Why We do St. Nick and Not Santa

 

 Jolly Old St. Nicholas....

I began forming my views on Santa long before I even thought about having kids or getting married. Maybe because I tend towards a black and white analytical and critical view of everything, or maybe because I had believed in Santa until I was ten... I am not sure. But I have had strong opinions on the guy for awhile.

Let me first of all say that if you are reading this and you do Santa that is awesome. My opinion really doesn't matter. If you're comfortable with your traditions and you've arrived at them prayerfully then you are probably doing the right thing for your family. We all have the freedom to change things up too if you read this or other blogs and realize maybe you don't want to "do Santa".

This blog post probably won't be anything new or revolutionary. There are dozens of blogs about Santa and St. Nick that are more insightful and detailed than this one, and I will link to them. Below is just my heart and what we've decided for our family.

St. Nick

I grew up celebrating St. Nick's Day on December 6th and it was always a lot of fun to see what he would leave outside for us to find. (I still get St. Nick gifts as an adult and the family member has yet to reveal themselves). I've read a whole book on St. Nick called The True St. Nicholas, given to me by a family member trying to convince me to do Santa. The book actually deepened my conviction to not do Santa as I learned that the original St. Nick and the modern day Santa really have hardly anything in common.

As we had started having children we hadn't established whether or not we would do St. Nick's day. Last year I ran across this blog at The Art of Simple about celebrating St. Nick's Day and my heart was rekindled for approaching St. Nick in a Christ honoring way, not as a saint to be glorified, but a man that can point us to Jesus.

We purchased these two books on St. Nick to read the night before or morning of St. Nick's Day.
St. Nicholas, the Real Story of the Christmas Legend
The Story of St. Nicholas
On the morning of St. Nick's they get a new Christmas book, movie, or craft, or some combination thereof. The point is the St. Nick's gifts point them to the true meaning of Christmas. We tell them we are playing the St Nick game and that the gifts are from Mommy and Daddy, since St. Nick is dead of course. It is fun for them to pretend, knowing it is us playing St. Nick.
In the future I'd like to play St. Nick to someone else and have the kids think of a way to bless a poor or needy family, just as St Nick did, as St. Nick followed the example of Jesus.

So that's how we incorporate St. Nick. I really appreciate them learning about the real St. Nick.

 We don't do Santa for several reasons. The first being that I see him as a distraction when incorporated in the traditional way on Christmas morning. We don't think he is evil or Satan, but he is a HUGE distraction. We don't think the birth of Christ needs anything extra to make the day more magical. If the incarnation isn't magical enough then we all need to check our hearts and try to really think about how miraculous Christ's birth actually is. Because it truly is... miraculous!
Second of all, because we want to focus on Christ, we try to keep gift-giving to a minimum and to instead focus on giving gifts to Jesus. A great book for this is The King's Christmas List.    It is really tough to do Santa and keep gift giving to a minimum. Not impossible, but tricky.
Third, we don't like the theology that modern day Santa teaches. Just think about the words to Santa Claus is Coming to Town. For thoughts on this I turn to Noel Piper. : 



Over the years, we have chosen not to include Santa Claus in our Christmas stories and decorations. There are several reasons.
First, fairy tales are fun and we enjoy them, but we don’t ask our children to believe them.
Second, we want our children to understand God as fully as they’re able at whatever age they are. So we try to avoid anything that would delay or distort that understanding. It seems to us that celebrating with a mixture of Santa and manger will postpone a child’s clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. It’s very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part-truth and part-imagination to find the crumbs of reality.
Third, we think about how confusing it must be to a straight-thinking, uncritically-minded preschooler because Santa is so much like what we’re trying all year to teach our children about God. Look, for example, at the “attributes” of Santa.

• He’s omniscient—he sees everything you do.
• He rewards you if you’re good.
• He’s omnipresent—at least, he can be everywhere in one night.
• He gives you good gifts.
• He’s the most famous “old man in the sky” figure.

But at the deeper level that young children haven’t reached yet in their understanding, he is not like God at all.
For example, does Santa really care if we’re bad or good? Think of the most awful kid you can remember. Did he or she ever not get gifts from Santa?
What about Santa’s spying and then rewarding you if you’re good enough? That’s not the way God operates. He gave us his gift—his Son—even though we weren’t good at all. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He gave his gift to us to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough.
Helping our children understand God as much as they’re able at whatever age they are is our primary goal. But we’ve also seen some other encouraging effects of not including Santa in our celebration.
First, I think children are glad to realize that their parents, who live with them all year and know all the worst things about them, still show their love at Christmas. Isn’t that more significant than a funny, old, make-believe man who drops in just once a year?
Second, I think most children know their family’s usual giving patterns for birthday and special events. They tend to have an instinct about their family’s typical spending levels and abilities. Knowing that their Christmas gifts come from the people they love, rather than from a bottomless sack, can help diminish the “I-want-this, give-me-that” syndrome.
And finally, when children know that God’s generosity is reflected by God’s people, it tends to encourage a sense of responsibility about helping make Christmas good for others. 

Lastly, when it comes to comparing St. Nick and Santa I don't see many similarities. The Modern Day Western Santa is such an evolution from St. Nick that he is hardly recognizable. Modern Day Santa is more a product of great marketing by Coca Cola than the actual historic St. Nick. For further reading on St. Nick I will refer to these links:
St. Nicholas and the Origin of Santa
St. Nicholas Center
What We're Doing About Santa

So there you have it, that is in a nutshell why we do celebrate St. Nick's Day but don't do Santa Claus.

But, what DO we tell our kids about Santa then?
Like I said, we don't demonize him. Neither do we celebrate him. OF COURSE the kids notice Santa and realize he goes along with Christmas for many. I tell my 4.5 year old something like this, "You know St. Nick was a real person that really lived and now he lives in heaven with Jesus. Santa is pretend and a lot of people got the idea for his story from St. Nick but they are very different. Also, some of your friends might believe Santa is real and play a secret game with their parents and we don't want to ruin their game ok? So if your friends tell you Santa is real you can just pretend with them."  We let them watch Christmas movies with Santa in them, although of course we'd prefer to watch movies focused on the nativity and Jesus. We listen to secular Christmas music and music about Santa, but again, we try to listen to music mostly focused on Jesus. All of our Christmas books are focused on Jesus or St. Nicholas, although I am sure they will read a Santa Claus book at some point. We aren't kill joys when it comes to Santa, we just simply don't incorporate him into our Christmas celebrations like most. Hope that makes sense. :)

Here is further reading on Santa:
Rethinking Santa
Down With Santa
What to Do About Santa

And for those who are pro Santa I thought this had some great takeaways. 
http://www.tommynelson.com/can-santa-jesus-coexist/

Merry Christmas!!!! Whether you incorporate St. Nick, Santa, or Elves into your holidays, I pray Jesus is your focus and joy this Christmas and always.