The Pursuit

What about Santa Claus? - Part 1

Friday, December 21st, 2007 | catholic, christmas, church, holidays, philosophy, tradition

This post will be broken into a two or three part series.

I do not really like music all too much. But there are some that I do like. My favorite artists include Pink Floyd and David Bowie. The only Christian music I really respect comes from Andrew Peterson - but honestly I don’t listen to Christian music enough to say that there aren’t other decent artists. I do, however, love Christmas music. In fact, you can probably catch me whistling a Christmas tune pretty much any time of the year. Of all the music out there, I think Christmas music is the most fun. This post is about Christmas and my experiences with it.

Although my parents might disagree, I would not say that I was raised in a Christian home. Yes, they are Catholic, and yes, I am a confirmed Catholic (went through all the classes). But the Christian belief system was never really emphasized in my home. With that said, I was raised to believe in Santa Claus. As I grew older I found out that he was not real but it did not make me mistrust my parents - at least, not anymore than I might have already. In fact, when I figured out that Santa wasn’t real, I did not tell my parents. I tried to egg it on in hopes that I would get more presents. In all reality, I probably would have gotten the same amount, but in my mind I figured they had to get me gifts from them and from the fictitious Santa.

When I first became a Christian I decided that it would be a lie to tell my potential children that Santa Claus existed. As far as I can tell there have been disputes about this for ages. Recently, I have became a little more relaxed about the idea of Santa Claus. I am still a little uncomfortable with teaching our children about Santa Claus as if he were a real entity. I think a better solution would be to treat him as a fairy tale. Fairy tales are fun and allow children to use their imagination without having to convince them of a lie.

This year, my wife and I didn’t really do much for Christmas. We bought each other one gift. I got her a DVD (Walk the Line) and she got me a cool little fanny pack designed special for hiking/backpacking. We’ve just been too busy to think about gifts and presents. But in all reality, December 25th really is not a special day to me. I mean, I enjoy the festivities, I enjoy the music, I enjoy giving and receiving gifts, but it’s just a day. Jesus was not born on December 25th and we don’t see any indication in scripture that the early Christians celebrated His birth annually. I’m not saying it is wrong to do so, just that it is not required or commanded.

I am of course very glad that Jesus was born and paid our penalty by dieing a sinless death for us. But I am glad about that everyday.

This post was really just to let everyone know where I am… my next post I think I will talk about what others have written about Christmas/Santa Claus. My last post will be solely dedicated to a recent conversation I had with one of my close friends (an agnostic) about Santa Claus.

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