Tag: Christmas

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Ho Ho No: Why the Santa Myth is Hazardous for Children

By Jim Spiegel

In American culture the Santa Claus story is generally considered to be a fun and entertaining aspect of the holiday season. Parents everywhere get a kick out of convincing their kids that Santa is real. This deception is, of course, reinforced through popular Santa songs, Santa films, and assorted books, games, and toys, such as the now popular Elf on the Shelf interactive toy which many parents use to motivate their kids to behave better, premised on the idea that the toy elf on their shelf is actually a moral scout for Santa.

Even committed Christians tend to see the Santa story as innocuous, though some find the tale of ole St. Nick to be an unfortunate or annoying distraction from the true meaning of Christmas—a celebration of the arrival of the Christ child to a world in need of salvation. Rarely, however, is the Santa myth regarded as a direct threat to Christian belief. After all, every adult understands that Santa isn’t real and that playing along with the story is, well, all in good fun. What danger could there be in the fable of a jolly, chubby old man soaring through the sky on a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer to bring joy to little boys and girls all around the world?

But let’s think this through. Consider the attributes of Santa Claus, according to the standard story. In order to visit the requisite 1.5 billion households worldwide, Santa would need to travel at a speed of more than 1,300 miles per second in an open sleigh while taking a fraction of a second (.0003 seconds, to be exact) to complete his deliveries at each stop. Such power over the laws of nature suggests something along the lines of omnipotence.

Furthermore, according to the Santa myth, he has exhaustive knowledge of all of our lives. As we all affirm when singing that popular Clausian hymn every Christmas season: “he sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake; he knows if you’ve been bad or good.” Clearly, then, Santa is also omniscient.

And, of course, Santa isn’t merely aware of these things. He is also our moral judge, making meticulous assessments of little boys and girls (and adults as well?). And Santa’s judgments have significant practical consequences in the form of rewards (wonderful presents) and punishments (bags of coal). Therefore, we had better “be good for goodness sake.” After all, Santa’s judgments are always right and executed with perfect justice. So Santa must also be perfectly good, an omnibenevolent being.

What all of this adds up to is a being who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good—a being that is essentially divine. Of course, again, it’s just a silly popular story that we all know to be fictional. But that is not what millions of American parents tell their children. According to some surveys, as many as 85% of children in the United States believe that Santa Claus is real, in most cases, presumably, because their parents have told them so. Many parents personally embellish the tale and play along by, say, eating the cookies and drinking the milk that they leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve or by making a point of taking their kids to the mall to tell Santa what they want for Christmas. And when their kids get old enough to register skepticism about the whole story, they are often told to “just have faith.”

So what happens when a kid discovers that the Santa story isn’t true? Some aren’t disturbed too much by it. However, many of us vividly recall what a crushing realization this is. I certainly do. And for most kids the disappointment likely has nothing to do with the number of presents they believe they will receive in the future, since the discovery that there is no Santa Claus is likewise a discovery that one’s parents are reliable providers of Christmas gifts. Rather, this revelation is a discovery in the direction of naturalism—that the world is not as magical or enchanted as one had been led to believe by the most significant authorities in one’s life: one’s parents. What else have my parents been teaching me that is actually false? What other authorities in my life have been deluding me? No doubt the questions in the mind of an eight- or nine-year-old kid are not this well-formed, but this is the basic train of thought that I have heard adults report of their own experience as kids when first learning that the Santa story is fiction.

If the Santa myth ultimately serves to generally undermine a child’s belief in world-enchantment, the skeptical effect is more specifically associated with the classical theistic traits of Santa Claus. If a kid is told for years about this omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being, only to have faith in that being dashed, then how might this impact her regard for biblical teachings about a God possessing precisely these same attributes? Again, the skeptical associations may not necessarily be conscious, but this doesn’t mean they aren’t real.

This is on top of the more obvious problem with telling one’s kids that Santa is real, namely the fact that to do so is to lie to them. And it is not an inconsequential lie, I would argue. It’s difficult to see how a conspiracy of parental deceptions wouldn’t have the psychological effect of sowing distrust in a kid’s mind regarding their parents’ other teachings, including—perhaps especially—teachings of a theological nature.

