I’m proud of you guys. It’s difficult doing what you feel is right, especially when it goes against societal expectations. My parents did not do Santa with me and I didn’t miss it one bit! In fact, for various reasons I’m so thankful they didn’t. I don’t hate on people who do, but my husband and I agree with you. It is amazing to me that parents who don’t celebrate Santa get SO much hate from other parents. Love the videos. Keep them coming.
I really appreciate you guys sharing this. For several years, I too have started to feel convicted about Santa Claus. I even also noticed that Santa has the same letters as Satan. And this year too, I noticed the omnipresent thing, which only Jesus is omnipresent and omniscient. It’s strange to me that we mix Jesus with Santa. Especially since song that Jesus alone deserves glory in worship songs and stuff, but we as Christians are being hypocritical because we are also giving glory to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I’ll share a story with you. So I started to feel weird about Santa Claus a few years ago. But, the first thing I thought of was how strange it was that parents take their kids to this stranger at the mall usually, and have their kid sit on this strangers lap. A lot of times you see the kid doesn’t want to, they are crying and the parents will force it. I started to wonder if there was something to that. Like, perhaps the kid could feel that the person in the costume didn’t feel right. I started to think that it gave those with child attraction (pedofiles) an excuse to have children sit on their lap. I wrote a song about it, and how it reminded me of wolves in sheep’s clothing. Well, I tried to push it aside, because I grew up believing in Santa and all that and I didn’t want to be the person who ruins Christmas. And one year, my sister and I went to a sleigh with Santa and we climbed on to take a picture with Santa. Very creepily, the Santa suggested to me that I, “sit on his lap.” And he did it in an inviting sexual type of inuendo. I got so grossed out and internally said, “I knew it! I knew I didn’t like you! You are such a pervert!” And so ever since then, I have not gone back about my convictions about Santa Claus. When I see him, I just see something that has nothing to do with God, but instead a creep and a imposter, stealing the glory from Jesus. Of course, like you guys, it’s not an overnight transition. I still have a tree and decorate with winter decorations like trees, snow, candles, pine, evergreen. I see nothing wrong with decorating for the winter season. But, I don’t have anything related to the North Pole. No stockings, no santa stuff, etc. I try to focus on Jesus, reading the story of his birth, nativity scenes, movies about the nativity, etc. I still give gifts and receive gifts because to me that just an act of kindness. Also, I hosted something called a “star party,” last year. And it was the theme of the Star showing in the sky the night of Jesus birth. I decorated with stars, and we decorated Star shaped cookies, and we had games. We played a gift game where each person brought something they already owned, and meaningful to them to give as a gift, sort of like how the wise men brought prized possessions. Then, I had a star projector and I turned all the light off and projected the stars onto the cieling and we all sang carols about Jesus, like silent night, holy night, hark the harold angels sing, etc. And I also read the story of Jesus birth. Everyone said that the party was wonderful and it filled something in them that was missing. They felt how wholesome it was and they said they really needed it. (This compliment came from two unbelievers). So I felt that Jesus was glorified and we didn’t have to be boring and also got to be a witness at the same time. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about how Christmas got weird for you. I can’t help but to believe that the Holy Spirit is working and tugging on the hearts of those who want to truly follow Him. ❤
I totally agree with everything you said 100%!! It is creepy to have your kids sit on a man’s lap and all the kids are crying and don’t want to go near him or most of them any way 😢 Also the way you you decorate is what I do too! I try to get everything related to Jesus I don’t have one Santa Claus in my house.
Hi, im african and i love the stars theme.. i was thinking thats how i would decorate.. but the truth is when anything is adopted by many and idolized, it eventually becomes a stumbling block .. being a parent is not easy
Wow! That is so awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to share this. I am 72 and still remember the look on my little girl's face when she was about 3 years old and I tried to get her to sit on a Santa's lap at my parent's home. She clung to me and had the most terrified look on her face. I believe small children have a close connection to God, but that over time it is dulled because they are inundated by Santas, Easter bunnies, tooth fairies, elves, super heroes, etc. Oh, if only we exalted God Who is worthy to His rightful place. If we shared the wonders of Him, His love, His creation, His provision, His salvation like the bible says, as we sit, stand, walk along the way, each and every day! This year I placed a rugged cross I made on top of my Christmas tree. I placed an ornament upon it that simply said, "BELIEVE". I wanted to use it as an opportunity to share with my 3 granddaughters that God created the very tree that was made into the cross that Christ hung upon to die in payment of our sins. Unfathomable love...Amazing grace!
So inspiring! I really apreciate you sharing this! I actually started questionning alot of things about christmas this year… why a tree, why santa, why lights? Nothing really made sense. But Chritmas is really happy, how not celebrate? Recentering on Jesus and his birth is really what should be put front and I think that my concludion!!! Thank you for your ideas!!
Dude this is so funny. You are aware that "Santa" means Saint? Santa comes (very likely) from european interpretaions of Saint Nicolaus, a Bishop that lived around the fourth century. To take a word and say it's bad just because it's an anagram of a supposedly bad thing is braindead
When I was young, our family did Christmas like anyone else. I understood that Santa want real but on Christmas I used to be so afraid of the dressed up Santa Claus and always cried. The Lord spoke to my mom one year and she felt conflicted just like you all… and since I was 7 we’ve just had a fun family day and eaten good food together without all the “traditions”. We continue to openly have conversations as a family about it…. It certainly is the harder way as it can also puts you at odds with extended family, which is tough. And you always need to be able to give the reasons behind your conviction when people ask… My younger brother grew up without “christmas” and Santa. It was so strange to watch him tell his friends off for loving Santa😂 but as I said… it’s a conversation we have every year. It’s important to know the origins of our traditions and the spirit that is behind it all… remember it’s a spiritual battle. Always. And there’s a reason why people say they want to keep the spirit of Christmas alive. Well done for being bold and sharing your story, however unpopular it may be. Keep having the conversation and asking the Lord for truth. Proud of you for not ignoring it! Also😂😂😂 15:52😂
It gets deeper guys, brace yourself as God will be revealing to you a lot more about Christmas in the coming years...if you're obedient. Praise the Lord❣
since being married to my husband who was raised christian we've never included santa in our christmas celebrations. i think satan has definitely used it as a counterfit focus over jesus. it also confuses kids on the principles but it subliminally teaches the desire of 'wanting excess' with gifts + 'earning' these gifts through works of good and bad. we've chosen to give gifts to teach our kids god loves a cheerful giver, but we also keep it minimal to try reduce the risk of expectation + disappointment with gifts as all gifts should be appreciated. as well as the fact you're lying to your kids, santa isn't real... there's just so many convictions around it and im so grateful my hubby's family is more than happy standing upon this truth :)
Santa was created by Coca-Cola brand. They brainwashed kids to be good sheeple. Don't believe or trust anything that is fake. Tricking children about Disneyland characters is wrong. Think about the pedophile peter pan robbing children in the middle of the night. Evil
The name "Santa Claus" comes from a dialect of Dutch, where the word was "Sante Klaas". He is based on a real person named St. Nicholas (Klaus) for short. My children, now grown, enjoyed believing in Santa Claus but they always knew that he was not a real person who sneaks into your house via the fireplace. I taught them he represents the spirit of Christmas. Go look up St. Nicholas to see what he did. My kids, now grown, never thought I lied to them. Like Sutton, they just thought it was a way to make Christmas fun and exciting...filled with joyful anticipation. I do believe though, that it has gotten way too commercial and stressful. Be sure to instill the real reason for the season.
the pagan Romans started off a pretty bad trend at this time of year: a day of lawlessness and perversion where people would gather in debauchery and perversion having orgies and breaking every law they could. They even allowed children to be involved. This pagan holiday carried on until the early church thought of a way to combat it by introducing christmas a day to celebrate CHRIST who came to save us from all of that... This has over time has been once again perverted by the enemy introducing idolatry (groves) in the form of christmas trees and coveting gifts that are placed under the christmas tree all delivered by "santa"....(its all in the name) After CHRIST had defeated satan on the cross stripping him of the keys of death (what satan had held over GOD humanity being separated from HIM due to sin) satan returned John 14;30 with one plan in mind to keep us all from CHRIST by distracting us with everything worldly the father of lies aim is to present sin as the coolest thing ever! robbing us of CHRIST who is our inheritance! our victory, our everything! HE is all that we need and the enemy doesn't want you to know that.... whats interesting is that in the end times satan demands to be worshiped as he is the spirit behind idolatry it becomes more apparent when it will be required to have his mark in order to partake in the things of the world. The bible doesn't teach when CHRIST was born but everyday is a good day to celebrate our LORD.
As a Dutch mother I know all about Sinterklaas. And yes the assumptions of him being a true historic person but it is celebrated in the exact same way as Santa. Making the children believe in someone who knows all about you and only gaves you presents ween you are good etc. We were always honest to our children, told them he did not exist and that we bought the presents. We were not always loved for that but isn’t that the way of Christ? The Bible even says that if Will be persecuted like Him is we are true believers. So Nate and Sutton please follow the quidance the Holy Spirit is leading you to. And thank you for being so honest and real on this channel.
I find you very refreshing. I’m 66 and have watch the greed in this world how people can get away with anything. Our Lord doesn’t deserve such disrespect so thank you Nate . I understand completely. God Bless 🙏🏾❤️✌🏾🌹💐
I am 14 years old and my parents have not raised me and my siblings believing in Santa. Christmas is still my favorite holiday of the year, and I personally have no memories being sad about Santa not being real! We have lots of traditions but we have never had any that incorporate the make believe Christmasy things, including Santa. Our family has also taken trips for Christmas instead of gifts! We've made so many great memories doing that. :)
I am so glad you two made this video! I have had so much hate and backlash for telling my children who are 7 and 5 that Santa isn’t real. I’ve been accused of ruining Christmas for them and the “magic”. My thought was that my children would question the existence of Jesus too once they found out I was lying about Santa. Just sad we as parents are shamed for not lying to our children and for telling them the truth. God Bless you two and your beautiful family. ❤️
Nathanael said after we filmed the video that he had that thought about Jesus once he found out Santa wasn’t real. Good for you for going against the grain!
Never taught our children to believe in Santa either. For this very same reason. Also, they get three gifts each. We wanted the gifts to be Jesus focused too, so they each get three… like Christ did. ❤
So you don’t want them to believe in Santa who is made up, but you do want them to believe in a Jesus who is also made up. Make it make sense. You lot have mental illness
100% agree!! My kids know of Santa as a fun Christmas fantasy story, but Santa isn't getting credit for all my Christmas shopping!!lol Jesus is the real reason for Christmas day and Who we live for all year ♡♡
Another great topic you guys have been killing it lately! Love what the Lord is doing with your channel. We are young parents also navigating through these same issues and it’s been rough figuring out a balance but I think that we as parents tend to over complicate things when it really doesn’t need to be so complicated. My husbands parents did Santa with him while my parents never did Santa so we knew the gifts were from them or family members. I still knew about Santa, took pictures with him and participated in all the Christmas festivities and never saw my Christmas as less fun as any other kids, in fact, I believe it’s what kept me and my siblings humble as children. Because we knew it was my parents we were always so happy and content with any gift and would never ask for anything outrageous because we knew how hard our parents worked. Santa has made children (in my opinion) greedy, selfish and entitled. It’s robbed the true meaning of Christmas and as you guys mentioned, normalized parents lying to their children which btw always starts out as a small lie, and then you have reindeer poop on your front lawn somehow lol to each his own but for us as Catholics we celebrate St Nicholas feast day as he was an amazing saint but Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is all about JESUS! We do a novena to the baby Jesus, sing songs about Jesus, put Jesus on the manger on Christmas Day and sing happy birthday and give Him thanks for all we have. We attend church on Christmas Day, and keep gifts at a minimum. My daughter sees Santa at the mall and says hi, and I explain that he is pretend, as she gets older I will explain the whole cultural component etc. All in all I think we need to focus on making this day holy, can it still be fun? Sure! But if we want our children to truly understand the reason for the season, we need to stop being afraid of being the “lame parents” and what others will think. I think our children in the future will thank us for it. God bless you guys ❤️
My husband and I decided prior to having children over 23 years ago to not do Santa…. We always taught our children that every good and perfect gift comes down from God above and if you are blessed with things it’s not because you deserve it or have earned it but from His goodness. Over the years we have done Happy Birthday Jesus, scavenger hunt to find their presents, numbered their presents under the tree, so that they did not know if it was their gift until Christmas day. They always woke up with excitement in their heart to see what God had bless them with! We also focused on them giving to others…. I was just talking to my daughter and she said she did not miss out on anything at Christmas and if so glad that I raised her with the truth of Christmas!!
Y’all are all spot on. I’m 50 years old and was raised not celebrating it and neither did our now grown children. If folks want to celebrate true Biblical holidays celebrate the ones the Bible speaks of. Most kiddos just care about the gifts and nothing else. Great video!
