Christmas Brainwashing

[China Cat Sunflower]

Hi,

My little girls are four and six this Christmas. Like all good parents I'm aware of my cultural responsibility to endoctrinate my kids into the cult of Christmas. I've got to put the programming into them. It's for their own good!

Christmas is about kids. That is to say, Christmas is about enjoying torturing children with anticipation! We put the tree up right after Thanksgiving this year, that marks the start of Christmas time. I've been playing the classic Christmas music, both sacred and secular, everyday. We've had a fire in the fireplace where the stockings are hung with care several nights, mom got out the Santa cookie jar, and the girls helped make sugar cookies they could decorate. We've been reading The Night Before Christmas intermitantly since October.

Chris

[BlaznFattyz]

i would say that your children will have wonderful and fond memories of christmas and their thoughtful and caring parents spending time with them, more so than being brainwashed.

[Saltmeister]

Christmas -- the devotion to Santa Claus as opposed to Christ.

The religion of Santa-Clausity.

Hmmm. It brings back some childish memories. It's been a long time since I experienced the liturgy of Santa-Clausity. The idea of receiving presents. A guy in a red suit coming down from the chimney with a bag of presents.

What a shame! I converted to Christianity when I was around 10? 12? I abandoned my Santa-Clausian up-bringing. I gave up the legend of Santa Claus to embrace the living legend of Christ. I guess you could say that Christ was the grown-up version of Santa Claus.

[China Cat Sunflower]

My P's never let us believe in Santa. It was debunked at an early age. You know what? It never mattered. Daddy was Santa. I'm letting my girls believe as long as they want to. Believe me, they want to believe! But it won't matter later for them. What matters is the warmth; the Christmassy flavored ambience, the family being reinforced...the love and togetherness. And the cookies!

Chris

[wil]

In elementary school my son related to me this story. He was being hounded on the playground for believing in Santa Claus...they were saying he didn't exist, he was insisting he did. This must have been like 4th or 5th grade. They had both already asked me, and I told them what I believe to be true. That the spirit of Santa lives in everyone who allows it to...it is a personal choice.

Anyway, he told the boys he had proof. He said, "You don't know my dad, but I can tell you, there must be a Santa. Because he would never buy all those presents!"

[InLove]

Ahh, yes. I remember one evening as a child, sitting there on the edge of the bubble-filled tub with my Mom and telling her that the kids were laughing at me for believing in Santa Claus. She quietly took my hand and asked me what I thought. And I said something like, "It's you and Daddy, isn't it?" I think there were some tears and laughter at that point on both our parts.

Then she said something like, "Well, you know the real reason we celebrate Christmas, don't you?" I said, "It's about Jesus being born." She said, "Well, do you think that was a good gift?" I said, "Yes." She said that she thought that Santa was supposed to represent the spirit of giving. Then she apologized, sort of, if they had let me believe he was a real guy for too long, but she said they knew that one day I would figure it out. She asked me if I was okay, there was a great big hug, and she turned to leave, looking a bit sad and a bit relieved.

Before she left, I said, "Mama? I feel bad." She asked why. "Remember last year when I got two transistor radios--one from Santa and one from Granny, and Daddy asked me which one I liked best?" She said, "Yes, why?" I said, "I told you I liked the one from Granny the best, but I just said that so she would feel good. I really liked the one from Santa." My mom's face lit up just enough to highlight her moist eyes, and she said, "Well, honey--don't worry about things like that. There is enough worry in this world. Be happy--and take your bath!"

I had a nice, long, thoughtful bubble bath that night. I was a little less innocent, and a bit more adult. Christmas never lost its beauty for me, and I still believe in Santa.

InPeace,
InLove

[lunamoth]

Chris, I too think your kids are lucky to have such loving parents who know how to nurture family traditions and wonderful memories. My girls are four and six this year too...but I think the six-year-old is already suspicious. We kind of blew it with the tooth-fairy one night recently when she caught Daddy in the act of switching the tooth for coins. He tried to cover his tracks, but the element of doubt got in I think.

We do the Santa thing and love it too, and we'll keep it up as long as they want to believe. But, I must admit we do not go to great lengths to keep up the illusion. We have presents magically appear under the tree for Christmas morning, and there are just crumbs of cookies and carrots from the plate left out for Santa and the reindeer. Nut, I really don't go into elaborate explanations about how Santa gets down the chimney etc---it's all magic.


InLove, that is a beautiful story about you and your Mom. I hope you don't mind, but I am going to memorize her words to you so they are handy when my own girls start to ask. Thank you!

luna

[Faithfulservant]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

My P's never let us believe in Santa. It was debunked at an early age. You know what? It never mattered. Daddy was Santa. I'm letting my girls believe as long as they want to. Believe me, they want to believe! But it won't matter later for them. What matters is the warmth; the Christmassy flavored ambience, the family being reinforced...the love and togetherness. And the cookies!

