Ok, so there are 2 weird things about this post right off the bat:
1. I’m
referring to a Christmas character and it’s only October for crying out loud
2. I’m talking about Santa – and this blog is
supposed to be about the CHURCH calendar
Now here are the 2 reasons for why I’m being so weird:
1. In order to alter our thinking, and possibly
traditions, about this key figure, we might need to start planning early
2. Santa, like it or not, is part of our culture
and we need to figure out what we’re going to do with him in our families!
There are probably at least 3 options for how families can deal
with Santa Claus:
(I’ll switch to
letters now since the numbers are getting a little old)
A.
They can try to completely ignore him, focusing
only on Jesus and the true Christmas story
B.
They can go along with the normal culture,
embracing the jolly ol’ fellow, encouraging all the mall visits and
naughty-and-nice lists
-or-
C. They can proactively find a way to
incorporate the legend of Santa into their family life, while clearly
delineating his fictional aspects from the factual truths of Jesus.
Perhaps you can see where I am going with this. :)
Years ago, when we first read Martha Zimmerman’s book about
celebrating the Christian year (see sidebar for details), we were introduced to
the concept of celebrating St. Nicholas Day.
I would venture to say that this has become one of our most favorite
family traditions of all. Not only does
it cleanly and happily take care of the Santa/Jesus delineation, but it also
has given us a whole new party day!
Our kids love St. Nicholas Day because it involves 4
things: all things Santa, a party with
friends, secretive giving missions, and STOCKINGS. And truthfully, one of the things we love
about giving stockings on St. Nicholas Day is that it spreads out the
gift-giving a little bit. The kids can
really enjoy the things in their stockings, as opposed to them just being the
“warm-up” to the real deal on Christmas morning.
(In our house we give stockings on St. Nicholas Day, a
couple gifts on Christmas morning, and one more on Epiphany…. so it’s a full
month of gifts all spread out.)
But the real best part for us is that on December 7, after
St. Nick has been fully celebrated and honored, we put away all things to do
with Santa, and the rest of the season is now freed up to focus on the true
star, Jesus. There seems to be a lot
less confusion that way.
So, I write this now, to put a little niggle in your brain
in case you, too, would like to celebrate Santa in this way. As it turns out the man behind the legend,
St. Nicholas, was quite a fascinating man and definitely worthy of emulation in
some ways. Perhaps this is the year
you’d like to celebrate the true story as a family.
I know switching the giving-of-the-stockings date can throw
people off, so put it on your calendars now- December 6 is St. Nicholas
Day. In the next couple of weeks I’ll
post a little more detail about who St. Nicholas was, as well as some
suggestions for how to specifically celebrate the day.
In the meantime, start gathering those stocking stuffers!
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