional gifts. We always say to our grands and dear friends, “You will not receive a wrapped gift of any kind from us. Ever. But you will have fun doing things and going places with us – let’s enjoy our short time on this planet together!”

    I admit when kids are young, they look for the wrapped gift. Simply have to reiterate how time and sharing are gifts, how this needs not be costly to be awesome. It really does work. Makes us be more creative and produces some amazing outings! (OK, so the Tuba Concert would have been more fun it it had not been sub-freezing, but, ah well … we can laugh about how cold we were and where we found hot chocolate!)

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

    • Maryjo,
      Great thoughts. A shared experience has potential to create a memory that outlasts a wrapped gift. We’re beginning to lean into this way of thinking, as well. After all, as we say in our home, life is about relationships. Sounds like your kids and grands are blessed to have you!

      Thank you for sharing your perspective!

  4. I saw this title and thought “Oh sure, another Santa bashing blog post.”, but you surprised me. Admittedly, the dude is an easy target, but it’s nice to see someone sticking up for the poor old guy.

    • Well…I guess I did sort of use him for my own ends when I was raising my kids. (But then again, he’s a fictional person.)
      Thanks for the support, Travis.

  5. It really surprise me to hear about christian parents. Lying to their children telling them that there is a Santa Claus which is a lie. The bible says it is a sin to lie. IF you lie to them you are teaching that lying is OK. So is it right to lie to your children. The bible says to raise them up in the ways of the lord.

    • Hmmm. Doesn’t sound as though you read the post. If you read point #2 you will see my rationale around how we handled this issue. I agree with you that we should not teach our children that lying is OK.

      My 5 children are all adults now. They all love Jesus (and Christmas!), and none of them believe that lying is OK. They are all happy that we “played” Santa Claus. When they found out the truth, they saw it as an expression of parental love toward them as they knew that we struggled financially during those years.

      That’s our experience. You are, of course, free to handle the issue as you see fit with your own children, and I wish you all the best! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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