Amen! The LORD called us out of 'Christmas' 7 years ago! We are growing in the LORD'S feasts as well! So beautiful! I think it is a good reminder that the Isrealites thought they were having a Feast unto Yahweh when they worshipped the golden calf. He also says do not worship me the way the pagans worship their God's. When I started looking into the roots of Christmas it quickly became apparent we had been sold a lie. It was no wonder my heart felt torn every Christmas. Leaving Christmas didn't happen over night; it was a gradual process for our family. The LORD was gracious with us and His mercy was definetly extended to us during that process. So thankful for Him! ❤️
We have raised 7 children and never once celebrated Christmas with gifts and everything that goes with it. So much less stress and actually focus on the birth of Christ and the ultimate gift He gave us as unworthy sinners by dying on the cross for our sins! Your exactly right about giving them what they need throughout the year instead of the mad rush to get things they don't really need just for the sake of keeping up with the tradition.
Thank you for sharing your hearts . I grew up not doing Santa . My family just doesn’t . I don’t have kids so I might not be to helpful but I don’t feel like I missed out on anything .
I’m really sorry for all the comments! Apparently I’m very passionate about this this year. I think handing out gifts to others is great and involving the kids in getting them and giving is best. Even more giving to random people!
I think it’s great that y’all are processing this fir other parents that watch your channel! My joys are 22 & 25. We always just downplayed Santa and “ up played “ Jesus! We still give our kids 3 gifts… bc baby Jesus received 3 gifts. We read the Bible story and had a cake for baby Jesus! And we spend lots of time with family and our kids always looked forward to that!!
I love what my family did, we kids were a part of gift giving from a young age. The joy was always more through God than Santa. I never believed in Santa and know I didn’t miss out on anything :))
Great points I've never even thought about! Thank you all for walking through this journey and showing me what to do. I would have to agree with everything I think I want to keep Christ first and my Christmas and my future kids Christmas as well.
I have a doubt, is it true that Jesus’s birthday its not really on December? And a little story, I live in Costa Rica, so Santa is not all that big here BUT I don’t remember asking Santa for presents and stuff what I DO remember is finding out my mom was the one going home after work, putting me to bed and telling me I had to be asleep or Santa wouldn’t leave my gifts, I pretended I was asleep so I saw my mom very tired after work, getting ready to go pick my presents (we didn’t even have a car so it was a long bus ride) and THAT made me appreciate my mom even more! Then I just asked my dad for the gifts I wanted and he would give me one of all I asked so it was always a surprise! Also, some people here (some Catholics) say that Baby Jesus is the one bringing presents to the kids and to ask Jesus for the gifts instead of Santa… and see Santa mostly as a “character from the US” (I know it’s not originally from there)
I did Santa with my firstborn as I wasn't a Christian then. After I gave my life to God, I started feeling off about Santa and decided before my second child was old enough to know that I wasn't going to do Santa anymore. My daughter, who was 8/9 at the time, was already questioning if he was real, so I sat her down and told her the truth and from then on I decided I wasn't going to lie to my kids anymore about Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy. I got a LOT of backlash from my family as I was "depriving" my kids of the magic of Christmas/Easter. My son grew up not ever having Santa come to our house or the Easter Bunny. Instead, "Mama Claus" left gifts in the stockings. Mama Claus being me. I still loved the concept of my kids' excitement waking up to find surprises in their stockings but instead of putting it on Santa, they knew it was from me. My kids are now 19 and 26 and we still do stockings when we are all together. It's a tradition that will keep going because Santa is taken out of the equation. :) We also made birthday cakes for Jesus for many years!
Love this! My husband and I decided 30 years ago when starting our family of 4 that we would celebrate St. Nicholas Day (we lived in Germany at the time) on Dec 6th and give gifts to our children because of our great love for them and then celebrate Christmas Day in honor of the birth of Jesus and give one gift each to encourage their relationship with the Lord. We had different traditions that we did for each day like using Santa figurines to represent St. Nicholas and we had a book about the true story of St. Nicholas. Yes, we got flak from family & friends, it wasn't always easy. Love your heart for wanting to honor the Lord.
I heard it once said that whatever you can do to get your kids to be excited about a religious holiday, you do it. As they grow, they'll learn more about the seriousness about our religious traditions and they will be more likely to embrace it because the holiday evokes warm and happy memories. It never occurred to me not to do Santa with my kids, as we had him as a child and I came from a strong Christian family. I did have friends who were new Christians who chose not to do Santa in an effort to keep the focus on Jesus, but there's certainly no indication that it helped their kids to follow Christ more closely. Truth be told, now that our kids are all grown, the opposite could be said for many of these friends. That could be because they were newly converted and didn't realize the amount of work that goes in to raising Godly children; I don't know. I am perfectly content that we did Santa (not the you have to be good to get gifts Santa, but more like the historical Nicholas) and focused on the fact that God gave us Jesus as a gift and that Saint Nicholas (Santa) also gives us gifts so we can remember the greatest gift that was given to us.
We have 5 kids and we always get weird looks and asked "why" when we tell people we don't do Santa, Easter bunny or the tooth fairy. People think we are ruining the kids' "fun". Our kids are always super excited, can't sleep and wake up early. My son loves when he loses a tooth because he tries to come up with "booby traps" to try and catch us putting money under his pillow. It's a shame the world thinks you have to lie in order to have a good time.
To encourage y’all-I decided when I was pregnant with my first, that we weren’t going to “do the Santa thing”. My biggest reason was that I did not want to be teaching my children that this imaginary character had attributes that only our holy and loving God has. I always addressed/treated Santa (in books, or in public etc) like any other costumed character or cartoon (ie. Mickey Mouse, Princesses etc), which was a character that was make believe and fun. I also always taught them that every family has different traditions and some families “play the Santa game” and not to ruin the game (ie. Tell other kids that Santa is make believe) for their family. My oldest is 12 now, and my children absolutely have not missed out on anything with this perspectives. They still get filled stockings Christmas morning, they still each get a big present/surprise Christmas morning (along with their wrapped gifts), we make cookies, we even take photos with/visit Santa (the same way we do other characters at theme parks, birthday parties etc). It’s always been fun and “magical” for the kids, even though in my home Santa never has gotten the credit for the magic. As a single parent, my girls have found joy in being part of the “magic” and have started stuffing my stocking, doing surprises for others, looking forward to giving and serving for Christmas etc. …I’m 12 years into it with 3 kids, and there hasn’t been even a moment where I regretted not putting on the charade of Santa! To God be the Glory!
My oldest 5 yr old knows Santa is not real but still likes the character of Santa. We don’t focus or make a big deal about Santa but we enjoy the character and idea of Santa while knowing he isn’t real. I have no problem with that. We do focus of Jesus, the birth and the story of salvation.
As someone who grew up never believing in Santa Claus, I can say I never thought I had a less fun Christmas than my friends who did believe. I’ve always loved Christmas! Knowing my parents didn’t want to lie to me even to make something possibly more fun was one of the ways they lived out their faith in front of me. I knew my parents loved me & gave me gifts to show their love to me & to demonstrate the true gift that Jesus gives in salvation!
We decided not to celebrate Santa in our family and have received mostly negative responses. But, like you, we didn’t want the focus to be on getting a present from Santa for being good. That totally takes Jesus out of the equation. We decided to approach it like play-kids play pretend all the time. (Pretend to be an animal or a dinosaur in our case.) So we’ve said “Santa is just a pretend game people like to play. They pretend he comes down their chimney and gives them toys. But some people are REALLY into this game so we won’t spoil it for them by telling them Santa isn’t real.” I don’t want to have that kid who tells all the others he’s not real. My favorite interaction that happened this year was when a grandparent asked our son “What did you ask Santa for this year?” And our 3 year old respond with a long pause, looked confused, and said “Mommy and Daddy getting me a dinosaur.” 😂 We told him we buy gifts as we celebrate Jesus’ birthday. We do 4 gifts (something you want, need, wear, and read) then go on a trip together. This year on Christmas Day, we ate breakfast and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. Then we played a game between every present opened. The winner gets to open their present first followed by everyone else. Then we play another game and that winner gets to go first that time. So we’re playing games together all day while opening presents. We have toddlers so the games looked like hide and seek, Monkey Around game, and activities like dancing, making a craft, baking cookies, etc. It allows us to spend uninterrupted time together having fun and talking about why we are spending our day like this. We talk about Jesus, what He’s done for us, and get excited! And now we have a fun trip to look forward to in a couple weeks!
I never thought about that misspelling comparison name… the only thing I don’t agree is that “santa” or the evil one clearly doesn’t want anyone to go good. As a matter fact, all he wants is to do bad. That’s a good conversation for Christian’s parents to really have this conversation and ask themselves what’s the true matter here in this topics to really teach their kids. Wonderful topic!🎄💌
I agree that their is a conversation to be had about how it might be bad to equate goodness=many gifts, but the name thing is ridiculous. "Santa" means Saint and it comes from Sainr Nicolaus, a Bishop from the 4th century who did good and God worshipped as a Saint by the Catholic Church. Santa evolved from those myths, so I'd say he definitely "wants" kids to be good
We have 3 small boys, like you all. Our oldest is 6. We have chosen not to do Santa except as a fun character in movies and books. Instead we focus on Jesus and time together as a family. They still open gifts from us Christmas morning, but it isn’t very much to help them with contentment. They chose gifts for each other this year as well! It was a big hit and really drove home the joy of giving. Our families and most friends do not celebrate this way. They judge us for ruining the magic of the season. But we have much peace around our choices. The hardest part is knowing how to help our kids respond to others regarding Santa. So many adults ask them questions about santa. Not to mention other children. It’s a Source of so much anxiety for me as a mom. We are teaching them not to lie, but like you all, we never want to come across as better than anyone. Let’s just say I breathe a sigh of relief come mid-January when the Santa talk goes away for a while. It truly shouldn’t be this way. Especially in our churches.
OMG, The parallels you gave blew me away. I knew of a few but you showed me more that I did not know and WOW!!!! You are definitely onto something there. It is about time that we as believers began taking a stand for righteousness. I commend you and pray you continue...
My children are 23 and 27 now, but we did the whole Santa thing. I remember being so stressed about not getting them enough for Christmas and I now I look back wishing I had been so materialistic!
I feel like as their parents we feel like we can never give them “enough” cause we love them so much but we just have to keep in mind that our love for them IS enough! They don’t need materials to know we love them 🥰
I grew up in a christian house and I'm personally grateful my parents told me santa wasn't real at a really young age because I never got confused on whether santa being real/fake realted to Jesus's existence. I was also the child who told other kids santa wasn't real, so maybe tell your kids not to spoil it for others.
I had my first child 6 months ago and my husband and I have decided to not only not lie about Santa but to be honest about him not being a real entity. Sure, st Nick was a real human. But he is no longer alive and flying around. Christmas is 100% about Jesus. The story of Jesus and his unconditional and self sacrificing love. I think we will do a very modest amount of gifts with an emphasis on buying for others. I want to teach my child about donating things that others need that we take for granted as well as volunteering. You guys are great! It’s so important to listen and follow your conviction. True Joy is found in the Lord not in myths or copious amount of material possessions. Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the holiday no matter how you celebrate. I pray you all experience the love of Jesus❤
My kids have never believed in Santa, but we've talked about the real person who inspired him and about how the traditions came to be. This hasn't removed any of the joy or "magic" of Christmas from our family.
My parents never did the Santa thing. They told us right away that he was a character. I still enjoyed all the movies and Santa-themed things as a kid and actually appreciated that my parents were honest with me.
My oldest is 16 and I didn’t do Santa when he was younger. I felt that by lying to him, once he found out about Santa, that he would think it’s okay to lie. So I always told him the true reason we celebrate Christmas. Now, years later, I really think I stole the magic of Christmas. It’s a tough fence to be on.
Yeah you did. Now you have to answer to him for why he is mossing those magical memories. Sad. All in the name of Jesus… you think Jesus would have wanted to remove magic from the little children? He loved the little Children THE MOST. Such twisted logic the church has pushed on believers.
I do Santa. I teach my kids that Santa gives gifts because he loves Jesus just like we do. We read the story of St. Nicholas, and we read the Polar Express (book, not movie. The movie is awful). One of my favorite Christmas tree ornaments has Santa worshipping Jesus in the manger. I have never taught them that Santa won't come if they're naughty. Santa is an example of giving without expecting anything in return...well, except cookies. 😉 My oldest believed wholeheartedly and really struggled when she realized mom is Santa. It made me realize how much effort I put into maintaining it with her. I have younger children (8 and 10 years younger than her), and I put a lot less effort into it with them. As a kid, I received gifts "from Santa" at my dad's house but not mom's. I guess I never wholeheartedly believed, and no adult in my family ever told me Santa wasn't real, but I figured it out and wasn't traumatized.
Love it. We started late in the game. I never told my 3 Santa was real,trust me I got back lash from family, secondly I regret putting my kids in public school or giving them a phone. But we do trips every other year, stockings on Christmas, church. My kids are grown and public school and phones will be a strong hold against them.
