St. Nicholas

This will otherwise be known as "The one where I explain how we handle Santa in our family". Friends have been very encouraging of our traditions in the last couple of weeks as we have started sharing through this blog, the homeschool one and via Facebook. I had to update and share this post from Jen Hatmaker, who is my second favorite blogger.  (Courtney is my favorite) I wanted to like Jen's post about 5 times. She's got the heart, the humor, the passion and the gumption to say what God is leading her to and that makes her rock!

 One question keeps coming up respectfully in one form or another in these conversations. Do we celebrate the big, red suited, white bearded guy? On one hand, I find the question a bit odd focusing on what we don't do. On the other hand, it's such a large part of our American culture, I can understand the curiosity. Our answer is an equally respectful, "No, we do not".  I can imagine most people conjure up images of no nonsense Maureen O'Hara's character Doris Walker on Miracle on 34th Street,  passing on to her six year old  daughter Susan a legacy void of creativity, belief, fantasy and imagination. Our children watch cartoons, pretend they are varied animated talking cars, vegetables and flying super heroes and we watch with much joy as they do so. We find value and are intentional in the teachable moments where character, values and Christ like connections can be made with the every day. We just don't celebrate the current American way of elevating Santa to real life status coming down chimneys with elves and flying reindeer. 

Matching pj's was a keeper :-)

When we had Matthew, we started talking about what our family traditions would look like. Which ones we'd carry on from our child hoods and which ones we had other ideas about or were a blend of both. For good and bad, I've never been accused of under thinking a situation. Our perspective and search was to find a compelling reason why. I'm sure others come at the issue from a why not perspective, based on the intrinsic value the tradition holds for them. We were feeling uncomfortable with the growing amount of attention Santa was taking in our media as well as the issue of the truth becoming a matter of conscious. The situation weighed on us. It's not our place to judge or ruin other people's traditions and we appreciate the same acceptance of how we celebrate Christmas.

Our Home at Christmas 

By the way, we do celebrate Christmas I assure you- also a question asked. If you saw the three Christmas trees we have up, the mantle decorated hanging with Christmas cards, Charles Dickens village houses above the TV, the outside door wreathe and lawn tree with snowflake lights on the outside of our house, I don't think that would even be a question so I included pictures.  We recognize, appreciate, celebrate and are deeply grateful for the birth of Christ to be Emmanuel with us.

A Christmas favorite

One might ask, what do you tell our kids when his likeness is everywhere? We talked with some parents we respected further down the road in the parenting journey. They told us if they had to do it over again, they wouldn't have done Santa. Disregarding him entirely is very difficult unless we bubble wrapped them, so over time we are finding ways to communicate with our children on the issue. This year is the first one Matthew is even aware of his likeness. He doesn't know all the make believe surrounding the jolly guy. As he gets older, he will be told other friends have a different view on Santa and that's between them and their parents. They like to play a game and we shouldn't ruin that for others. We tell Matthew now that he represents the generosity of St Nicholas and how the red suit is because of Nicholas' status in the early church. We point back to the historical truth of Nicholas' life and motivation.

I Can Love

The DVD from Veggie Tales entitled Saint Nicholas, includes a beautiful song about the St Nick's motivation of giving with the lyrics including, " I can love because God loves me, I can give because God gave. Jesus' love is why I'm smiling, why I'm giving every day" called I Can Love. As a result, any time Matthew sees him in a mall or his likeness in the grocery store, we will excitedly exclaim, "St Nicholas!" for anyone in a 50 foot area around us to hear. Several of our Christmas children's themed books, songs and DVDs talk about St. Nicholas. His viewpoint at just over 3 years old is demonstrated in a story from when we were playing ball before nap time today. After reminding Matthew that we roll the ball and we don't throw in the house, he responded he wanted to make good choices like St Nicholas. I asked him why do you think St Nick made those choices? It's because He knew God loved him and Nicholas was showing God he loved him back.. I had an idea to fill the stockings on December 6th which is St Nicholas day but truthfully was so busy, I just didn't remember until late on the 7th so I didn't sweat it. I am looking forward to doing some fun activities in the future about giving in secret which the VT DVD talks about St Nicholas doing after he read Matthew 6:3.