So however popular and entertaining the Santa myth may be, deceiving one’s kids about Santa is problematic. The fact that it is a lie that undermines parental trustworthiness is sufficient reason for parents, especially Christian parents, not to participate in the deception. But the fact that it could also set kids up for religious skepticism might be the most compelling reason not to play along. Perhaps more of us ought to take seriously the possibility that the Santa story, for all it’s fun, is actually hazardous for children.

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The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived

By Jim Spiegel

Today we celebrate the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, widely considered the greatest man who ever lived. His teachings are arguably the most profound, insightful and challenging the world has ever seen. He has inspired countless universities, hospitals, and ministries to the sick, poor, and oppressed. He has inspired the world’s greatest literature, art, and music, not to mention the greatest theological treatises and much of the greatest philosophy in history. He has also inspired countless followers to make extreme sacrifices, many even literally giving up their lives, in his service. So great is his influence on human history, in fact, that this itinerant teacher became the reference point for the world’s dating system. That’s remarkable stuff for a man who never held a political office, never led an army, never authored any books or even a single essay, nor did he even travel more than a few hundred miles from his hometown.

So how did he manage to so profoundly impact human history? For Christians, of course, the answer is that Jesus wasn’t just the greatest man who ever lived. He was something far more than this.

“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” (Jude 1:24-25)

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On Lying to Children about Santa Claus

By Jim Spiegel

Have you seen this story about a ten-year-old girl, Belle Adams, whose belief in Santa Claus was dashed by her mother?  My wife texted me little Belle’s letter with the comment that the story “confirms one of our parenting decisions.”  That decision, which we made early on (when our oldest son, Bailey, was a toddler), was that we would not lie to our kids about Santa Claus but rather tell them the story while also informing them that it is a popular Western myth.  And to reinforce the fictional nature of it all, I would sometimes throw in extra narrative flourishes, such as that: 1) Santa is a chain-smoker and 2) Santa cheats at golf.  (These additions were not themselves lies, of course, since we were admittedly dealing in the realm of fiction.  When trafficking in cockamamie myths, why not augment along the way?)

Seriously, though, our reservations about participating in the Santa deception (despite the fact that some good friends of ours have done this) boiled down to a few fundamental concerns.  First, it constitutes a lie to one’s kids.  From the start, Amy and I have been committed to being truthful and as trustworthy as possible with our kids, whether regarding ole St. Nicholas or the weightier issues of life.  Being a systematic lie, the Santa deception certainly defies commitment to truthfulness and, when that lie is exposed, parents’ trustworthiness is necessarily undermined.  Little Belle Adams’ furious letter to her parents demonstrates just how serious the impact of this can be.  We might be tempted to think, “Oh, that’s just an immediate reaction; she’ll get over it.”  But, as the testimony of several adults I know confirms, in some cases the recovery is not so swift, and anyway a child’s “getting over it” emotionally is no guarantee that her trust in her parents is not damaged to some degree.  And that is a serious thing, no matter how much fun and silliness might be involved in perpetuating the deception.

Secondly, the Santa deception could set a child up for religious skepticism.  Consider the mythical attributes of the portly fictional elf.  He is omnipotent (as implied by the notion that he can travel at the speed of light and flawlessly deliver billions of presents to children worldwide in just a few hours); he is omniscient (“he knows when you are sleeping; he knows when you’re awake”); and he is omnibenevolent (he’s a moral judge, distinguishing the “naughty” and “nice” —“he knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!”).  Notice that these are all essentially divine attributes.  So when a child is eventually shown that her “faith” in Santa was misplaced, an unfortunate precedent is set: when it comes to testimonies about a wondrously wise, powerful, and loving being, don’t believe it, even if the reports come from the authorities in your life that you trust most—your own parents.  Such stories are just too good to be true, a set-up for disappointment.  As they say, fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

I’m not saying that participating in the Santa deception will necessarily turn your kids into agnostics or even incline them at all in the direction of religious skepticism.  But, again, I’ve had adults tell me that their enlightenment about the Santa story did prompt them to consciously entertain doubts about God for just this reason.  And this, too, is a serious thing, however much fun parents and their children might have along the way.