We have five kids from 14 to 1. We don’t push Santa, we just don’t really talk about him as if he’s real. We love watching all the movies though. This year we picked out two Angel Tree recipients and gave each lots of gifts. Everyone helped pick things out. That really fulfilled the desire we have to give gifts, but allowed the focus to be on giving. We also gave each of our own kids one gift each, while normally they would get three to five gifts. It was a different experience that we all benefited from. They got stuff in their stockings, a couple gifts from grandma, and a few things from other people as well. So, it was still more abundant than we would have preferred. We also let the children do a “secret Santa” gift for each other. I took each of them shopping by themselves and they had to pick out something one of their siblings would like. And it was a secret. Talk about personal growth 😂 it was hard for some of them to pick something special for their sibling, and to not tell them right away. All in all, we are trying to focus on giving, and being a gracious receiver, which is difficult for many Christians. But, Christ is the ultimate gift and one must receive it, right?
The kids and I this Christmas watched a video on who the real Saint Nick was. He loved Jesus and that's the Santa we talk about. We also love the Lord and try to live completely for Him. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I'll be praying for you guys and for wisdom as you navigate through this. ❤️
We also always make the season more about the giving than the receiving. We give to neighbors, we donate to shelters, we make the holiday about giving instead of receiving and we make memories more than anything.
Growing up we rarely did gifts Sometimes there was a Christmas service, often family getting together. When I got married, and while dating I attended my husband’s family Christmas. We usually started out singing Christmas songs, then They had school aged children and younger quote verses, poems, and/or sing. After that the Grandparents passed gifts out to the children and adults. So the children learned when Christmas time came they were getting gifts! Since my husband has gone to be with the Lord, we exchange names and try to give something they can use. Usually read the Christmas story. I think it’s been too commercialized, personally, but maybe it’s been my upbringing. Y’all are seeking to do what is right and pleasing God. It’s never easy to be different, God will show you the way! Thank you for sharing! You are great parents!❤
I became a born again Christian as an adult. My parents are not Christian, and they always are ready to put up Santa decor and watch movies and sing songs about Santa, but they do not acknowledge or celebrate Jesus on Christmas. That has been my observation/ experience.
My child is grown but I can tell you I wish I had of not done the big Christmas thing when she was growing up. But I also lately have really come to the realization that we shouldn't be teaching our children anything that is not truth. God is a God of truth. Why do we pretend all these things with them, especially at young ages. All that pretending stuff for example that there are elves, and pretty color unicorns, and made up characters, there really is no need of it. It's not real, it's not truth so why support it? God is truth all the way and He has given us enough to enjoy that is real (his creation for one thing) that we can use His truth and His creation to have just as much fun with our children and it's pure. This is what I have been learning lately and wanted to share that with you. If we teach them truth from the beginning, there won't be room for lies. You won't find any "make believe " stories or characters in the Bible.
Loved this video. Continue to walk away from the world's version of Christmas and you will find yourself running. Our oldest is 13 and we have 3 more down to 7...we still get them gifts and and stocking stuffers...but we never talked of Santa when they were younger. When they were younger they would ask if Santa was real...and our response was, "What do you think?" And kinda left it at that but always came back around to Jesus. No tears were ever shed. They also valued their gifts because they knew where they actually came from and were always so grateful. Their favorite part of Christmas is to pick a gift for each other...so I would say, continue that tradition. They have turned into the most anticipated part of Christmas morning! You guys are awesome parents. Continue to walk in the still small voice. Merry Christmas.
We have grown kids and grandkids in college now so they are pretty grown too. We explained “Santa” to our kids that Santa represents the “Spirit of Christmas.” The Spirit of Christmas represents the Spirit of the season-joy, love, peace, giving , receiving, etc. Then every Christmas the family received a gift from the “Spirit of Christmas”. A family game, old diner style milk shake maker with fountain style glasses and even tickets to the Rose Bowl one year when our team was playing are a few examples. We were a Christian family and, of course, celebrated the birth of our Savior which is what it is really all about anyway. Don’t over think it.
I’m late watching this but I just wanted you to know about a tradition I started with my kids this year and it’s called Shepard on the search. It’s a Christian alternative for elf on the shelf 😊
I think people want to pick things apart,and analyze everything.Santa I thought was for Saint not Satan.We found out that Santa was Dad later in childhood and it was no big deal.It's part of the innocence of being a child,and fantasy of imaginary characters.
The modern day “Santa Claus “ is based on a real person but has been secularized to take the focus off of Jesus. Saint Nicholas also known as “Nicholas the wonder worker” was Christian saint that gave gifts to poor families. His feast day is celebrated on December 6th. His story is a good way of teaching kids about giving during the Christmas season and is a lot better than lying to them about a fat old man that lives in the North Pole.
It was so very refreshing to hear you share about this. I am 72 and still remember believing in the lie about Santa until I was 12. Unlike Sutton, I did feel like my parents had lied and my first thought was, "Does that mean God isn't real either?" Don't feel guilty about robbing your sons of fun, but rather feel good that you are choosing the narrow road that leads to life and pleasing God by not lieing to your children. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and seeking God for truth and guidance.
@@Makeup4ever5 As a child of God I look to Him to determine what is "a big deal". Telling lies is a very big deal according to God. If you see it otherwise you are free to do as you please, as am I.
I completely agree with Sutton as being raised with Santa and having fun with it. I never want my kids to think I'd lie about things. I know I'm not that person but everyone is different. I'd definitely like to have a minimal Christmas in terms of gifts and focus on giving, being with family and friends, and celebrating Jesus. Today's culture has definitely had the emphasis on 'me' as opposed to what it's really about. Great video guys!
I felt betrayed when I found out that Santa, Easter Bunny, etc were not real! I questioned why my parents would lie like that. They tried to explain the fun, pretending side, but it still made me feel conflicted. I was also told that the main reason for celebrating was Jesus, but had to have my parents re-affirm that Jesus was real. So, my hubby and I decided to not lie to our kids. We gave them the truth up front. We shared about St. Nicolas and how that morphed into the magical pretend figure. We told them to not tell other kids that Santa wasn’t real and tell the kids about St. Nicolas and the celebration of Jesus’ birth. We played the “Tooth Fairy” game where the kids would try to catch us exchanging their tooth for $. Never did we play Easter Bunny, but we did hide Resurrection Eggs that had bits of the account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection in them and let them know that the truth seems hidden to those that don’t believe and that eggs can represent new life like Christ gives.
I’m not Christian or religious but I can see all the similarities you are pointing out and have heavily debating whether or not I will carry on the Christmas tradition in the same way mom did.
One thing I will say on this is just that you should research Saint Nicholas and the true story of Christmas on that side of things. My parents told us the truth about Santa and Saint Nicolas so we always knew but it didn’t steal any joy or fun from us. We always celebrated Christmas with Santa as well. It would have been confusing if everyone else was celebrating with Santa and we didn’t too. We always were told to keep it to ourselves so we didn’t upset other kids or their parents. The focus always was and is about Jesus though. My parents never lied to us but they kept things fun and exciting.
What an amazing, fearless video. Thank you for making it !!! Everything you're saying resonates with me, and has for sometime. I've been feeling like a bad person for feeling this way. Now, that was before understanding the reasons, to this extent... Thank you. thankful to hear this.
Thank you for making this video! I was just talking to my husband about how we will explain Santa to our daughter. And a big point was “thou shall not lie” and I remember when my brother found out the truth of Santa he was so angry at our parents. Thank you thank you thank you for sharing this!
We always opened up our family gifts of Christmas Eve and then got one “Santa” gift and stocking on Christmas morning. Way less time opening presents on Christmas Day and then we were able to focus on Jesus, go to church and spend lots of time with family! I loved hearing your thoughts on Santa and hadn’t heard/thought of many of those parallels!
I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness and did not grow up celebrating Christmas. When I was raising my kids, I struggled with some of the same issues you are having. I should mention I was no longer a Jehovah’s Witness. The man I married was Catholic, had celebrated growing up, so really took the lead on how it was handled. I never really felt comfortable, but didn’t know how to avoid the ‘Santa is bringing you presents’ thing. I did infuse the holiday with as much concentration on, giving to others, giving to those less fortunate, and helping others, as I could. However, my kids, who have children around the ages of yours, have gone a different direction, and I like it. They introduce the Santa story, as it is, a story. They explain that parents play along to make it feel as real as they can, and that giving to others is the intention of this element of the holiday but we make it fun by having Santa surprise us with gifts on Christmas morning. They don’t go to sit on Santa’s lap, although you obviously could. They would just know it is all pretend. There is a complication with other kids as the children get older, but they explain, as they get older that different families celebrate in different ways. Some children are told about Santa being a story when they are young, like they do in their family, And other families tell their children later, because they think it will be more fun, saying Our family thinks doing it this way is more fun. Just a thought I wanted to share. Love the thought you put into how you live your lives. It’s easy to get so caught up in the things to do that you dont look at the big picture. Really proud of you all for looking at your big house for what it is to you, overall. Beautiful, but also a financial burden. Easy to see others doing it and hide behind, ‘this is normal, its what everyone is doing’. God Bless
This is such a hard topic for me because I grew up doing the whooooleeeee Santa thing, and was heartbroken when I found out he wasn’t real. However, my little brother is disabled (he’s 23 yrs old and still believes in Santa, elves, the North Pole, etc) and he probably will believe for the rest of his life. It brings so much joy, magic, and childlike spirit to a family full of all adults- because we all have to continue to “believe” for him 🥹♥️ Now I’m about to give birth to my first child, and my hubby and I are contemplating how we want to handle Christmas/Santa with our son. We absolutely have to continue Santa for my disabled little brother, but I don’t know how this’ll affect how we handle Christmas in our own household… ♥️ tricky situation!
You guys should check out a book called "Finding the Afikomen Encountering Jesus in the Spring Feasts" by Christie Eisner - Christmas isn't in the bible but the biblical feasts and the biblical calendar are! Little disclaimer:there are some teachings around the feasts that bring you down a path of Judaism so watch out for that. The biblical feasts by revelation are so life-giving from a Christian perspective. Especially when you start seeing how Jesus (the Passover Lamb) fulfilled the Spring Feasts to an absolute T. And when you get into the fall feasts it gets even better! We live in the Netherlands so we have it easy with Christmas (Im American my husband is Dutch) because gifts aren't so big here. . .that being said we don't do gifts for Christmas. We basically just focus on the incarnation during this season. We have a playmobil nativity and do a few winter decorations and meditate on the humility of Christ, God becoming a man, the word made flesh who dwelt among us. . .the highest of kings to the lowest of places (living where the animals live to show us his love.)
Growing up, we never got presents on Christmas day. I am not sure if this is a Catholic tradition or Spanish but we got our presents on the 5th January at night and the three wise men (or three kings) brought the presents to our homes. In Spain the night of the 5th there is a parade in the street with a start and three wise men that go to visit baby jesus and after that they give presents to the kids. Nowadays, the idea of Santa is getting everywhere and some families give gifts on both days which in my opinion is too much. I am not a Christian Catholic anymore but the idea of the three kings is more appealing to me than Santa.
I am really proud of how much you two have grown in your faith! Praise God! I have watched you two for a few years, and I can definitely observe how you both have matured. Please don't apologize for seeking to honor God with your lives. Continue to live your lives unto the Lord and to bring glory to God! Your lives will be attractive to and an example for other believers, and not for the world. Although we seek to reach the lost, our ministry is to each others as brothers and sisters in Christ. God's grace and peace be with you and your little ones!
Hi! I have followed you guys for a very long time now and think its great how open you guys are with these big picture family struggles. I wanted to give you guys a 3rd option if you will, in Spanish tradition gifts are actually given on Jan. 6th (Epiphany day, which is 12 days from Christmas day, i.e. the 12 days of Christmas) and when children are young they are told that the Three Wise Men (aka the Magi) are the ones that bring the gifts (just as they brought the gifts to baby Jesus). I thought you guys might like this option as it is strongly rooted in Christianity and leaves Christmas day open to focusing on the birth of Jesus. Additionally, either if you want to tell the children from the start or later people will often refer to themselves as "Pajes" which were the Magi's helpers. I believe this still keeps the excitement of the Three Wise Men because it includes a little layer of mystery while still centering on the fact that a specific person thought of this gift for another. Nevertheless, I can understand the difficulty in doing this in the United States were other children will receive all their gifts on Christmas day. Personally, my family will give one gift on Christmas day and the rest on Jan. 6th, which helped reduce the "disappointment" as a kid that others had gotten their gift, but made it all the more exciting when on Jan. 6th you finally got to open your gifts. Lastly, I wanted to say that I really liked your idea of only giving three gifts since Jesus got three gifts. Also (sorry for the unsolicited advice) I think that seeing Santa as Satan rearranged is reading into it a little much, it does come from the Dutch dialect of for St. Nick, and in Spanish language "Santa" actually means Saint. Not trying to appear mean by any means please believe that, just thought you guys would like knowing the history and etymology.