A current book in our daily countdown to Christmas

We are encouraging and teaching a positive view of St Nicholas that gives the glory to God. My thoughts coincide with many others like this blogger from Not Consumed. In fact, I'll be adding that book she references in the next year or two for further explanation for our kiddos. We do have one called, Santa Are You for Real? After going to our neighborhood HOA Christmas party this afternoon while seeing the long line for Santa, that will be the daily Christmas book for tomorrow. I stumbled across this blog post via Pinterest today and liked the portion where she writes about the similarities between Jesus and Santa. We wave and smile at the mall Santa. Daddy and I both talked to Matthew about the link between what he's seen, heard and read and the person sitting in the big chair. We asked if he wanted to sit and talk with him. He said no, so we respected that and moved on. We recognize the 4th century bishop St. Nicholas from Greece, not Santa from the North Pole. So really , I guess the answer is yes and no on Santa. We just don't do the commercialized form of him. That's how we reconciled this issue for our family.

The creativity and fun behind the elf of the shelf was tempting, but neither of us could come up with a compelling truthful tie in. So, I have been talking with some other home school moms about doing a daily search for Baby Jesus. I think it's an adorably fun idea and look forward to translating that to looking for Jesus in our lives in meaningful ways. For example, hiding him in the bread box since Jesus is the bread of life or with daddy's weights since he's our Mighty God. I am trying to link our previous years names of Jesus in with this and hide a baby Jesus with the ornament so we can talk about the connection. I believe one of our greatest callings for our children is to see Jesus in everyone and everything. Matthew knows Jesus is alive and lives in his heart. I've also seen a mommy do an Angel advent where the Angel they have picked out, who is a part of the Nativity story brings messages. I trust God to lead us in creative and meaningful ways to have fun as well as building  loving memories and traditions centered on Him.

Beautiful Christmas card courtesy of  Abbey Press- Holly V Monroe

Here's the not-so popular point, I realize. We don't give a deceased person credit for real life current events. It's our family view, this preschool stage is such a pivotal stage of building their foundation of faith. No one besides God is omnipresent. No one else is watching us every minute.  We are covered in the love and grace of Christ not just to be caught doing bad or good. How would we explain otherwise why some children don't get Christmas presents? Why is there the salvation army and a big red truck to drop off toys for less privileged children? It's not because someone determined they were bad and didn't come down their chimney. We feel personally for OUR family, that simultaneously introducing another entity outside of Christ that can't be seen and requires trust and faith to accept would be confusing.  We just felt that anything about Christmas they could have fun with and learn eternal truths can be done through Jesus himself. I know every lower story points to the upper bigger one.  No one tells it or beings a matter better to the heart than the birth of Christ itself.  We are called to live in truth and don't feel comfortable lying to our children. It has become very clear to us that Matthew has a very pragmatic personality like his daddy. I know many grown ups who made that distinction quite fine for themselves, but Billy and I did not want to damage our credibility in any way. We don't want our children to feel lied to which is something that is common also among children on this topic. We both felt that way.

Why Do We Call It Christmas

We've watched a wonderful DVD called "Why Do We Call it Christmas" by What's in the Bible. Phil Vischer's current project after Veggie Tales. He and his cast of puppets do a great job of explaining where the tradition of a Christmas Tree, St Nicholas, lights on our houses, etc.. originated. They talk about why the name Christmas came to be, that it's not actually Jesus' literal birthday but when we celebrate it. It's fun, on a preschool/ elementary level that's based on true accounts of how all the different symbols of Christmas from Germany, Dutch and other European countries all get meshed together to be known as our current Christmas traditions. They even admit it's really confusing all the ways we try to celebrate. We questioned why we were feeling pressured to do every Christmas and winter activity or tradition so that the real meaning is watered down? As Peter Walsh states, If everything is important, than nothing is.

Nativities around our house

This will be my only post about this because that's all I have to say. We recognize where Santa came from, how he historically became such a central part for some this time of year and leave it there. I would much rather spend our time, energy and focus on what we chose to do and not what we don't. As Christians, we use this month as well as every other month in the year to show our children how to have a relationship with God by daily reading His word and talking to Him through prayer. We do our flawed human best so they will know how to recognize, listen for and follow Christ with a joyful spirit by showing, telling and modeling. We strive to talk about Him when we sit in our house or walk along the road lie down or rise up- Duet 6:7 so they will know who His love, forgiveness and the value and worth God has shown for them. Through our efforts and failures, love and prayers but ultimately the grace of Christ we pray they will know that He has an individual purpose for both of them.  I've worked on this post in spurts through out the day wanting to be respectfully true to who we are and I hit post praying I did just that. There are many ways that people all around the world celebrate this time of year, this is ours. In our house, it's 95% Jesus activities, crafts, books, music and DVDs and 5% St Nicholas and that's perfect for our family. We plan to do many winter ( snowflake, snowman, gingerbread) related activities and crafts with snow in January. Our January theme is Jesus loves you 'sno much. We do live in Texas after all, so while it's December, it's been in the 80's.