“You are terrible parents.” “You have deprived your child of the joy of childhood!” “Oh, I’m sorry, I did not know that you are Jewish.” All these things and more my wife and I have been told when someone learns that we do not use Santa Claus as a part of our family’s celebration of Christmas. At my former appointment there were members of other congregations approaching members of my church shocked that the good Methodist Preacher “does not believe in Christmas.” It further scandalized the entire community when it trickled out that the Easter Bunny is out too. Even my supervisor received a disturbed phone call from an equally disturbed parishioner reporting that I do not believe in Easter. When my supervisor enquired if she was referring to my belief in the resurrection, the good lady responded, “Oh no, he believes in the resurrection, but there are ‘things’ about Easter that he does not believe.”

When someone ask me now why we don’t participate in such childhood fancies, I always turn the question around and ask them why they wake up Christmas morning and pretend Santa Claus came to visit.

“Why do you put cookies on the fireplace and then when your children are asleep go eat a few bites?” “Why do you sign the Christmas cards with Santa’s signature?” These questions, I ask, more out of curiosity than anything else and the answers are sadly almost uniform.

“Well,” the response comes after thinking about it for a moment, “we do it because that is just what we did when we were kids.”

 How is that for intentional spiritual family formation!?!

The next series of question I ask good church going folks is the bombshell of the question. “What is the greatest gift God has given the world?” Some version of John 3:16 comes the answer. “And when did God send this greatest gift into the world?”

“Christmas I guess,” again comes the answer.

“If Jesus Christ is the greatest gift of all, and we celebrate his incarnation into this world on Christmas Day, why in this world do you feel that you need to add Santa Claus to give meaning to that?”

At this point the answer is not really comprehensible; it is usually some vague attempt at reiterating it in a more profound version of the previous stale answer of “because that is the way we’ve always done it.” If they are really clever they will drape the same old musty answer with hints of false family value concerns.  

Now let’s not be so judgmental and critical. After all God and Santa Claus have a lot in common. God knows if we’ve been good or bad; Santa Claus is checking his list and checking it twice, so be good for goodness sake. God lives in heaven; Santa Claus lives at the North Pole. God can be all over the place at one time; Santa Claus gets around the entire world, indeed, down every chimney in one night. We go to church to visit God; we go to the mall to have our picture take with Santa Claus. God has angels; Santa Claus has elves. Obviously our children can tell the difference. Clearly such a spiritual figure as old St. Nick does not take away from or confuse our children about God. What could possible be wrong with Santa Claus? “So lets give thanks to the Lord above cause Santa Clause comes tonight.”

How remarkably sad! Here is the greatest gift of joy and hope the world has ever been given, the author of new life and restoration, the one who would go on to conquer sin and death. Yet we placate our childish fancies vicariously through our own children, at the expense of our own children’s spiritual formations, by taking away from the sacred and profane. Why celebrate just the birth of the Prince of Peace, the giver of abundant life when we can also pretend to receive gifts from a jolly red suited imaginary figure who slides down our chimney?

Okay, okay, Santa Claus is not the antichrist or Satan, and no one is going to hell for teaching their children about Santa Claus. For the most part, teaching a child to believe in Santa Claus will not forever warp spiritual growth – I say while grinding my teeth. My point is simply this: celebrating Christmas for anything more than the coming of the Messiah is ultimately taking away from the greatest gift we have ever received.