We didn't do Santa with our three daughters (now over age 12). They didn't care who brought the presents; they were just happy to get some presents. We try hard to keep Christ in Christmas with various activities. We love watching The Santa Claus movies, but the kids know that it's just pretend, and that Santa does not actually bring presents. They also know the history of Saint Nicholas.
Sorry to be so long winded, but as I was thinking about your young family, I remembered what a teacher friend of mine did with her family, starting in their kid's elementary years : At Halloween, they all sat down and discussed what they would like to have for dinner on Thanksgiving - one year the kids chose TV dinners since they had never had one before - so that is exactly what they did! At Thanksgiving they chose Christmas - example, one year it was strawberry topped waffles with whipped cream. At New Years, they chose sack lunches one year. Get the idea? Now that their kids are adults, they choose a different country for each holiday and research, prepare and serve foods from that country including that country's traditions. The Christmas her kids remember most is the year they rented a cabin and had to make Christmas out of what they found there. (tin foil or catalog picture ornaments - the tree just a branch they found outside. It was never about the presents. I admired their family so much.
A few suggestions that we used when our kids were little: 1. We also did a birthday cake for Jesus but the kids helped to make/decorate it. They were more invested when they did the work themselves. 2. We had a figurine of Santa kneeling at the Baby Jesus' manger. It brought to mind the scripture "that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (even Santa bows to Jesus). 3. If you look at Santa as Saint Nicholas, his heart's desire was to give gifts to children to honor the birth of Jesus our Savior. 4. As a grandma now, we have a Fisher-Price Nativity set that I use to tell the Christmas story. The grandkids get to set the pieces in place as I tell the story. (When our granddaughter was around 5 or 6, and it came to the giving of gifts from the Wise Men, she said "Gold, Frankenstein and Myrrh." It's become a family joke now and we all call it out! LOL A few times I've put the different Nativity set pieces in gift bags that are numbered, then everyone draws one, and then tell their part of the story from the figures they've chosen. BTW - I start the story with the story of Adam and Eve - and how he was the first Adam and because of some bad choices allowed death into our world - separating us from God. But God promised a final Adam (Jesus) would come to save us all from death and give us everlasting life. It gives a broader perspective to Christmas and the importance for Jesus to come to be our Savior. Blessings, Janell
My parents did Santa with us growing up. I did it with my kids. But we also knew about the real St. Nicholas that gave to the less fortunate. He was a real person. My kids always knew about where the idea of Santa came from. We also do a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas. I think you can do a mix of things. Nothing wrong with talking about the real St. Nicholas and the ideas of Santa came from that and it’s more for entertainment purposes.
@@nateandsutton Amazon actually carries a number of the figurines of Santa and Baby Jesus - even ornaments for your Christmas tree. Prices vary on what size you would want. I have even seen them in thrift shops. Hope you find a good one for your needs. Blessings, Janell
I agree with Nate, why do we need to get all magical and extra exciting things for our kids? It’s the BIRTH OF JESUS, if we plant seeds of Christ in their hearts, about what he’s done for us, who he is etc. How can you not just naturally be excited to celebrate his birthday? We have 3 kids 7, 5 & 2, we dealt with the same things once they see all the decorations and things when we are out. We just told them right off the bat he’s not real, he WAS not anymore. And I’ve told them the story of how he once received a huge inheritance and spent it on gifts for children at orphanages, yes a good thing he did, BUT I explained how the world has taken Christ out of Christmas and made it about the fat man flying in the sky delivering gifts to boys and girl. So what they get excited about is that we come together to spend time together, receiving gifts to remember HIM. And they love it. Just a couple weeks ago when I had my kids all with me to get groceries, an older couple were drawn to talk to my children and asked “are you all ready for Santa to come?” And my daughter proudly said “he’s not real! But we are so excited for Christmas cause it’s Jesus’s birthday” it still feels a little awkward to see their expressions lol but I’m so proud of them and love it now.
Also, Saint Nicholas a.k.a Santa Claus, was an amazing Holy Spirit filled servant. Researching and acknowledging his contributions to the Body of Christ would be great as well as others.
Don’t stress about it because you can definitely let Jesus have the spot light and make it all about Him about giving is better than receiving. If they ask if Santa is real I would say no but they can still enjoy some things about Santa. I personally would kind of in a round about way let my kids know He is real because I found out from Kids at school and I was embarrassed about. Nativity scene is a must. You all got this don’t stress. You can honor God in all your ways. Santa doesn’t have anything on Jesus. Let the light of Jesus shine bright. Santa is a just for fun thing some people do. Just don’t make a big deal out of it. i went through this about not even wanting to put up a tree or anything. In the end I decided it was a heart thing I am not worshiping other Gods in my Heart and I look at a Christmas tree and the Light of Jesus. You are going to have to deal with the easter bunny too. Thanks for choosing Jesus. ❤
I notice in your video the decorated Christmas tree, the Christmas stockings, the Santa Claus hats being worn. The messages were very conflicting. I honestly don't know what to make of the video. I never felt lied to when I learned my parents really were playing Santa. I never doubted Jesus was real as a result. This is seriously one video to ponder. At any rate, thanks for sharing your perspectives on the topic and the journey.
Our kids are teens. They grew up knowing Santa was fantasy. We never talked about Santa really. To them it was a story. We gave them small gifts. Never extravagant or many. My husbands’ family were/are JW so he did not grow up with gifts. I am Asian, and did not grow up with gifts either. My kids are in public school and during their younger years the school had shops and delegated shopping events for the kids to get gifts for family. But now, I will get them a stocking of gifts and then they have an alotted amount to get something they want. Between Christmas and New Years we make sure to spend a lot of time together, eating, and having fun. We always make sure we do something spiritual together. We are reading John. And we always make sure we give financially to organizations we believe in. Our teens pick an organization they want to give to. It usually is animal related since they both love animals.
I'm glad you guys made this video! I was just thinking about this! I like the idea of just making it a smaller thing, like the tooth fairy. I like the idea of going back to the original concept and letting him fill a stocking, leaving cookies for him at night and letting all the gifts be from the parents. Then when my kids figure it out, I want to pull them aside and teach them about the real St. Nik and how he helped the orphan children. Now that they know, they become the "new St. Nik" helping with Christmas each year. They bring joy and gifts to others as the hands of the Savior without others seeing them for their good works. That way St Nik becomes a tool to point to following the Savior (which was his goal in real life) rather than eclipsing Him. I like that you guys don't want to lie to your kids. My mom had this art down. She never told me the tooth fairy was or wasn't real. When we asked she would say "what do you think?" I think this strikes a good balance between keeping the fun but not lying to your kids. The ability to believe that there is more to life than you see can be a good skill and has personally helped me with my faith in God. Fairy tales can have a similar effect. Good luck you guys! Whatever you decide for your cute family will be great I'm sure! :)
I have had those convictions this Christmas now being a mama- I don’t think my husband would agree to the santa part but I personally want to make it more of a focus on Jesus. Y’all aren’t alone in this!
My dad passed when I was 9, so my single mom wasn't able to buy Christmas presents. She did her best trying to keep the utilities on. I learned about Santa at school, but I picked up on he couldn't be real. I don't celebrate "Christmas", but I definitely celebrate Thanksgiving on the daily basis. I definitely believe in Jesus, but was He born on December 25 🤔. I thought preschool for eight years and it was always awkward when kids would debate each out about the existence of Santa. I literally would tell them to ask their parents if Santa is real, it's not my business. I'd give the parents a heads up about the kids talking about it, but I never had anything to say about Santa. Associating santa with satan 🤔. I guess if you believe satan has a horn, tail and wear a red suit. The adversary definitely is a deceiver and comes to you in a way that's attractive as opposed to frightening. How else would he lure us in?
It is definitely an important conversation to be having as Christ followers. Personally, I never thought so deeply about my parents lying to me or getting it twisted with beliefs about Jesus. But when we had our own three children, now grown, one really was deeply angry about how we lied to her. We did go to some lengths to promote the myth which was a mistake. I do believe now that we should not have lied, especially since we believe that what we think about Jesus is the most important thing about us. I don’t want to mess that up! There are so many ways to make Christmas exciting and special (including gifts) and it sounds like you are on the right path. It is always hard to buck the culture as a Christian but if your kids know the truth from the beginning about Santa, they will actually feel very wise and won’t miss the whole ruse. It will become your little family secret and they will likely play along with other kids with a knowing wink.
Our sons are only 2 years old and 5 months old, so we’re just figuring this all out too, but our current plan is to treat Santa like a character. Our children will see the decorations (though we don’t have Santa decorations at our house), and read the books, but we will always explain that’s it’s a pretend story people like to tell around Christmas time. We do give gifts and fill stockings, but they are from us, not Santa. We keep it simple with 4 gifts (something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read), although I love the idea of doing 3 gifts just like Jesus’ 3 gifts! I’ll have to think about that one! And thanks for mentioning the birthday cake. I will definitely be incorporating that next year! What a sweet tradition! Of course people aren’t thrilled with our choices. My mom was horrified to find out that our kids would not be sitting on Santa’s lap for photos (such a weird tradition! No thank you). But actually, in our playgroup (where the dozen or so families are Catholic, like ourselves), most people grew up believing in Santa, and most of us have decided not to do Santa with our children, which I think is interesting!
Also, if your kids think the elf is fun, look into Mary on the Mantle! She gets ready for baby Jesus each day leading up to Christmas, and has a note each morning with an act of kindness that the children can do. We wanted to begin this this year, but our toddler really just wanted to snuggle his Mary doll in his room for bedtime, so maybe next year! You can also buy a baby Jesus doll for Mary to have with her on Christmas morning, and the book that goes along with it is really sweet.
thank you so much for sharing this. I don't have kids and am unmarried, but I love watching y'alls content because it gives me food for thought and things to pray about. :)
Way to explore and most important thing is asking Holy Spirit to guide you and celebrate the different ways families celebrate Christmas! From baby up (have 4 kiddoes) they knew Santa wasn't real and just explained it all. We told them that different families celebrate differently and we don't need to say to other children that believe Santa to say he is not real and use this to teach them to respect each others different opinions in life. One tradition our kids love and our oldest is 12 is we do stockings in mom and dads bed, they wake us with their stockings and I have a book, we have used different stories that explain meaning of Christmas like when they were younger Bernstein Bears and then we discuss baby Jesus and what we celebrate today. It is fun and before we even start the day with presents or whatever, we get our hearts aligned with the incredible story of our Savior. And never underestimate the littles one take on the stories, Blessings!
Tell him about St. Nickolas! That's how Santa got started, but it's been twisted horribly and now Santa is what you've discovered. Also, there's a lot of Elf on the Shelf substitutes like Shepherd on the Search or Wise Man seeks the star. Also The Giving Manger is really cool! All that said, we grew up never celebrating Christmas, because my parents believed it was pagan. I love the 3 gift idea!
Growing up in a Christian home my parents had a pretty balanced approach to Santa and Christmas in general. There was two books I remember my mom reading to me and my siblings during the advent and Christmas season. The first is “Saint Nicholas The Real Story of the Christmas legend”by Julie Stiegemeyer and the Second was “Jotham’s Journey” by Arnold Yteeide Which is the first book in a 4 book series each telling a historical fictional story of the coming of Jesus from a young child’s perspective living in Bible times. These are now some of our favorite memories of story books and helped me and my sibling to remember the true meaning of Christmas. We also had the family rule to surprise each other with random gift if we thought of them not sticking to the traditional calendar. Love you videos and will be praying for wisdom for your family. You guys are doing great! @nateandsutton
There is a Santa Claus in our area who when he takes breaks he comes out to where all the families are waiting in line and tells them the real Christmas story.
100% agree!! My kids know of Santa as a fun Christmas fantasy story, but Santa isn't getting credit for all my Christmas shopping!!lol Jesus is the real reason for Christmas day and Who we live for all year ♡♡
We straight up tell them that it is a fairytale and that people who don’t know Jesus celebrate Santa on Christmas and then we explain to them that it’s Jesus birthday is on Christmas.
Proud of you both for wanting and trying to keep to everything Jesus honoring in your home. This world influence does not make that easy. Keep it up parents. Thank you for sharing your journey.
My husband and I have seven children. We never taught them that Santa was real because we wanted to keep the focus entirely on Jesus and celebrating HIS birth. Our children also knew not to tell other children that Santa wasn’t real. I am an elementary teacher and I saw how greedy children can be and how overly obsessed they oftentimes are about getting gifts without truly appreciating the gifts that they receive. My kids are all older now and they all say that not having Santa be a part of Christmas in no way took away the fun and the magic of Christmas.
I’m proud of you guys. It’s difficult doing what you feel is right, especially when it goes against societal expectations. My parents did not do Santa with me and I didn’t miss it one bit! In fact, for various reasons I’m so thankful they didn’t. I don’t hate on people who do, but my husband and I agree with you. It is amazing to me that parents who don’t celebrate Santa get SO much hate from other parents. Love the videos. Keep them coming.
