I love Christmas. I love the feel, sights, sounds, and smell (assuming you can do it optimistically and not commercially). I LOVE traditions. I have never had a problem teaching my children the miracle of the birth of Christ and the magic of Santa. One of my favorite things I pull out every year to adorn my living room is a ceramic statue that I painted myself of Santa kneeling, hat in hand,head bowed, at the manger cradling the Christ child. I also own my grandmother's nativity scene which was always my favorite thing to set up as a child. Each piece individually wrapped and the excitement when it was the Baby Jesus that fell into my little palm. Now my kids share that exact moment every year.
As with most things, you get to help form your child's beliefs and for a brief time you weave this time of wonder. I have been blessed with children who have never made lists. They say "surprise me." That always surprised Santa as they sat on his lap. No demands, no requests, just "surprise me." For all of the years that I have been an adult and especially a mother those words have been music to my ears. They aren't spoiled children. We spend little and they appreciate more. We take turns on Christmas morning opening gifts so we all get to see the reaction of the receiver and it helps us savor the day. stretch it out longer. I remember one Christmas my oldest daughter was a year old and Santa had given her a doll. She opened it up and she gasped and said "It's a BAYYYBEE." She hugged it so tight. I told her that her baby needed a name and her brow furrowed for a moment and then her face lit up like a candle! "Crunchy, mama, her name is Crunchy!" I assured her it was a perfect name and full of imagination. Later she had friends or family members laugh and made her doubt her choice. I always reminded her that the name made her happy and when she told other people it made THEM happy. Crunchy Is wrapped and put away in my hope chest.
I see my girls get more and more excited for everyone to open the gifts that were given by them. They think more about others. Try to get something to bring them happiness. We traditionally do the 12 days of Christmas on a new family each year. We've done it since my oldest could knock on the door and run with me and my baby on my hip. They LOVE doing it.
As they grow they realize it's a season of giving. God gave us his Son, to teach us to be more like him and He gave his life for us. There is no greater love. But there inevitably comes a time when they begin to notice inconsistencies and I don't lie to them. My oldest grew into (or out of) the truthfulness of Saint Nicholas. It was an easy and perfect transition. My youngest had it torn away and want me to lie to her or fix it, but I wasn't quite sure how to do it. This has always done it for me:
Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus
Editorial printed in the New York Sun in 1897.
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
Dear Editor---
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
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