Do you remember when you found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real? According to Google, most children find out at 8 years old. I didn’t find out until a couple days before my 13th birthday! It was a very traumatizing experience for me. I can understand why people do it because their parents did it and their parents did it and so forth. Even when I was a first and second grade teacher I “played along” because that is what I guess you were supposed to do. I even went as far as having an “Elf on the Shelf”. While this might be the general tradition of society, we should reevaluate the purpose behind the tradition. If our purpose on earth is to know, love and serve God (Baltimore Catechism, Lesson 1), then we should have our traditions be a way to grow closer to God.
I should emphasize I am not against Saint Nicholas, who is a Saint we celebrate in the Catholic Church on December 6th. But the secular world has long since twisted and added their own commercialized version that is far removed from our beloved Saint Nicholas. We should continue to celebrate these wonderful Saints who are inspiration and models of the faith, but not in a secular way. There are three main reasons we, as Catholics, should not share the secular Santa Claus tradition with our children:
You should not lie to your children.
Lying is a sin. You should not bare false witness against your neighbor is the eighth commandment. There is an innocence to children and although they might be immature or naïve at times, they look to their parents to protect and love them. Children innately trust their parents to be honest with them, just like we hope that our own children are truthful with us and others. If we don’t model this example, how can we expect our children to grow in virtue? In addition, when children find out that you lied to them, they might begin to question other things you told them too such as God.
There is nothing “magical” about Christmas.
Let’s not confuse “magical” with “miracle”. There is nothing “magical” about Christmas. Santa Claus who travels the whole world in one night, with his flying reindeer, working elves, might seem magical, but that is not the true meaning of Christmas. The miracle of Christmas is Jesus, the Son of God was born to take away our sins. The word miracle comes from the Latin word “miraculum” which means “to wonder”. No matter how many Christmases we have experienced, Jesus being born will always be a miracle to us.
Santa Claus Imposes A Materialistic View
I can remember as a child being told that you need to be good so that Santa Claus can bring you presents and if you were naughty, Santa would put coal in your stocking. Or, if you must be good because Santa Claus is always watching you. Santa Claus isn’t watching you since he isn’t real! Jesus is always watching you! I use to think the more presents I got was a representation of how good I was that year. Behaving just to get presents or is not a good motivation that we should teach our children. We should teach our children to have good manners and virtue because their bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirt (1 Corinthians 6:19) and they are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26). Therefore, their actions should be a representation of God Himself. Gifts are nice to give and receive, but when we get too much and focus on the materialism of the gift itself, we leave less room in our hearts for God. Jesus is the best gift that we can receive!
Instead of teaching our children about the secular Santa Claus, we can celebrate other gift giving ideas instead. If we still decide to give our children presents on Christmas, we can emphasize that the presents are from us, the parents, because we love them and we wanted to give them a gift for Christmas to show the love of Christ. We can also give gifts to our children on the feast day of Saint Nick, which is celebrated on December 6th or give gifts to the poor, since that is what Saint Nicholas was known for. We can also wait until the Epiphany which is celebrated on January 6th and we can give three gifts to each child as a remember that Jesus received three gifts from the wise men of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