Chris

I believed in santa.. my daughter believed... my son will believe.. .Kids have great imaginations for a reason.. God gave them that.. He is a Father first and foremost.. an Abba Father.. a daddy.. what joy it must bring Him to see His children have fun in this life and world He created.. Im sure He would want us to have fun and let our children have fun at a period in their life when they dont have stresses and worries about life in general.. God is so good there is nothing he would not do for us or give to us or allow us to do to experience the JOY of life and that means believing in some imaginary guy that delivers wonderful presents once a year...

Its a time to feed our flesh.. I enjoy life and will always teach my children to give our Creator thanks for everything..

[InLove]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

InLove, that is a beautiful story about you and your Mom. I hope you don't mind, but I am going to memorize her words to you so they are handy when my own girls start to ask. Thank you!

You are very welcome. I think Mom would feel honored that someone like you gained inspiration from her.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

[China Cat Sunflower]

Wow! I really enjoyed that story IL! And thanks for the great comments from Luna and FS as well! I love Christmas! I didn't get married until I was thirty three, and I spent a lot of lonely Christmases before I had a family of my own. I really, really enjoy putting the traditions into my kids. It's such a worthwhile, wonderful link to our culture and past, and it brings us all, all the generations together.

My oldest daughter is smart enough to figure it out, but I can tell she wants to believe. We had a conversation about the Santa at the mall. Of course, from my adult perspective I felt that I had to explain things logically. I told her that the Santa at the mall isn't really Santa because Santa is a "right jolly old elf", and elves are small; how else could Santa get down the chimney. And besides, Santa is at the North Pole getting all the presents ready, he doesn't have time to come to the mall. But Aubrey insisted that Santa was at the mall. See, none of that logical stuff matters when you want to believe. It isn't important.

Chris

[Dondi]

My parents played the Santa game. I remember looking out my window every Christmas Eve to see if I could catch Santa in the act. I guess Santa knew when I was going to sleep, along with knowing how good or bad I've been.

My parents would usually wait until my brother, my sister, and I would fall asleep before placing the presents under the tree. I would inevitable wake up in the wee hours of the morning and creep down to the tree and discover that Santa had indeed evaded my surveillance attempts.

But one Christmas, when I was about 9 or 10, for some inexplicable reason, my parents elected to wait until morning to place the presents under the tree, just before they would wake us up. That was a mistake.

As usual, at about 2 in the morning, I creeped downstairs fully expecting to find Santa's loot to be spread about the huge decorated artificial pine that centerpieced our living room. But my venture was short-lived when I discovered the serious infraction. There did not appear to be any increase in the amount of gifts from the night before. I reasoned that maybe they were hidden behind the tree and I just didn't see them. So I decided to slide my way between the wall and the tree to see if I can gather a glimpse of any goodies that might be out of my view. Unfortunatey, my determined efforts cause an imbalance in the supported tree base cause by my body when I tried to slip between the tree and the wall.

The tree came crashing down with tremendous thud and the sound of a dozen ornaments shattering into a million pieces. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.

It was my Mom who investigated the noise and upon coming to the scene of a 10 year old boy in pajamas standing petrified beside the downed artificial pine, she just sat down on the piano bench and started sobbing. I sat down beside her and cried also.

Did I mention that I was a hyperactive kid, attemptively tamed on Ritalin?

After some time, my mother and I gingerly lifted the tree back up, rehung any ornaments that were salvagable, and sweeped up the remain mess of broken glass and tinsel. She then led me back to bed, tucked me in, and kissed me on the forehead and without another word, went back to bed.

That was the last time I believed in Santa Claus.

[wil]

Wow Dondi!

My enlightenment was much more sedate. Each Christmas Santa not only ate our cookies and milk, and added some more presents to the tree, but also set up my train. And each Christmas Santa would bring me more tracks, or new cars. Seeing the train tracks made me look forward to what I could add to the train this year.

So one year as I lay sleeping I was woke by 'Santa' rumaging through my closet trying to get my train boxes out. I laid there quietly, and then the next morning saw the train set up. I asked who set up the train, and I was told Santa.

I was the middle child, and when I confronted my older sister with what I knew, she said she'd talk to my parents about it. And later that day I was pulled aside and let in on the 'secret' of Christmas. Now behind the curtain so to speak, it was my job to keep the secret from my little sister...as I was now part of the team, one of the magicians, that was allowed to sneak back down and have a role in being Santa.

After we all knew, somewhere along the line we all started going back to bed early, and Mom and Dad again took on the role, we wanted our Santa back and they obliged. The stockings were never full when we went to bed, and there were always one or two new presents under the tree and we went back to leaving cookies and milk...

[Dondi]

Originally Posted by Saltmeister

Christmas -- the devotion to Santa Claus as opposed to Christ.

The religion of Santa-Clausity.

Hmmm. It brings back some childish memories. It's been a long time since I experienced the liturgy of Santa-Clausity. The idea of receiving presents. A guy in a red suit coming down from the chimney with a bag of presents.

