by Chris Thrower

This Christmas, there exists in your child’s heart and mind a battlefield where two opponents are waging a war for dominance.

One of them is an enduring mythological character perpetuated by a pluralist and syncretistic society and the other is an actual Person, God incarnate, who came to earth, died a substitutionary death for sin, and rose again; who now sits at the right hand of God the Father. Your child may not be fully aware of this and so the battle rages between hoping in Jesus and hoping in Santa. It’s much easier for your child to believe in Santa during this season, his image permeates our culture and fills just about every media outlet, purporting to offer toys and goodies to every good little girl and boy and although the Lord Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the only visuals of Him readily available are nativity scenes which depict a sleeping baby Jesus who doesn’t really seem to offer anything but simply demands everyone’s attention. To a child during Christmas, Santa can seem more real, more tangible, and more worthy of worship than Jesus.

But there is hope for your child, whereas Santa is a fictitious character, Jesus is truly the Savior and His love can overcome all the covetousness and materialism that is being fed to your son or daughter. And with the help of His grace and the Holy Spirit you can enter the fight and begin to defeat the Santa myth so that Jesus can be Lord over your child’s heart this Christmas.

The quickest and most obvious way to destroy the Santa myth is to carefully and judicially explain to your child that Santa is a fictional character like Mickey Mouse and that other children believe he is real because their parents don’t know about Jesus and so they tell their kids about Santa so that they can have a reason for giving gifts and putting up decorations. Some parents are hesitant to do this because they are afraid of becoming a social martyr when their child tells another “we don’t believe in Santa” and other parents hear about it. But if you are a Christian you need to weigh your conscience and decide if you can tolerate your child believing and perpetuating a lie that distracts your child and others from Jesus.

The Santa Claus myth detracts from the good news of Jesus as the greatest and most undeserved gift the world has ever received because it teaches a kind of works righteousness (have you been naughty or nice?). So, in order to circumvent that, a good way to explain the gospel to your child during this season would be to compare the reasons that Santa Claus is said to give gifts and why God gave the gift of His Son Jesus. Santa gives you gifts only if you’ve been a good boy or girl, God sent Jesus to give us all His goodness because we have all been very bad boys and girls and He still loved us and took our punishment so that He could forgive us for being bad and so that we could love Him and know Him. If your child asks why they still got gifts last year even though they had been bad you can either tell them that it was you who gave them gifts because you love them like Jesus loves you or (if you can stomach it) you can tell them that Santa Claus doesn’t know everything you do and Jesus does.

Lastly, you can attempt to reconcile the relationship between Santa and Jesus by telling your kids about Saint Nicholas who was a man who loved Jesus and gave gifts to people who had very little because he wanted to show God’s grace to them. You can tell them that this is why we give gifts at Christmas, to remember God’s undeserved grace towards us, like Saint Nicholas did. Of course, you will still need to deal with the discrepancy between the real St. Nick and the caricature we call Santa, which may require some research and creativity on your part. Whatever methods you choose, it will be only with the help of the Holy Spirit that these truths will begin to take shape in your child’s heart and they will begin to see Christmas as being about grace and love rather than whatever they are coveting from Santa.