But perhaps, after all, I am the one who is taking Santa Claus too seriously!  I mean, come on—it’s just a fun story that adds to the magic of the Christmas holiday, right?  To that I say:  Is the real Christmas story not magical enough?  Who needs a goofy cultural myth to add to the joy and wonder of the Lord of the universe taking on human flesh?  What good is a remote bearded elf in a funny suit visiting us once yearly when we have an omnipresent Lord who attends to our every prayer?  Who needs an imperfect judge to dole out toys or lumps of coal, depending on one’s degree of goodness, when the real Judge of the world is also the way of atonement, the one who suffered, died, and rose again on our behalf?  In short, why pollute the greatest story ever told with the most kitschy tale ever told?  So, in the final analysis, perhaps the best reason to scuttle the whole Santa story (at least as anything more than a cultural myth) is an aesthetic one:  to emphasize St. Nick over the baby Jesus is to exchange a profoundly beautiful narrative for an insipid one.  Santa Claus might not be a chain-smoker or cheater at golf, but he’s an incomparably less interesting character than the Christ child.

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Our Stories Within the Story

By Amy Spiegel

I can always count on Maggie, our precocious seven-year-old, to inspire me to think outside the box. She is not one to color inside the lines, either literally or metaphorically.  She and I spend several hours a day one-on-one homeschooling, and she never fails to amaze me with her limitless imagination. Her “When-I-grow-up…” list grows by the hour and recently she seems to have added “color commentator” to her list of career aspirations. Not color commentator for football, mind you, or any other spectator sport. Why give the play-by-play of something as meaningless as sports when you could provide commentary on your own life. While hammering out an email, I’ll hear, “…and then the girl picked up her pencil and began to carefully print Zs” or “Maggie really hoped her mom would bring her snack soon because she was so hungry.”

Being a lover of narrative, I appreciate this gift that my daughter seems to have in seeing her life as a story, one to be enjoyed and cherished, sometimes to be endured. It isn’t easy to see the thread of story that runs through all our lives running through your own life story. Too often, we are too close up to see the themes and lessons. This time of year, many of us are focused on the Christmas story. Two thousand years removed from the events that changed human history forever, it’s easy to identify the main characters, to see the plot unfolding and rushing to the climax of the cross and empty tomb. But what was it like for the characters themselves, who weren’t storybook figures, only living between the pages of a fairytale? These were men and women of flesh and blood, often lacking in perspective, too immersed in the events of today to foresee the God-sized plan of which they were a part. This is a man, traveling with his betrothed, unable to find shelter. This is a young woman giving birth for the first time in a cave meant for beasts of burden, not the King of Kings. One has to wonder how much of it they really understood. Certainly the angelic visitations and Holy Spirit-inspired prophecies helped. But think of all the promises we are given, of God’s provision and love, of our ultimate destiny. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, how often are we tempted to doubt? How often do we give way to despair? How often are we stuck in the cave unable to feel the light of resurrection?

So this season, as you sit and ponder the lights of the tree, the gifts exchanged, and the pile of dishes to be washed, don’t forget to look up. Remember that your life, too, is a story being told. You may not know where you are going, but there is a light leading the way.

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Santa, Jesus, and the “Reason for the Season”

By Amy Spiegel

I love the Christmas Season with a fanatical zest that sometimes borders on the ridiculous. My house is currently decked out with more lights than Santa’s Workshop. (I must confess, however, that my devotion is counter-acted with my loathing of cold weather and since Jim is not the most festive enthusiast of the holiday season, our decorations are limited to the interior of our house, i.e. the limits of our furnace’s reach.) I wish I could say that my celebration of Jesus’ birth is restricted to “the reason for the season” but I will be frank and say that while I love the solemnity surrounding the birth of the Savior, I embrace many of the secular trappings as well. I suppose it is a bit like planning a child’s birthday party. While there is no denying that the party is for the guest of honor, the event becomes bigger than that. I certainly don’t think Jesus minds sharing the limelight, as long as everyone remembers who the birthday Boy is. A party is still a party, right and I haven’t seen too many five-year-olds complain “Everyone is having too much fun and should really be paying more attention to me!” He is typically in the midst of the all the chaotic frivolity and enjoying himself too much to notice he isn’t the center of attention. If a five-year-old is able to grasp this concept, then, I am fairly confident, so can the Son of God. Then why is it that people get so uptight about “The Reason for the Season”?

