The Santa Question?
Over the years I agonized with the Santa issue. Should we pretend or not? I know I was devastated at 6 when I found out Santa wasn’t real. I cried and cried and cried. I remember it well. Plus, I wanted Christmas to focus on Jesus not Santa, so when my kids were little we sort of avoided the whole Santa issue. We visited him in the Mall and watched movies, but we never over emphasized that he brought presents.
I remember one year my four year old believed on his own that Santa brought presents and there was no talking him out of believing. My six year old (Grace) tells me Santa is dead! Just like that! But she knows that he once lived and loved Jesus very much! If you haven’t read the story or St. Nicholas or seen the movie, I wrote a post all about it.
I’ve never been happy with the way we’ve done Christmas morning. When the kids were little we dove right into presents. Then when we got older we read the Christmas story. But I think we’ve finally found a unique family tradition that they actually look forward to.
On Christmas Eve most of the presents are already under the tree. We do a traditional “gifts to Jesus” and read books and such, then off to bed. In the morning the gifts are gone! And we reenact the Christmas story. Then like the wise men, my kids go off and find their presents. They are only allowed to retrieve the presents with their wrapping paper. It should be exciting this year since our home is twice as big.
What are you favorite Christmas morning traditions?
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Sadly, we just dive right into the presents after breakfast =(
We do Santa like we do other fictional characters. It’s fun to know them as characters, but that’s about it. My kids mostly think he’s creepy.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:09 pmWe do all our Christmasy stuff before breakfast and breakfast is more buffet style as kids are still tearing opening presents! Can’t believe Christmas is almost here.
December 18th, 2008 at 2:57 pmThat is a really cool tradition, Gina! I like the idea of it.
Growing up we didn’t have any hard and fast traditions for a lot of years because we lived a couple states away from extended family and would often travel to be with them. Then as more siblings joined the family we would stay home and sometimes host the extended family at our house. For a couple years we were by ourselves and we made our big dinner for Christmas Eve lunch, then open presents in the afternoon. Christmas Day would be spent in the Christmas afterglow… playing with new toys, reading new books, watching new movies and playing new games. I liked that a lot.
Since my immediate family has started getting larger through significant others, we are now choosing to put off opening presents until the 26th in order for everyone to be here. I know, I know, this really tests the patience of the younger ones. But the important thing is still being all together no matter what day we celebrate.
December 18th, 2008 at 4:11 pmContest 2009. What a wonderful idea. Thanks for sharing. One tradition we started a few years back is to buy a birthday cake for Jesus to have after Christmas dinner. We sing “Happy Birthday!” to Jesus. Now that you have mentioned your tradition I think I am also going to add the Christmas story at that time to reinforce that it is His birthday.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:00 amCONTEST2009 Christmas story,cinnamon rolls,presents.Monica
January 6th, 2009 at 11:13 amContest 2009> when our oldest was very young, we kind of did Santa. But as she grew older, and we had another one, our convictions led us to not “do Santa” Sure we don’t totally ignore he’s out there, but they never get gifts from Santa on Christmas morning from us. The grandparents don’t totally follow this. As far as our Christmas morning, we typically read the Bible(Luke 2 usually) and then the last few years(minus this past one as we were traveling) we get a cake from our local bakery with something about Jesus or Christmas. I really like what you all do. Maybe next year we’ll put some elements of that into our tradition.
January 6th, 2009 at 8:55 pmContest 2009! Our sons are older now, but they still love surprises. Our family of four exchange our gifts and check our stockings! Then, we head out to my in-laws and share breakfast with them and exchange gifts and good times with them. Cindi
January 9th, 2009 at 1:44 pm