I believed in Santa Claus.
My husband believed in Santa.
We turned out okay. We didn’t walk away from the Lord or resent our parents. Before we had kids we figured we would do the whole Santa thing. We wanted Christmas to be as special for them as it was for us. But then we actually had kids and we had a big problem.
Santa wasn’t going to work.
First, let me say I’m a huge proponent of fostering imagination in kids. My kids’ all-time favorite activity is pretending. All day long I have pirates, superheroes, and exotic animals flying through my house. I love it.
I also want to point out that when I talk about Santa in this post I am specifically referring to teaching our kids to believe in Santa, not whether or not he should be banished altogether. My husband wears a Santa hat while we bake cookies. My kids sing along to Christmas songs on the radio and they don’t skip over Santa’s name like a cuss word.
But we have decided not to tell our kids Santa is real. More specifically, we purposely tell them he is not.
If you’ve been reading this blog for long you know that the whole point is to direct us moms and our kids into living out the gospel. I tried and tried to fit Santa into that plan, but it didn’t work. It was like trying to stuff a giant man down a chimney…
There are four reasons Santa didn’t make the Wallace team.
1. Santa promotes works righteousness.
That might sound harsh, but keep in mind the aforementioned goal. The heart of the gospel is the glorious trade of our sin for Christ’s righteousness. It is a difficult concept to teach because kids are legalistic by nature. It takes a lot of time, prayer, and thoughtful conversations to help them understand that God loves us because of Christ’s good works, not ours.
Then along comes Santa.
