Live.Awake

Why Santa Won’t be Coming to my House… Ever.

// December 21st, 2006 // Family Life, Humor

People are always asking my kids, “What’s Santa bringing you this year?”.  They never know what to say to the poor naive adults that (from their perspective) still haven’t discovered that Santa is a made-up idea.  I’m tired of the awkwardness, so here it is once and for all.

1. He isn’t Real.

If a rosy-cheeked fat man in a red suit breaks into my house on Christmas Eve looking for my children he’ll get a baseball bat between the eyes. When he comes to, he will find that he’s been blindfolded and hog-tied on the floor while my kids play “Pin the Steak Knife on Santa’s Tail”.

2. Santa is a Freeloader

I paid for those presents. My wife and I both work. We work hard and we love our children. Every Christmas we buy them gifts because we love to demonstrate our love for our kids at every opportunity. And Mr. Clause wants to swoop in at the last minute and take credit? I DON’T THINK SO!

I assure you, that on Christmas morning when my daughter opens up her new EasyBake oven it will be Mommy and Daddy who get the hugs and thank-you’s not some chubby bearded fellow hiding in the chimney.

3. My kids trust me.

When I tell my kids that looking both ways before you cross the street is important, they believe me. When I tell my kids not to talk to strangers, they believe me. When I tell my kids that Jesus is real, they believe me. They believe me because they trust me. They trust me because I’m their Daddy and I’ve never lied to them. In fact, they can’t imagine that it is even possible for Daddy to lie to them. It’s one of the sweet things about childhood innocence.

Why in the world would I jeopardize such a precious thing as my kids’ trust, by lying to them and telling them that Santa is real? I have a friend who’s young daughter had just discovered that Santa wasn’t real. She came into the room and asked her mother, “Mom? If Santa isn’t real, does that mean that Jesus isn’t real too?”

Enough said.

4. Santa isn’t God.

“He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows when you’ve been bad or good…”

Apparently Santa is omniscient (all knowing). For Christians, that’s a problem. It’s a BIG problem. Because we know that omniscience is an attribute of God. You can’t separate God from his attributes. They are who He is. (God is love. God = Love) When you assign an attribute of God to something else, you are calling it God. If you’re a Christian and you’re comfortable with that, you need to read Deut. 5:7.

After reading what I just said, you might be tempted to call me something like “Scrooge” or “Grinch”. It’s not that at all. I dig the Christmas spirit. I love everything about Christmas. I have nothing but warm, goo-ey memories of Christmas as a child. It’s just that I understand very clearly what Christmas is about. It’s not about beating a redneck senseless at WalMart so that you can nab the last “Tickle-Me Elmo” doll. It’s not about taking out a 2nd mortgage so little Freddy, Jr. can get that flamethrower he’s been asking for all year.

It’s about celebrating the birth of Jesus. He’s the point. It’s right there in the word itself. Christmas. Take Him out, and it’s not Christmas anymore. It’s a new holiday called X-mas. X-mas is some kind of big-business marketing ploy to convince us that we need to buy our kids more stuff.

MORE STUFF?

X-mas is a holiday built on consumerism and greed. It’s a holiday that lies to our children, teaching them that the world owes them something for nothing.

More meaningless stuff.

Gimme a break.