two great reasons NOT to include santa in your celebration this year

photo © 2009 Andrew Kitzmiller | more info (via: Wylio)
"celebrating santa and a manger will postpone a child's clear understanding of what the real truth of God is.  it's very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part truth and part imagination to find the crumbs of reality.  we want our children to understand God as fully as they are able, at whatever age they are.  so we try to avoid anything that would inhibit or distort their understanding.

[also] think how confusing it must be to a literal thinking, uncritical pre-schooler.  santa is so much like what we're trying all year to teach our children about God.  look at all the "attributes" of santa:

• he's omniscient- he sees everything you do
• he rewards you if you are good
• he's omnipresent- at least he can be everywhere in one night
• he gives you good gifts
• he's the most famous "old man in the sky" figure

but at a deeper level that children cannot comprehend yet, he is not like santa at all.  for example, does santa really care if we're good or bad?  think of the most awful kid you can remember.  did he or she ever not get gifts from santa?  what about santa's spying and then rewarding you if you're good enough?  that's not the way God operates.  he gave us his gift- his Son- even though we weren't good at all. "God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (romans 5:8).  he gave his gift to make us good, not because we had proved ourselves good enough."


-noel piper, treasuring God in our traditions, p. 80-81