Now I am certainly not advising believers to run out and embrace the rabid materialism that is represented by old Saint Nick and his minions, but nor do I believe in hum-bugging your way through the season and calling it religious purity. While I am often annoyed by the myriad Hallmarkish movies out there that define Christmas as “a season to bring families together” or “a time for love,” my annoyance isn’t really that these themes of family and love outshine the celebration of Jesus’ arrival on the planet but rather that they are given outside of the significance of that arrival. Going back to the birthday party analogy, there is nothing wrong with kids having fun at a party. In fact, that’s part of the point. I seriously doubt any child would feel honored by a gathering of his friends in which everyone solemnly sat around just staring at him and saying “It’s your birthday.” In the same way, however, there comes a time in the party where everyone does come together to sing “Happy Birthday” and acknowledge the reason for being there.

A few years back, there was a big to-do regarding whether to say “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Holidays,” or just try to avoid speaking at all during the month of December lest we offend anyone. I do find it frustrating that despite the fact that most Americans observe Christmas in some fashion, the minority often wins cultural battles over faith in the public square. So I went about dispensing holiday cheer with an almost combative zeal. I could almost see in someone’s reaction to my “Merry Christmas” whether we were on the same “team.” And that was when the uneasy realization settled in that just as Christmas is not about how many gifts are under the tree or a puritanical refusal to have fun, it is also not about beating people over the head with baby Jesus. When my attitude changed from winning to sharing my joy with others, I was surprised to see the change in people’s response, whether they were on my team or not. Jesus can kick Santa’s butt, and I am pretty sure He can handle the Scrooges of this world as well.

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It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

By Amy Spiegel

Our daughter Maggie, age 5, loves classical music. Now, please don’t take this as obnoxious mommy-bragging. She has chosen this genre completely on her own. But to balance that statement, I will add that our three-year-old’s favorite song is “Smoke on the Water” and the older boys are huge Weird Al fans. Anyway, for the last several months, Maggie has been somewhat frustrated in her ability to enjoy the likes of Bach and Beethoven due to the fact that her CD player is broken. The radio still works, however, so we often tune in NPR for her as she is going to sleep. Recently, however, we discovered an all-Christmas station and this has replaced Performance Today for the time being.

Listening to endless renditions of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” and “It’s Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas,” I have noticed something rather unexpected about a great number of Christmas carols:  Many of them are really, really depressing. Now of course you have many that are upbeat to the point of irritation, but they seem to be in the minority. “I’ll Have a Blue Christmas,” “Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons of Blue,” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” are just a few of the oldies but goodies; there are also many newer, more hip yet equally disheartening Christmas songs out there. Perhaps the people in charge of programming have a rather pessimistic view of the holidays which compels them to disproportionately tilt the scales in favor of the somber, but I’m not so sure. Even more explicitly religious carols are more solemn than celebratory. Maybe we are supposed to be a little sobered by the events surrounding Christ’s birth. Maybe there is more of Good Friday present in the stable than we care to admit.

Of course, there are many reasons why we might try to obscure the more gloomy aspects of the Christmas story, turning it into a Disneyesque, sanitized version of the truth. For myself, I find this time of year horribly depressing already. It’s overcast most of the time, cold but with little snow. Immediately upon returning from Thanksgiving, I hauled out the ole Christmas decorations and after deciding that the tree and nativity weren’t enough to raise my serotonin, I cleared out several shelves of Christmas lights at Dollar General, cooked enough Christmas cookies to feed several squadrons of elves and commissioned the kids to create a wide variety of Christmas crafts. (Nothing says “Celebrate the birth of the suffering servant” like a wreath made out of marshmallows and an M&M Christmas tree.). Now before having done much reflection, I would have said this feverish decorating frenzy stemmed from a great devotion to celebrating Jesus’ birth, but now it seems all about me and very little to do with the person of Jesus. Certainly the circumstances of his birth read more like something out of Charles Dickens rather than any invention of Walt Disney—poor family without shelter; young mother with a reputation in tatters, etc.

My kids love hearing the stories of their births—how we rushed to the hospital for some, how we thought others would never decide to exit the womb, and so on. What would Joseph and Mary tell Jesus about his arrival? How they were tired and homeless, without friends and family in a strange town? How it was obedience to a much hated foreign power that drew them to the place of his birth, not the latest medical technology? Did they understand that 33 years later, their first born son would travel the same road to deliver himself into the hands of that same authority? Of course, they knew he wasn’t just their son. He was God’s. Sent for their sake, as well as our own, He had his own agenda to fulfill in obedience to the Father.