Yes! It’s interesting!
I really appreciate you guys sharing this. For several years, I too have started to feel convicted about Santa Claus. I even also noticed that Santa has the same letters as Satan. And this year too, I noticed the omnipresent thing, which only Jesus is omnipresent and omniscient. It’s strange to me that we mix Jesus with Santa. Especially since song that Jesus alone deserves glory in worship songs and stuff, but we as Christians are being hypocritical because we are also giving glory to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
I’ll share a story with you. So I started to feel weird about Santa Claus a few years ago. But, the first thing I thought of was how strange it was that parents take their kids to this stranger at the mall usually, and have their kid sit on this strangers lap. A lot of times you see the kid doesn’t want to, they are crying and the parents will force it. I started to wonder if there was something to that. Like, perhaps the kid could feel that the person in the costume didn’t feel right. I started to think that it gave those with child attraction (pedofiles) an excuse to have children sit on their lap. I wrote a song about it, and how it reminded me of wolves in sheep’s clothing. Well, I tried to push it aside, because I grew up believing in Santa and all that and I didn’t want to be the person who ruins Christmas. And one year, my sister and I went to a sleigh with Santa and we climbed on to take a picture with Santa. Very creepily, the Santa suggested to me that I, “sit on his lap.” And he did it in an inviting sexual type of inuendo. I got so grossed out and internally said, “I knew it! I knew I didn’t like you! You are such a pervert!” And so ever since then, I have not gone back about my convictions about Santa Claus. When I see him, I just see something that has nothing to do with God, but instead a creep and a imposter, stealing the glory from Jesus.
Of course, like you guys, it’s not an overnight transition. I still have a tree and decorate with winter decorations like trees, snow, candles, pine, evergreen. I see nothing wrong with decorating for the winter season. But, I don’t have anything related to the North Pole. No stockings, no santa stuff, etc. I try to focus on Jesus, reading the story of his birth, nativity scenes, movies about the nativity, etc. I still give gifts and receive gifts because to me that just an act of kindness.
Also, I hosted something called a “star party,” last year. And it was the theme of the Star showing in the sky the night of Jesus birth. I decorated with stars, and we decorated Star shaped cookies, and we had games. We played a gift game where each person brought something they already owned, and meaningful to them to give as a gift, sort of like how the wise men brought prized possessions. Then, I had a star projector and I turned all the light off and projected the stars onto the cieling and we all sang carols about Jesus, like silent night, holy night, hark the harold angels sing, etc. And I also read the story of Jesus birth. Everyone said that the party was wonderful and it filled something in them that was missing. They felt how wholesome it was and they said they really needed it. (This compliment came from two unbelievers). So I felt that Jesus was glorified and we didn’t have to be boring and also got to be a witness at the same time.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about how Christmas got weird for you. I can’t help but to believe that the Holy Spirit is working and tugging on the hearts of those who want to truly follow Him. ❤
I totally agree with everything you said 100%!! It is creepy to have your kids sit on a man’s lap and all the kids are crying and don’t want to go near him or most of them any way 😢 Also the way you you decorate is what I do too! I try to get everything related to Jesus I don’t have one Santa Claus in my house.
Hi, im african and i love the stars theme.. i was thinking thats how i would decorate.. but the truth is when anything is adopted by many and idolized, it eventually becomes a stumbling block .. being a parent is not easy
Wow! That is so awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to share this. I am 72 and still remember the look on my little girl's face when she was about 3 years old and I tried to get her to sit on a Santa's lap at my parent's home. She clung to me and had the most terrified look on her face. I believe small children have a close connection to God, but that over time it is dulled because they are inundated by Santas, Easter bunnies, tooth fairies, elves, super heroes, etc. Oh, if only we exalted God Who is worthy to His rightful place. If we shared the wonders of Him, His love, His creation, His provision, His salvation like the bible says, as we sit, stand, walk along the way, each and every day!
This year I placed a rugged cross I made on top of my Christmas tree. I placed an ornament upon it that simply said, "BELIEVE". I wanted to use it as an opportunity to share with my 3 granddaughters that God created the very tree that was made into the cross that Christ hung upon to die in payment of our sins. Unfathomable love...Amazing grace!
So inspiring! I really apreciate you sharing this! I actually started questionning alot of things about christmas this year… why a tree, why santa, why lights? Nothing really made sense. But Chritmas is really happy, how not celebrate? Recentering on Jesus and his birth is really what should be put front and I think that my concludion!!! Thank you for your ideas!!
Dude this is so funny. You are aware that "Santa" means Saint? Santa comes (very likely) from european interpretaions of Saint Nicolaus, a Bishop that lived around the fourth century. To take a word and say it's bad just because it's an anagram of a supposedly bad thing is braindead
I’m still sad about how Nate didn’t help Sutton when she had to go to urgent care and take the kids with her when she was sick.
When I was young, our family did Christmas like anyone else. I understood that Santa want real but on Christmas I used to be so afraid of the dressed up Santa Claus and always cried. The Lord spoke to my mom one year and she felt conflicted just like you all… and since I was 7 we’ve just had a fun family day and eaten good food together without all the “traditions”. We continue to openly have conversations as a family about it…. It certainly is the harder way as it can also puts you at odds with extended family, which is tough. And you always need to be able to give the reasons behind your conviction when people ask…
My younger brother grew up without “christmas” and Santa. It was so strange to watch him tell his friends off for loving Santa😂 but as I said… it’s a conversation we have every year. It’s important to know the origins of our traditions and the spirit that is behind it all… remember it’s a spiritual battle. Always. And there’s a reason why people say they want to keep the spirit of Christmas alive.
Well done for being bold and sharing your story, however unpopular it may be. Keep having the conversation and asking the Lord for truth. Proud of you for not ignoring it!
Also😂😂😂 15:52😂
It gets deeper guys, brace yourself as God will be revealing to you a lot more about Christmas in the coming years...if you're obedient. Praise the Lord❣
since being married to my husband who was raised christian we've never included santa in our christmas celebrations. i think satan has definitely used it as a counterfit focus over jesus. it also confuses kids on the principles but it subliminally teaches the desire of 'wanting excess' with gifts + 'earning' these gifts through works of good and bad. we've chosen to give gifts to teach our kids god loves a cheerful giver, but we also keep it minimal to try reduce the risk of expectation + disappointment with gifts as all gifts should be appreciated. as well as the fact you're lying to your kids, santa isn't real... there's just so many convictions around it and im so grateful my hubby's family is more than happy standing upon this truth :)
Santa was created by Coca-Cola brand. They brainwashed kids to be good sheeple. Don't believe or trust anything that is fake. Tricking children about Disneyland characters is wrong. Think about the pedophile peter pan robbing children in the middle of the night. Evil
The name "Santa Claus" comes from a dialect of Dutch, where the word was "Sante Klaas". He is based on a real person named St. Nicholas (Klaus) for short. My children, now grown, enjoyed believing in Santa Claus but they always knew that he was not a real person who sneaks into your house via the fireplace. I taught them he represents the spirit of Christmas. Go look up St. Nicholas to see what he did. My kids, now grown, never thought I lied to them. Like Sutton, they just thought it was a way to make Christmas fun and exciting...filled with joyful anticipation. I do believe though, that it has gotten way too commercial and stressful. Be sure to instill the real reason for the season.
the pagan Romans started off a pretty bad trend at this time of year: a day of lawlessness and perversion where people would gather in debauchery and perversion having orgies and breaking every law they could. They even allowed children to be involved. This pagan holiday carried on until the early church thought of a way to combat it by introducing christmas a day to celebrate CHRIST who came to save us from all of that... This has over time has been once again perverted by the enemy introducing idolatry (groves) in the form of christmas trees and coveting gifts that are placed under the christmas tree all delivered by "santa"....(its all in the name) After CHRIST had defeated satan on the cross stripping him of the keys of death (what satan had held over GOD humanity being separated from HIM due to sin) satan returned John 14;30 with one plan in mind to keep us all from CHRIST by distracting us with everything worldly the father of lies aim is to present sin as the coolest thing ever! robbing us of CHRIST who is our inheritance! our victory, our everything! HE is all that we need and the enemy doesn't want you to know that.... whats interesting is that in the end times satan demands to be worshiped as he is the spirit behind idolatry it becomes more apparent when it will be required to have his mark in order to partake in the things of the world. The bible doesn't teach when CHRIST was born but everyday is a good day to celebrate our LORD.
A pretty good watch. ua-cam.com/video/wvMLvpsNJeg/v-deo.html
Thank you for posting this. I was thinking the same thing but couldn’t really articulate. You did a good job getting the point across.
In the Netherlands we still have 'sinterklaas', but on 5 december with presents mostly for kids:) but the story has also got a little weird.
As a Dutch mother I know all about Sinterklaas. And yes the assumptions of him being a true historic person but it is celebrated in the exact same way as Santa. Making the children believe in someone who knows all about you and only gaves you presents ween you are good etc. We were always honest to our children, told them he did not exist and that we bought the presents. We were not always loved for that but isn’t that the way of Christ? The Bible even says that if Will be persecuted like Him is we are true believers. So Nate and Sutton please follow the quidance the Holy Spirit is leading you to. And thank you for being so honest and real on this channel.
I find you very refreshing. I’m 66 and have watch the greed in this world how people can get away with anything. Our Lord doesn’t deserve such disrespect so thank you Nate . I understand completely. God Bless 🙏🏾❤️✌🏾🌹💐
I am 14 years old and my parents have not raised me and my siblings believing in Santa. Christmas is still my favorite holiday of the year, and I personally have no memories being sad about Santa not being real! We have lots of traditions but we have never had any that incorporate the make believe Christmasy things, including Santa. Our family has also taken trips for Christmas instead of gifts! We've made so many great memories doing that. :)
I am so glad you two made this video! I have had so much hate and backlash for telling my children who are 7 and 5 that Santa isn’t real. I’ve been accused of ruining Christmas for them and the “magic”. My thought was that my children would question the existence of Jesus too once they found out I was lying about Santa. Just sad we as parents are shamed for not lying to our children and for telling them the truth. God Bless you two and your beautiful family. ❤️
Nathanael said after we filmed the video that he had that thought about Jesus once he found out Santa wasn’t real. Good for you for going against the grain!
Never taught our children to believe in Santa either. For this very same reason. Also, they get three gifts each. We wanted the gifts to be Jesus focused too, so they each get three… like Christ did. ❤
So you don’t want them to believe in Santa who is made up, but you do want them to believe in a Jesus who is also made up. Make it make sense. You lot have mental illness
100% agree!! My kids know of Santa as a fun Christmas fantasy story, but Santa isn't getting credit for all my Christmas shopping!!lol
Jesus is the real reason for Christmas day and Who we live for all year ♡♡
Well Santa is as real as your god, so if they question cult religions it just means they can think for themselves.
Another great topic you guys have been killing it lately! Love what the Lord is doing with your channel. We are young parents also navigating through these same issues and it’s been rough figuring out a balance but I think that we as parents tend to over complicate things when it really doesn’t need to be so complicated.
My husbands parents did Santa with him while my parents never did Santa so we knew the gifts were from them or family members. I still knew about Santa, took pictures with him and participated in all the Christmas festivities and never saw my Christmas as less fun as any other kids, in fact, I believe it’s what kept me and my siblings humble as children. Because we knew it was my parents we were always so happy and content with any gift and would never ask for anything outrageous because we knew how hard our parents worked. Santa has made children (in my opinion) greedy, selfish and entitled. It’s robbed the true meaning of Christmas and as you guys mentioned, normalized parents lying to their children which btw always starts out as a small lie, and then you have reindeer poop on your front lawn somehow lol to each his own but for us as Catholics we celebrate St Nicholas feast day as he was an amazing saint but Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is all about JESUS! We do a novena to the baby Jesus, sing songs about Jesus, put Jesus on the manger on Christmas Day and sing happy birthday and give Him thanks for all we have. We attend church on Christmas Day, and keep gifts at a minimum. My daughter sees Santa at the mall and says hi, and I explain that he is pretend, as she gets older I will explain the whole cultural component etc. All in all I think we need to focus on making this day holy, can it still be fun? Sure! But if we want our children to truly understand the reason for the season, we need to stop being afraid of being the “lame parents” and what others will think. I think our children in the future will thank us for it. God bless you guys ❤️
My husband and I decided prior to having children over 23 years ago to not do Santa…. We always taught our children that every good and perfect gift comes down from God above and if you are blessed with things it’s not because you deserve it or have earned it but from His goodness. Over the years we have done Happy Birthday Jesus, scavenger hunt to find their presents, numbered their presents under the tree, so that they did not know if it was their gift until Christmas day. They always woke up with excitement in their heart to see what God had bless them with! We also focused on them giving to others…. I was just talking to my daughter and she said she did not miss out on anything at Christmas and if so glad that I raised her with the truth of Christmas!!