What a shame! I converted to Christianity when I was around 10? 12? I abandoned my Santa-Clausian up-bringing. I gave up the legend of Santa Claus to embrace the living legend of Christ. I guess you could say that Christ was the grown-up version of Santa Claus.

My wife and I elected not to play the Santa game. Not because of the aforementioned incident of my own experience, but because we came to the same conclusion that Christmas sentiments have been misdirected.

In the first place, we don't believe that a fictional character should get the credit for what our hard earned money has paid for. We wanted our kids to know that their source for life comes from their parents and ultimately from God, both their physical life and their financial endowments.

In the second place, in this day and age, it is important to be truthful to your children. Since they were infants, we made every effort to train them in the admonishment of the Lord, ensuring they went to church every Sunday and leading them to and understanding of who God is and what Christ did for them. To embellish them with yuletide fables seems counterproductive to that end.

I am reminded by a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip where Calvin is lamenting to Hobbes about how Santa Claus supposedly knows who has been good and who has been bad. He goes on to question about how Santa is so secretive and why no one ever seems to see him. Then Hobbes replies, "I dunno, isn't this a religious holiday?" To which Calvin retorts, "Yeah, but I have the same questions about God!"

My kids do not regret not believing in Santa Claus, though they are asked my friends what do they think Santa will bring them for Christmas. They understand the true meaning of the birth of Christ and look forward to the reading of the story on Christmas morning about as much as they anticipate opening the gifts. They understand that the greatest Gift is the one that is already theirs in Christ. They have exhibited a strong faith in God and have never questioned his Existance, for they have seen what their faith in God has done in their lives and how God has changed them .

I was surprised just the other day with my younger daughter, age 9. When I asked her if she hung up her dress after church like I told her, she hesitated just briefly and said, "No" and scurried off to do that chore. Later when she came back to me, she said that I should be thankful. I asked why? and said i should be thankful for her honesty. And I said, what do you mean? She said when I asked her if she hung up her dress, for a second she wanted to say yes, thus lying. She said that her flesh was telling her to say that, but she knew it would be wrong, for she knew God didn't want her to lie. So she told the truth.

I was floored. This 9 year old girl having such spiritual insight to have given that answer is well beyond anything I would have expected. I told her she did the very right thing and gave her a kiss and hug.

I must be doing something right.

I don't know what point I was trying to make with that, but I thought I would share it anyway.

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

My P's never let us believe in Santa. It was debunked at an early age. You know what? It never mattered. Daddy was Santa. I'm letting my girls believe as long as they want to. Believe me, they want to believe! But it won't matter later for them. What matters is the warmth; the Christmassy flavored ambience, the family being reinforced...the love and togetherness. And the cookies!

Chris

My son is not taught about santa... When it's time for him to go to school he will probally spoil the "story" for all the other kids lol.... I'd rather my kid got more realistic things told to him instead of some fat guy coming down a chimney or a fairy that floats around taking teeth or a bunny that gives out chocolate eggs or so on. In my eyes it is just like jesus.. That is why I wouldn't teach him of religion. He can find that on his own if he chooses to..

[Saltmeister]

Originally Posted by Dondi

That was the last time I believed in Santa Claus.

What about the presents? Did they put them there eventually? Before you woke?

It didn't sound to me like they blew their cover. Maybe Santa was just a little late? Could Santa have come later to clean up the mess?

Originally Posted by Dondi

My wife and I elected not to play the Santa game. Not because of the aforementioned incident of my own experience, but because we came to the same conclusion that Christmas sentiments have been misdirected.

Actually, my parents didn't play the Santa game either. But I believed in Santa. I didn't have many friends at school. Lacking friends, I often misbehaved at school.

I thought getting presents at Christmas would compensate for my misfortunes and shortcomings. When I didn't get presents I thought it was because "I was bad." I never got any presents. I felt really bad. I thought it was all my fault. I didn't behave at school. Obviously I didn't deserve to get any presents because I wasn't a good kid. Santa knew I was bad.

Winding forward about 10 or 15 years.

I still don't get presents. My family doesn't have much of a tradition of giving presents, so I don't expect any presents. I may give and get presents outside my family, but I don't expect any exchanges inside the family. It's only because I expect people outside my family to be giving and getting presents, not because I personally want one.

Not sure what it's like for the rest of you people. Are any of you slack with giving presents at Christmas? Do you know anyone who is?

My mother started instructing me to pray to God when I was in prep, aged 6. I can't exactly remember when the Santa thing wore off. My fascination with Santa might have coincided with my Christian upbringing for some years. I was grade 3, aged 9, when my mother started spending time with me and my brother talking about the Christian faith. That continued until grade 6, after which I was left to my own devices in exploring Christianity.

After that, I started reading about all sorts of weird things, like things on ghosts, the paranormal, psychics, UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle (the unexplained) as well as Revelation and Daniel's prophecies. When would World War 3 happen? When would the world come to an end? What did Nostradamus say? Was I going to heaven? When was Jesus coming back? Was I ready?