When we sing songs rejoicing over the birth of Jesus, we rarely have in mind the Son of God dying on the cross for our sin. For it is quite a sorrowful thought to see that helpless babe surrounded by filth and poverty because we are incapable (and unwilling) to save ourselves. As we gather together this Christmas to celebrate Jesus’ Birthday let us rejoice in great humility. Let us commemorate Mary’s desperate cries of labor, tears of joy and sorrow mixing into one flow: Joseph’s humiliation and pride as he welcomed God’s son into such a humble backdrop. And may our hearts fill with gratitude and repentance as we ponder the words of William Chatterton Dix’s in one of my favorite Christmas carols, “What Child is This? Why lies He in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding?  Good Christian, fear; for sinners here the silent Word is pleading.  Nails, spear shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you; hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary!” Let us remember the miracle of his birth always keeping in mind the sorrow of his death and the victory of his resurrection. What child is this indeed!

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Dairy Queen Deserts and Christmas Disappointments

By Amy Spiegel

Many years ago, when it was just Jim and I (it actually seems more like a lifetime ago), we took a second honeymoon tour of the Southwest. We drove through Louisiana and then Texas, visiting friends and family along the way. One special friend that we visited as often as possible was our dear friend, Dairy Queen. As fond as both Jim and I are of milk products, locating these gold mines of lactose-loaded delights quickly became a daily tradition. As we started our long leg across southern Texas, however, our mid-day pit stop at a roadside DQ became more of a challenge. We had entered a Dairy Queen desert. Like thirsty travelers in search of an oasis, we would eagerly await each exit food sign, quickly scanning the edible options. If there was no Dairy Queen, we would laugh a bit to ourselves and light-heartedly say “Ah, there will be one at the next exit.” And so it would go, Dairy Queenless exit after Dairy Queenless exit. With each passing hour, our disappointment mounted and disbelief turned to desperation (we might have settled for a Baskin Robbins just to get through the day). Then, somehow, it became funny. It was so tragic, this lack of ice cream, that one had to laugh. And we did. It became a standing joke for the rest of the trip and even now. Of course, it didn’t hurt that upon entering the great state of New Mexico, we found Dairy Queens aplenty.

This week, I felt a bit like a wanderer in a desert with no oasis in site. My family will tell you that I look forward to Christmas even more than I look forward to a perfectly dipped chocolate cone (especially because Jim always bites the tip off my dipped cone, perfectly dipped or not, as it passes from the drive-thru window to me. Not that I am bitter.) I especially love arriving at my parents’ house a week or so before the big day. My mom always does a great job decorating the house and we usually have several special events planned for the kids: ice skating downtown with my dad, going to Dollywood for the shows and lights, and hosting friends and family while a fire crackles in the fireplace. This week, however, my kids have hardly left the couch as bad colds have kept everyone homebound. No one has slept well and Sam ended up with pneumonia. It’s enough to make a girl go “Bah, hum bug!” While laying beside my kids at night, rubbing their backs as they hack in my face (why don’t they write about that in Mother’s Day cards?) I have prayed that God would heal the kids in time for them to have a little fun. Is that too much to ask? I felt like I was back in our little Toyota Corolla all over again, driving down an endless highway, just looking for a little relief. And relief was granted but certainly not in the form I expected or frankly wanted. No, the kids didn’t leap from bed and say “Hallelujah, I’m healed!” But they didn’t complain or whine much about missing out on all the things we planned. Yes, I still had to get up over and over to get them water, fix their covers and rub their chest with Vic’s Vapor Rub (again). But God granted me more patience than I usually have and a great husband and parents who got up every morning so I could sleep in. It’s such a cliché that God always answers our prayers, just not always in the way we hoped, and yet it is a truth that too often seems to take me by surprise.

So this Christmas, be prepared. You will be disappointed, either by something that is or isn’t under the tree or more likely something someone does or doesn’t say or do. In your disappointment, however, try to remember just what you are celebrating. We recognize the birth of Jesus as the great gift-the deliverance of mankind from bondage and death. But for some who had looked forward to his birth, it was the greatest disappointment of their lives. Sometimes the greatest blessings come in forms you don’t expect, whether you are looking for the Dairy Queen or the Messiah.