Y’all are all spot on. I’m 50 years old and was raised not celebrating it and neither did our now grown children.
If folks want to celebrate true Biblical holidays celebrate the ones the Bible speaks of.
Most kiddos just care about the gifts and nothing else. Great video!
Amen! The LORD called us out of 'Christmas' 7 years ago! We are growing in the LORD'S feasts as well! So beautiful! I think it is a good reminder that the Isrealites thought they were having a Feast unto Yahweh when they worshipped the golden calf. He also says do not worship me the way the pagans worship their God's. When I started looking into the roots of Christmas it quickly became apparent we had been sold a lie. It was no wonder my heart felt torn every Christmas. Leaving Christmas didn't happen over night; it was a gradual process for our family. The LORD was gracious with us and His mercy was definetly extended to us during that process. So thankful for Him! ❤️
@@iwillforeverpraisethee Amen!
We have raised 7 children and never once celebrated Christmas with gifts and everything that goes with it. So much less stress and actually focus on the birth of Christ and the ultimate gift He gave us as unworthy sinners by dying on the cross for our sins! Your exactly right about giving them what they need throughout the year instead of the mad rush to get things they don't really need just for the sake of keeping up with the tradition.
@@rosaliehalteman7589 those poor fuckin kids 😭 hope they celebrate with gifts now as adults and give themselves what they didn’t growing up
Thank you for sharing your hearts . I grew up not doing Santa . My family just doesn’t . I don’t have kids so I might not be to helpful but I don’t feel like I missed out on anything .
I’m really sorry for all the comments! Apparently I’m very passionate about this this year. I think handing out gifts to others is great and involving the kids in getting them and giving is best. Even more giving to random people!
I think it’s great that y’all are processing this fir other parents that watch your channel! My joys are 22 & 25. We always just downplayed Santa and “ up played “ Jesus! We still give our kids 3 gifts… bc baby Jesus received 3 gifts. We read the Bible story and had a cake for baby Jesus! And we spend lots of time with family and our kids always looked forward to that!!
I love what my family did, we kids were a part of gift giving from a young age. The joy was always more through God than Santa. I never believed in Santa and know I didn’t miss out on anything :))
Great points I've never even thought about! Thank you all for walking through this journey and showing me what to do. I would have to agree with everything I think I want to keep Christ first and my Christmas and my future kids Christmas as well.
I have a doubt, is it true that Jesus’s birthday its not really on December?
And a little story, I live in Costa Rica, so Santa is not all that big here BUT I don’t remember asking Santa for presents and stuff what I DO remember is finding out my mom was the one going home after work, putting me to bed and telling me I had to be asleep or Santa wouldn’t leave my gifts, I pretended I was asleep so I saw my mom very tired after work, getting ready to go pick my presents (we didn’t even have a car so it was a long bus ride) and THAT made me appreciate my mom even more! Then I just asked my dad for the gifts I wanted and he would give me one of all I asked so it was always a surprise! Also, some people here (some Catholics) say that Baby Jesus is the one bringing presents to the kids and to ask Jesus for the gifts instead of Santa… and see Santa mostly as a “character from the US” (I know it’s not originally from there)
I did Santa with my firstborn as I wasn't a Christian then. After I gave my life to God, I started feeling off about Santa and decided before my second child was old enough to know that I wasn't going to do Santa anymore. My daughter, who was 8/9 at the time, was already questioning if he was real, so I sat her down and told her the truth and from then on I decided I wasn't going to lie to my kids anymore about Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy. I got a LOT of backlash from my family as I was "depriving" my kids of the magic of Christmas/Easter. My son grew up not ever having Santa come to our house or the Easter Bunny. Instead, "Mama Claus" left gifts in the stockings. Mama Claus being me. I still loved the concept of my kids' excitement waking up to find surprises in their stockings but instead of putting it on Santa, they knew it was from me. My kids are now 19 and 26 and we still do stockings when we are all together. It's a tradition that will keep going because Santa is taken out of the equation. :) We also made birthday cakes for Jesus for many years!
Love this! My husband and I decided 30 years ago when starting our family of 4 that we would celebrate St. Nicholas Day (we lived in Germany at the time) on Dec 6th and give gifts to our children because of our great love for them and then celebrate Christmas Day in honor of the birth of Jesus and give one gift each to encourage their relationship with the Lord. We had different traditions that we did for each day like using Santa figurines to represent St. Nicholas and we had a book about the true story of St. Nicholas. Yes, we got flak from family & friends, it wasn't always easy. Love your heart for wanting to honor the Lord.
I heard it once said that whatever you can do to get your kids to be excited about a religious holiday, you do it. As they grow, they'll learn more about the seriousness about our religious traditions and they will be more likely to embrace it because the holiday evokes warm and happy memories. It never occurred to me not to do Santa with my kids, as we had him as a child and I came from a strong Christian family. I did have friends who were new Christians who chose not to do Santa in an effort to keep the focus on Jesus, but there's certainly no indication that it helped their kids to follow Christ more closely. Truth be told, now that our kids are all grown, the opposite could be said for many of these friends. That could be because they were newly converted and didn't realize the amount of work that goes in to raising Godly children; I don't know. I am perfectly content that we did Santa (not the you have to be good to get gifts Santa, but more like the historical Nicholas) and focused on the fact that God gave us Jesus as a gift and that Saint Nicholas (Santa) also gives us gifts so we can remember the greatest gift that was given to us.
We have 5 kids and we always get weird looks and asked "why" when we tell people we don't do Santa, Easter bunny or the tooth fairy. People think we are ruining the kids' "fun". Our kids are always super excited, can't sleep and wake up early. My son loves when he loses a tooth because he tries to come up with "booby traps" to try and catch us putting money under his pillow. It's a shame the world thinks you have to lie in order to have a good time.
To encourage y’all-I decided when I was pregnant with my first, that we weren’t going to “do the Santa thing”. My biggest reason was that I did not want to be teaching my children that this imaginary character had attributes that only our holy and loving God has. I always addressed/treated Santa (in books, or in public etc) like any other costumed character or cartoon (ie. Mickey Mouse, Princesses etc), which was a character that was make believe and fun. I also always taught them that every family has different traditions and some families “play the Santa game” and not to ruin the game (ie. Tell other kids that Santa is make believe) for their family. My oldest is 12 now, and my children absolutely have not missed out on anything with this perspectives. They still get filled stockings Christmas morning, they still each get a big present/surprise Christmas morning (along with their wrapped gifts), we make cookies, we even take photos with/visit Santa (the same way we do other characters at theme parks, birthday parties etc). It’s always been fun and “magical” for the kids, even though in my home Santa never has gotten the credit for the magic. As a single parent, my girls have found joy in being part of the “magic” and have started stuffing my stocking, doing surprises for others, looking forward to giving and serving for Christmas etc. …I’m 12 years into it with 3 kids, and there hasn’t been even a moment where I regretted not putting on the charade of Santa! To God be the Glory!
My oldest 5 yr old knows Santa is not real but still likes the character of Santa. We don’t focus or make a big deal about Santa but we enjoy the character and idea of Santa while knowing he isn’t real. I have no problem with that. We do focus of Jesus, the birth and the story of salvation.
As someone who grew up never believing in Santa Claus, I can say I never thought I had a less fun Christmas than my friends who did believe. I’ve always loved Christmas! Knowing my parents didn’t want to lie to me even to make something possibly more fun was one of the ways they lived out their faith in front of me. I knew my parents loved me & gave me gifts to show their love to me & to demonstrate the true gift that Jesus gives in salvation!
Santa doesn't mean Satan, it is Latin for Saint...short for the Turkish St. Nicholas of the early Catholic Church.
We decided not to celebrate Santa in our family and have received mostly negative responses. But, like you, we didn’t want the focus to be on getting a present from Santa for being good. That totally takes Jesus out of the equation. We decided to approach it like play-kids play pretend all the time. (Pretend to be an animal or a dinosaur in our case.) So we’ve said “Santa is just a pretend game people like to play. They pretend he comes down their chimney and gives them toys. But some people are REALLY into this game so we won’t spoil it for them by telling them Santa isn’t real.” I don’t want to have that kid who tells all the others he’s not real. My favorite interaction that happened this year was when a grandparent asked our son “What did you ask Santa for this year?” And our 3 year old respond with a long pause, looked confused, and said “Mommy and Daddy getting me a dinosaur.” 😂 We told him we buy gifts as we celebrate Jesus’ birthday. We do 4 gifts (something you want, need, wear, and read) then go on a trip together. This year on Christmas Day, we ate breakfast and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. Then we played a game between every present opened. The winner gets to open their present first followed by everyone else. Then we play another game and that winner gets to go first that time. So we’re playing games together all day while opening presents. We have toddlers so the games looked like hide and seek, Monkey Around game, and activities like dancing, making a craft, baking cookies, etc. It allows us to spend uninterrupted time together having fun and talking about why we are spending our day like this. We talk about Jesus, what He’s done for us, and get excited! And now we have a fun trip to look forward to in a couple weeks!
I never thought about that misspelling comparison name… the only thing I don’t agree is that “santa” or the evil one clearly doesn’t want anyone to go good. As a matter fact, all he wants is to do bad.
That’s a good conversation for Christian’s parents to really have this conversation and ask themselves what’s the true matter here in this topics to really teach their kids. Wonderful topic!🎄💌
I agree that their is a conversation to be had about how it might be bad to equate goodness=many gifts, but the name thing is ridiculous. "Santa" means Saint and it comes from Sainr Nicolaus, a Bishop from the 4th century who did good and God worshipped as a Saint by the Catholic Church. Santa evolved from those myths, so I'd say he definitely "wants" kids to be good
We have 3 small boys, like you all. Our oldest is 6. We have chosen not to do Santa except as a fun character in movies and books. Instead we focus on Jesus and time together as a family. They still open gifts from us Christmas morning, but it isn’t very much to help them with contentment. They chose gifts for each other this year as well! It was a big hit and really drove home the joy of giving. Our families and most friends do not celebrate this way. They judge us for ruining the magic of the season. But we have much peace around our choices. The hardest part is knowing how to help our kids respond to others regarding Santa. So many adults ask them questions about santa. Not to mention other children. It’s a Source of so much anxiety for me as a mom. We are teaching them not to lie, but like you all, we never want to come across as better than anyone. Let’s just say I breathe a sigh of relief come mid-January when the Santa talk goes away for a while. It truly shouldn’t be this way. Especially in our churches.
OMG, The parallels you gave blew me away. I knew of a few but you showed me more that I did not know and WOW!!!! You are definitely onto something there. It is about time that we as believers began taking a stand for righteousness. I commend you and pray you continue...
My children are 23 and 27 now, but we did the whole Santa thing. I remember being so stressed about not getting them enough for Christmas and I now I look back wishing I had been so materialistic!
I feel like as their parents we feel like we can never give them “enough” cause we love them so much but we just have to keep in mind that our love for them IS enough! They don’t need materials to know we love them 🥰
I grew up in a christian house and I'm personally grateful my parents told me santa wasn't real at a really young age because I never got confused on whether santa being real/fake realted to Jesus's existence. I was also the child who told other kids santa wasn't real, so maybe tell your kids not to spoil it for others.
I had my first child 6 months ago and my husband and I have decided to not only not lie about Santa but to be honest about him not being a real entity. Sure, st Nick was a real human. But he is no longer alive and flying around. Christmas is 100% about Jesus. The story of Jesus and his unconditional and self sacrificing love. I think we will do a very modest amount of gifts with an emphasis on buying for others. I want to teach my child about donating things that others need that we take for granted as well as volunteering.
You guys are great! It’s so important to listen and follow your conviction. True Joy is found in the Lord not in myths or copious amount of material possessions. Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the holiday no matter how you celebrate. I pray you all experience the love of Jesus❤
My kids have never believed in Santa, but we've talked about the real person who inspired him and about how the traditions came to be. This hasn't removed any of the joy or "magic" of Christmas from our family.
My parents never did the Santa thing. They told us right away that he was a character. I still enjoyed all the movies and Santa-themed things as a kid and actually appreciated that my parents were honest with me.
My oldest is 16 and I didn’t do Santa when he was younger. I felt that by lying to him, once he found out about Santa, that he would think it’s okay to lie. So I always told him the true reason we celebrate Christmas. Now, years later, I really think I stole the magic of Christmas. It’s a tough fence to be on.
Yeah you did. Now you have to answer to him for why he is mossing those magical memories. Sad. All in the name of Jesus… you think Jesus would have wanted to remove magic from the little children? He loved the little Children THE MOST. Such twisted logic the church has pushed on believers.
I do Santa. I teach my kids that Santa gives gifts because he loves Jesus just like we do. We read the story of St. Nicholas, and we read the Polar Express (book, not movie. The movie is awful). One of my favorite Christmas tree ornaments has Santa worshipping Jesus in the manger. I have never taught them that Santa won't come if they're naughty. Santa is an example of giving without expecting anything in return...well, except cookies. 😉
My oldest believed wholeheartedly and really struggled when she realized mom is Santa. It made me realize how much effort I put into maintaining it with her. I have younger children (8 and 10 years younger than her), and I put a lot less effort into it with them.
