Advent is upon us. A time to get ready for His coming.
The world says that this is the busiest time of year. Buying presents. Spending money. Incurring debt. The world says that more is better. More stuff indicates higher status.
I think we should be busy. Busy preparing our hearts for Him. Busy teaching our children about why He came. Busy thinking of others. Busy giving stuff away. Busy remembering that less is more.
This fat man in a suit has caused a lot of controversy in my heart for the last several years. When we first married, I never thought about not "doing" Santa when we had children. Two years later, we had a six month old, and I began to really think about Santa.
We came up with a plan:
Santa would bring our children one gift and fill the stockings. We didn't want them making these long lists of their wants thinking that Santa could bring any and everything just because he's Santa. We would say the "big" gift was from him each year. We also decided not to make a big deal out of him. We talked a lot about Jesus' birthday being the real reason we celebrate. I felt good about this. I felt like we'd found a happy medium.
Then I got a call from a dear friend from college. Her child was 18 months old, and she asked me if we "did" Santa. I told her our plan. She said she tended to agree with me, but that her husband refused to have Santa in their home. One of the first reasons he gave her was that he felt completely deceived when he'd learned the truth about Santa as a child. He didn't want that for his children. I told my friend that I could see his point, but that I had never felt that way. I believed in Santa until I was almost ten years old, but I learned the truth simply by growing up and it never felt like a big blow.
That's when she went further.
She explained to her husband that she really didn't see the harm in it; she'd never felt lied to by her parents, so why not?
He told her that every time he prayed about this issue, the Lord reminded him of the Israelites in the Old Testament. Each time they came upon a new city that they were to conquer, the Lord told Moses not to assimilate to that culture. Each time, the Israelites disobeyed. Each time, they wandered longer in the desert. That's how my friend's husband saw Santa... assimilating to the world when our allegiance should be to Christ.
I was blown away by that explanation. It haunted me for years because I knew I was being disobedient. Every year as Thanksgiving rolled around, I revisited these thoughts. Every year, I justified our plan.
Last year, I asked the Lord to show me what He wanted our family's Christmas to look like.
Now, I am stubborn. I wanted Him to show me loud and clear. I was practically baiting God to let me keep having my way in this. He's faithful, and He showed up big time.
On December 16, I read Heather's blog about Christmas in their home. Every word she wrote about Santa resonated so deeply within me that I couldn't fight it anymore. In fact, I felt free. " This is the line that really got to me: "We don't tell our kids that Santa is real. Going out of our way to lie to our children is wrong…no matter what time of the year it is. Proverbs 12: 22 says the LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful."
I asked Phil to read it. His reaction was so simple, "If we're convicted by this, we have to follow through."
What it boiled down to is that we would never want our children to wonder whether or not God is real because we said Santa was.
So we had to tell our children. First, we asked their forgiveness for lying to them about something big. Then we asked them if they thought Superman, Spiderman, etc., were real. Jacob laughed and said no. We asked if Santa was real. He paused, unsure, and replied with a very hesitant yes. I said, "Actually, Buddy, he's not. Mommy and Daddy weren't telling the truth about that, and we are very sorry."
That was the end of it. They weren't upset. They really couldn't have cared less. I was the one making the big deal out of it. I learned once again that my children are so forgiving when we are honest with them about our own mistakes. They paint such a beautiful picture of God's forgiveness. Our kids think that Santa is as cool as the next super hero, but they know that he is no more real than they are.
Our families were very supportive. I only got called crazy by one uncle who said we were party poopers and ruining Christmas for our kids. I can live with that. On Christmas night, I shared this whole journey with a friend of mine, and she and her husband had just made the same decision for their family! We were so excited that the Lord continually confirmed our obedience!
Now we instruct our children every time we're around other kids that this is what we do in our family. We cannot tell another family what is right for them. They have shocked me with how well they've obeyed this rule!
This post is long enough! Next time, I'll try to write about what we do rather than what we don't do!
No comments:
Post a Comment