As a kid, I received gifts "from Santa" at my dad's house but not mom's. I guess I never wholeheartedly believed, and no adult in my family ever told me Santa wasn't real, but I figured it out and wasn't traumatized.
Love it. We started late in the game. I never told my 3 Santa was real,trust me I got back lash from family, secondly I regret putting my kids in public school or giving them a phone. But we do trips every other year, stockings on Christmas, church. My kids are grown and public school and phones will be a strong hold against them.
We have five kids from 14 to 1. We don’t push Santa, we just don’t really talk about him as if he’s real. We love watching all the movies though. This year we picked out two Angel Tree recipients and gave each lots of gifts. Everyone helped pick things out. That really fulfilled the desire we have to give gifts, but allowed the focus to be on giving. We also gave each of our own kids one gift each, while normally they would get three to five gifts. It was a different experience that we all benefited from. They got stuff in their stockings, a couple gifts from grandma, and a few things from other people as well. So, it was still more abundant than we would have preferred. We also let the children do a “secret Santa” gift for each other. I took each of them shopping by themselves and they had to pick out something one of their siblings would like. And it was a secret. Talk about personal growth 😂 it was hard for some of them to pick something special for their sibling, and to not tell them right away. All in all, we are trying to focus on giving, and being a gracious receiver, which is difficult for many Christians. But, Christ is the ultimate gift and one must receive it, right?
The kids and I this Christmas watched a video on who the real Saint Nick was. He loved Jesus and that's the Santa we talk about. We also love the Lord and try to live completely for Him. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I'll be praying for you guys and for wisdom as you navigate through this. ❤️
We also always make the season more about the giving than the receiving. We give to neighbors, we donate to shelters, we make the holiday about giving instead of receiving and we make memories more than anything.
Growing up we rarely did gifts
Sometimes there was a Christmas service, often family getting together.
When I got married, and while dating I attended my husband’s family Christmas. We usually started out singing Christmas songs, then They had school aged children and younger quote verses, poems, and/or sing. After that the Grandparents passed gifts out to the children and adults. So the children learned when Christmas time came they were getting gifts!
Since my husband has gone to be with the Lord, we exchange names and try to give something they can use. Usually read the Christmas story. I think it’s been too commercialized, personally, but maybe it’s been my upbringing. Y’all are seeking to do what is right and pleasing God. It’s never easy to be different, God will show you the way! Thank you for sharing! You are great parents!❤
Thank you for sharing this. This was the first year we didn’t do Santa with our kids for these same reasons. ❤
I became a born again Christian as an adult. My parents are not Christian, and they always are ready to put up Santa decor and watch movies and sing songs about Santa, but they do not acknowledge or celebrate Jesus on Christmas. That has been my observation/ experience.
My child is grown but I can tell you I wish I had of not done the big Christmas thing when she was growing up. But I also lately have really come to the realization that we shouldn't be teaching our children anything that is not truth. God is a God of truth. Why do we pretend all these things with them, especially at young ages. All that pretending stuff for example that there are elves, and pretty color unicorns, and made up characters, there really is no need of it. It's not real, it's not truth so why support it? God is truth all the way and He has given us enough to enjoy that is real (his creation for one thing) that we can use His truth and His creation to have just as much fun with our children and it's pure. This is what I have been learning lately and wanted to share that with you. If we teach them truth from the beginning, there won't be room for lies. You won't find any "make believe " stories or characters in the Bible.
Loved this video. Continue to walk away from the world's version of Christmas and you will find yourself running. Our oldest is 13 and we have 3 more down to 7...we still get them gifts and and stocking stuffers...but we never talked of Santa when they were younger. When they were younger they would ask if Santa was real...and our response was, "What do you think?" And kinda left it at that but always came back around to Jesus. No tears were ever shed. They also valued their gifts because they knew where they actually came from and were always so grateful. Their favorite part of Christmas is to pick a gift for each other...so I would say, continue that tradition. They have turned into the most anticipated part of Christmas morning! You guys are awesome parents. Continue to walk in the still small voice. Merry Christmas.
We have grown kids and grandkids in college now so they are pretty grown too. We explained “Santa” to our kids that Santa represents the “Spirit of Christmas.” The Spirit of Christmas represents the Spirit of the season-joy, love, peace, giving , receiving, etc. Then every Christmas the family received a gift from the “Spirit of Christmas”. A family game, old diner style milk shake maker with fountain style glasses and even tickets to the Rose Bowl one year when our team was playing are a few examples. We were a Christian family and, of course, celebrated the birth of our Savior which is what it is really all about anyway. Don’t over think it.
I’m late watching this but I just wanted you to know about a tradition I started with my kids this year and it’s called Shepard on the search. It’s a Christian alternative for elf on the shelf 😊
I think people want to pick things apart,and analyze everything.Santa I thought was for Saint not Satan.We found out that Santa was Dad later in childhood and it was no big deal.It's part of the innocence of being a child,and fantasy of imaginary characters.
Can’t wait for Sutton to leave Nate. Grabbing my popcorn.
The modern day “Santa Claus “ is based on a real person but has been secularized to take the focus off of Jesus. Saint Nicholas also known as “Nicholas the wonder worker” was Christian saint that gave gifts to poor families. His feast day is celebrated on December 6th. His story is a good way of teaching kids about giving during the Christmas season and is a lot better than lying to them about a fat old man that lives in the North Pole.
It was so very refreshing to hear you share about this. I am 72 and still remember believing in the lie about Santa until I was 12. Unlike Sutton, I did feel like my parents had lied and my first thought was, "Does that mean God isn't real either?"
Don't feel guilty about robbing your sons of fun, but rather feel good that you are choosing the narrow road that leads to life and pleasing God by not lieing to your children. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and seeking God for truth and guidance.
You’re 72 and still hung up on that? If that’s you’re biggest issue, you really need to grow up and get a life. It’s not a big deal at all.
@@Makeup4ever5 As a child of God I look to Him to determine what is "a big deal". Telling lies is a very big deal according to God. If you see it otherwise you are free to do as you please, as am I.
I completely agree with Sutton as being raised with Santa and having fun with it. I never want my kids to think I'd lie about things. I know I'm not that person but everyone is different. I'd definitely like to have a minimal Christmas in terms of gifts and focus on giving, being with family and friends, and celebrating Jesus. Today's culture has definitely had the emphasis on 'me' as opposed to what it's really about. Great video guys!
The right path isn't never the easy path.
I felt betrayed when I found out that Santa, Easter Bunny, etc were not real! I questioned why my parents would lie like that. They tried to explain the fun, pretending side, but it still made me feel conflicted. I was also told that the main reason for celebrating was Jesus, but had to have my parents re-affirm that Jesus was real.
So, my hubby and I decided to not lie to our kids. We gave them the truth up front. We shared about St. Nicolas and how that morphed into the magical pretend figure. We told them to not tell other kids that Santa wasn’t real and tell the kids about St. Nicolas and the celebration of Jesus’ birth.
We played the “Tooth Fairy” game where the kids would try to catch us exchanging their tooth for $.
Never did we play Easter Bunny, but we did hide Resurrection Eggs that had bits of the account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection in them and let them know that the truth seems hidden to those that don’t believe and that eggs can represent new life like Christ gives.
I’m not Christian or religious but I can see all the similarities you are pointing out and have heavily debating whether or not I will carry on the Christmas tradition in the same way mom did.
Hanukkah is also fun if someone feels uncomfortable with Xmas. Jesus was at Hanukkah in the Bible it says that.
One thing I will say on this is just that you should research Saint Nicholas and the true story of Christmas on that side of things. My parents told us the truth about Santa and Saint Nicolas so we always knew but it didn’t steal any joy or fun from us. We always celebrated Christmas with Santa as well. It would have been confusing if everyone else was celebrating with Santa and we didn’t too. We always were told to keep it to ourselves so we didn’t upset other kids or their parents. The focus always was and is about Jesus though. My parents never lied to us but they kept things fun and exciting.
I can’t wait to get off work and comment on this video!! Good stuff.
What an amazing, fearless video. Thank you for making it !!! Everything you're saying resonates with me, and has for sometime.
I've been feeling like a bad person for feeling this way. Now, that was before understanding the reasons, to this extent...
Thank you.
thankful to hear this.
Thank you for making this video! I was just talking to my husband about how we will explain Santa to our daughter. And a big point was “thou shall not lie” and I remember when my brother found out the truth of Santa he was so angry at our parents.
Thank you thank you thank you for sharing this!
Santa Claus is Saint Nicholas.
We always opened up our family gifts of Christmas Eve and then got one “Santa” gift and stocking on Christmas morning. Way less time opening presents on Christmas Day and then we were able to focus on Jesus, go to church and spend lots of time with family! I loved hearing your thoughts on Santa and hadn’t heard/thought of many of those parallels!
I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness and did not grow up celebrating Christmas. When I was raising my kids, I struggled with some of the same issues you are having. I should mention I was no longer a Jehovah’s Witness. The man I married was Catholic, had celebrated growing up, so really took the lead on how it was handled. I never really felt comfortable, but didn’t know how to avoid the ‘Santa is bringing you presents’ thing. I did infuse the holiday with as much concentration on, giving to others, giving to those less fortunate, and helping others, as I could. However, my kids, who have children around the ages of yours, have gone a different direction, and I like it. They introduce the Santa story, as it is, a story. They explain that parents play along to make it feel as real as they can, and that giving to others is the intention of this element of the holiday but we make it fun by having Santa surprise us with gifts on Christmas morning. They don’t go to sit on Santa’s lap, although you obviously could. They would just know it is all pretend.
There is a complication with other kids as the children get older, but they explain, as they get older that different families celebrate in different ways. Some children are told about Santa being a story when they are young, like they do in their family, And other families tell their children later, because they think it will be more fun, saying Our family thinks doing it this way is more fun.
Just a thought I wanted to share.
Love the thought you put into how you live your lives. It’s easy to get so caught up in the things to do that you dont look at the big picture. Really proud of you all for looking at your big house for what it is to you, overall. Beautiful, but also a financial burden. Easy to see others doing it and hide behind, ‘this is normal, its what everyone is doing’. God Bless
OMG so true about Santa being the misspelling of Satan. Just like dog is the misspelling of god 🙄 Absolute lunacy.
This is such a hard topic for me because I grew up doing the whooooleeeee Santa thing, and was heartbroken when I found out he wasn’t real. However, my little brother is disabled (he’s 23 yrs old and still believes in Santa, elves, the North Pole, etc) and he probably will believe for the rest of his life. It brings so much joy, magic, and childlike spirit to a family full of all adults- because we all have to continue to “believe” for him 🥹♥️ Now I’m about to give birth to my first child, and my hubby and I are contemplating how we want to handle Christmas/Santa with our son. We absolutely have to continue Santa for my disabled little brother, but I don’t know how this’ll affect how we handle Christmas in our own household… ♥️ tricky situation!
peter mckinnon intro, love it!
You guys should check out a book called "Finding the Afikomen Encountering Jesus in the Spring Feasts" by Christie Eisner - Christmas isn't in the bible but the biblical feasts and the biblical calendar are! Little disclaimer:there are some teachings around the feasts that bring you down a path of Judaism so watch out for that. The biblical feasts by revelation are so life-giving from a Christian perspective. Especially when you start seeing how Jesus (the Passover Lamb) fulfilled the Spring Feasts to an absolute T. And when you get into the fall feasts it gets even better! We live in the Netherlands so we have it easy with Christmas (Im American my husband is Dutch) because gifts aren't so big here. . .that being said we don't do gifts for Christmas. We basically just focus on the incarnation during this season. We have a playmobil nativity and do a few winter decorations and meditate on the humility of Christ, God becoming a man, the word made flesh who dwelt among us. . .the highest of kings to the lowest of places (living where the animals live to show us his love.)
Growing up, we never got presents on Christmas day. I am not sure if this is a Catholic tradition or Spanish but we got our presents on the 5th January at night and the three wise men (or three kings) brought the presents to our homes. In Spain the night of the 5th there is a parade in the street with a start and three wise men that go to visit baby jesus and after that they give presents to the kids.
Nowadays, the idea of Santa is getting everywhere and some families give gifts on both days which in my opinion is too much. I am not a Christian Catholic anymore but the idea of the three kings is more appealing to me than Santa.
I am really proud of how much you two have grown in your faith! Praise God! I have watched you two for a few years, and I can definitely observe how you both have matured. Please don't apologize for seeking to honor God with your lives. Continue to live your lives unto the Lord and to bring glory to God! Your lives will be attractive to and an example for other believers, and not for the world. Although we seek to reach the lost, our ministry is to each others as brothers and sisters in Christ. God's grace and peace be with you and your little ones!
Hi! I have followed you guys for a very long time now and think its great how open you guys are with these big picture family struggles. I wanted to give you guys a 3rd option if you will, in Spanish tradition gifts are actually given on Jan. 6th (Epiphany day, which is 12 days from Christmas day, i.e. the 12 days of Christmas) and when children are young they are told that the Three Wise Men (aka the Magi) are the ones that bring the gifts (just as they brought the gifts to baby Jesus). I thought you guys might like this option as it is strongly rooted in Christianity and leaves Christmas day open to focusing on the birth of Jesus. Additionally, either if you want to tell the children from the start or later people will often refer to themselves as "Pajes" which were the Magi's helpers. I believe this still keeps the excitement of the Three Wise Men because it includes a little layer of mystery while still centering on the fact that a specific person thought of this gift for another. Nevertheless, I can understand the difficulty in doing this in the United States were other children will receive all their gifts on Christmas day. Personally, my family will give one gift on Christmas day and the rest on Jan. 6th, which helped reduce the "disappointment" as a kid that others had gotten their gift, but made it all the more exciting when on Jan. 6th you finally got to open your gifts. Lastly, I wanted to say that I really liked your idea of only giving three gifts since Jesus got three gifts. Also (sorry for the unsolicited advice) I think that seeing Santa as Satan rearranged is reading into it a little much, it does come from the Dutch dialect of for St. Nick, and in Spanish language "Santa" actually means Saint. Not trying to appear mean by any means please believe that, just thought you guys would like knowing the history and etymology.
We didn't do Santa with our three daughters (now over age 12). They didn't care who brought the presents; they were just happy to get some presents. We try hard to keep Christ in Christmas with various activities. We love watching The Santa Claus movies, but the kids know that it's just pretend, and that Santa does not actually bring presents. They also know the history of Saint Nicholas.
Sorry to be so long winded, but as I was thinking about your young family, I remembered what a teacher friend of mine did with her family, starting in their kid's elementary years : At Halloween, they all sat down and discussed what they would like to have for dinner on Thanksgiving - one year the kids chose TV dinners since they had never had one before - so that is exactly what they did! At Thanksgiving they chose Christmas - example, one year it was strawberry topped waffles with whipped cream. At New Years, they chose sack lunches one year. Get the idea? Now that their kids are adults, they choose a different country for each holiday and research, prepare and serve foods from that country including that country's traditions. The Christmas her kids remember most is the year they rented a cabin and had to make Christmas out of what they found there. (tin foil or catalog picture ornaments - the tree just a branch they found outside. It was never about the presents. I admired their family so much.
A few suggestions that we used when our kids were little: 1. We also did a birthday cake for Jesus but the kids helped to make/decorate it. They were more invested when they did the work themselves. 2. We had a figurine of Santa kneeling at the Baby Jesus' manger. It brought to mind the scripture "that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (even Santa bows to Jesus). 3. If you look at Santa as Saint Nicholas, his heart's desire was to give gifts to children to honor the birth of Jesus our Savior. 4. As a grandma now, we have a Fisher-Price Nativity set that I use to tell the Christmas story. The grandkids get to set the pieces in place as I tell the story. (When our granddaughter was around 5 or 6, and it came to the giving of gifts from the Wise Men, she said "Gold, Frankenstein and Myrrh." It's become a family joke now and we all call it out! LOL A few times I've put the different Nativity set pieces in gift bags that are numbered, then everyone draws one, and then tell their part of the story from the figures they've chosen. BTW - I start the story with the story of Adam and Eve - and how he was the first Adam and because of some bad choices allowed death into our world - separating us from God. But God promised a final Adam (Jesus) would come to save us all from death and give us everlasting life. It gives a broader perspective to Christmas and the importance for Jesus to come to be our Savior. Blessings, Janell
Aw I love the Santa bowing to Jesus. I’ve never seen that!
My parents did Santa with us growing up. I did it with my kids. But we also knew about the real St. Nicholas that gave to the less fortunate. He was a real person. My kids always knew about where the idea of Santa came from. We also do a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas. I think you can do a mix of things. Nothing wrong with talking about the real St. Nicholas and the ideas of Santa came from that and it’s more for entertainment purposes.
@@nateandsutton Amazon actually carries a number of the figurines of Santa and Baby Jesus - even ornaments for your Christmas tree. Prices vary on what size you would want. I have even seen them in thrift shops. Hope you find a good one for your needs. Blessings, Janell
My parents always told me that it was baby Jesus the one who bring the presents
I agree with Nate, why do we need to get all magical and extra exciting things for our kids? It’s the BIRTH OF JESUS, if we plant seeds of Christ in their hearts, about what he’s done for us, who he is etc. How can you not just naturally be excited to celebrate his birthday?
We have 3 kids 7, 5 & 2, we dealt with the same things once they see all the decorations and things when we are out. We just told them right off the bat he’s not real, he WAS not anymore. And I’ve told them the story of how he once received a huge inheritance and spent it on gifts for children at orphanages, yes a good thing he did, BUT I explained how the world has taken Christ out of Christmas and made it about the fat man flying in the sky delivering gifts to boys and girl. So what they get excited about is that we come together to spend time together, receiving gifts to remember HIM. And they love it. Just a couple weeks ago when I had my kids all with me to get groceries, an older couple were drawn to talk to my children and asked “are you all ready for Santa to come?” And my daughter proudly said “he’s not real! But we are so excited for Christmas cause it’s Jesus’s birthday” it still feels a little awkward to see their expressions lol but I’m so proud of them and love it now.
Also, Saint Nicholas a.k.a Santa Claus, was an amazing Holy Spirit filled servant. Researching and acknowledging his contributions to the Body of Christ would be great as well as others.
Don’t stress about it because you can definitely let Jesus have the spot light and make it all about Him about giving is better than receiving.
If they ask if Santa is real I would say no but they can still enjoy some things about Santa. I personally would kind of in a round about way let my kids know He is real because I found out from Kids at school and I was embarrassed about.
Nativity scene is a must.
You all got this don’t stress. You can honor God in all your ways. Santa doesn’t have anything on Jesus. Let the light of Jesus shine bright. Santa is a just for fun thing some people do. Just don’t make a big deal out of it. i went through this about not even wanting to put up a tree or anything. In the end I decided it was a heart thing I am not worshiping other Gods in my Heart and I look at a Christmas tree and the Light of Jesus. You are going to have to deal with the easter bunny too. Thanks for choosing Jesus. ❤
I really love and appreciate your videos. You both had great ideas! God bless your family!
Thank you so much!
I notice in your video the decorated Christmas tree, the Christmas stockings, the Santa Claus hats being worn. The messages were very conflicting. I honestly don't know what to make of the video. I never felt lied to when I learned my parents really were playing Santa. I never doubted Jesus was real as a result.
This is seriously one video to ponder.
At any rate, thanks for sharing your perspectives on the topic and the journey.
They make a christian version of the elf on a shelf. It's a shepard looking for baby Jesus. Look it up.
Our kids are teens. They grew up knowing Santa was fantasy. We never talked about Santa really. To them it was a story. We gave them small gifts. Never extravagant or many. My husbands’ family were/are JW so he did not grow up with gifts. I am Asian, and did not grow up with gifts either. My kids are in public school and during their younger years the school had shops and delegated shopping events for the kids to get gifts for family. But now, I will get them a stocking of gifts and then they have an alotted amount to get something they want. Between Christmas and New Years we make sure to spend a lot of time together, eating, and having fun. We always make sure we do something spiritual together. We are reading John. And we always make sure we give financially to organizations we believe in. Our teens pick an organization they want to give to. It usually is animal related since they both love animals.
I'm glad you guys made this video! I was just thinking about this! I like the idea of just making it a smaller thing, like the tooth fairy. I like the idea of going back to the original concept and letting him fill a stocking, leaving cookies for him at night and letting all the gifts be from the parents. Then when my kids figure it out, I want to pull them aside and teach them about the real St. Nik and how he helped the orphan children. Now that they know, they become the "new St. Nik" helping with Christmas each year. They bring joy and gifts to others as the hands of the Savior without others seeing them for their good works. That way St Nik becomes a tool to point to following the Savior (which was his goal in real life) rather than eclipsing Him.
I like that you guys don't want to lie to your kids. My mom had this art down. She never told me the tooth fairy was or wasn't real. When we asked she would say "what do you think?" I think this strikes a good balance between keeping the fun but not lying to your kids. The ability to believe that there is more to life than you see can be a good skill and has personally helped me with my faith in God. Fairy tales can have a similar effect. Good luck you guys! Whatever you decide for your cute family will be great I'm sure! :)
We still did presents for our kid but told her it was from mom and dad not Santa lol
When I was little my parents would sign the gifts “from baby Jesus” and would explain to us that Jesus they are able to provide gifts for us.
I have had those convictions this Christmas now being a mama- I don’t think my husband would agree to the santa part but I personally want to make it more of a focus on Jesus. Y’all aren’t alone in this!
My dad passed when I was 9, so my single mom wasn't able to buy Christmas presents. She did her best trying to keep the utilities on. I learned about Santa at school, but I picked up on he couldn't be real. I don't celebrate "Christmas", but I definitely celebrate Thanksgiving on the daily basis. I definitely believe in Jesus, but was He born on December 25 🤔. I thought preschool for eight years and it was always awkward when kids would debate each out about the existence of Santa. I literally would tell them to ask their parents if Santa is real, it's not my business. I'd give the parents a heads up about the kids talking about it, but I never had anything to say about Santa. Associating santa with satan 🤔. I guess if you believe satan has a horn, tail and wear a red suit. The adversary definitely is a deceiver and comes to you in a way that's attractive as opposed to frightening. How else would he lure us in?
It is definitely an important conversation to be having as Christ followers. Personally, I never thought so deeply about my parents lying to me or getting it twisted with beliefs about Jesus. But when we had our own three children, now grown, one really was deeply angry about how we lied to her. We did go to some lengths to promote the myth which was a mistake. I do believe now that we should not have lied, especially since we believe that what we think about Jesus is the most important thing about us. I don’t want to mess that up! There are so many ways to make Christmas exciting and special (including gifts) and it sounds like you are on the right path. It is always hard to buck the culture as a Christian but if your kids know the truth from the beginning about Santa, they will actually feel very wise and won’t miss the whole ruse. It will become your little family secret and they will likely play along with other kids with a knowing wink.
Our sons are only 2 years old and 5 months old, so we’re just figuring this all out too, but our current plan is to treat Santa like a character. Our children will see the decorations (though we don’t have Santa decorations at our house), and read the books, but we will always explain that’s it’s a pretend story people like to tell around Christmas time. We do give gifts and fill stockings, but they are from us, not Santa. We keep it simple with 4 gifts (something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read), although I love the idea of doing 3 gifts just like Jesus’ 3 gifts! I’ll have to think about that one! And thanks for mentioning the birthday cake. I will definitely be incorporating that next year! What a sweet tradition! Of course people aren’t thrilled with our choices. My mom was horrified to find out that our kids would not be sitting on Santa’s lap for photos (such a weird tradition! No thank you). But actually, in our playgroup (where the dozen or so families are Catholic, like ourselves), most people grew up believing in Santa, and most of us have decided not to do Santa with our children, which I think is interesting!
Also, if your kids think the elf is fun, look into Mary on the Mantle! She gets ready for baby Jesus each day leading up to Christmas, and has a note each morning with an act of kindness that the children can do. We wanted to begin this this year, but our toddler really just wanted to snuggle his Mary doll in his room for bedtime, so maybe next year! You can also buy a baby Jesus doll for Mary to have with her on Christmas morning, and the book that goes along with it is really sweet.
thank you so much for sharing this. I don't have kids and am unmarried, but I love watching y'alls content because it gives me food for thought and things to pray about. :)
Way to explore and most important thing is asking Holy Spirit to guide you and celebrate the different ways families celebrate Christmas! From baby up (have 4 kiddoes) they knew Santa wasn't real and just explained it all. We told them that different families celebrate differently and we don't need to say to other children that believe Santa to say he is not real and use this to teach them to respect each others different opinions in life. One tradition our kids love and our oldest is 12 is we do stockings in mom and dads bed, they wake us with their stockings and I have a book, we have used different stories that explain meaning of Christmas like when they were younger Bernstein Bears and then we discuss baby Jesus and what we celebrate today. It is fun and before we even start the day with presents or whatever, we get our hearts aligned with the incredible story of our Savior. And never underestimate the littles one take on the stories, Blessings!
Tell him about St. Nickolas! That's how Santa got started, but it's been twisted horribly and now Santa is what you've discovered.
Also, there's a lot of Elf on the Shelf substitutes like Shepherd on the Search or Wise Man seeks the star.
Also The Giving Manger is really cool!
All that said, we grew up never celebrating Christmas, because my parents believed it was pagan.
I love the 3 gift idea!
Growing up in a Christian home my parents had a pretty balanced approach to Santa and Christmas in general. There was two books I remember my mom reading to me and my siblings during the advent and Christmas season. The first is “Saint Nicholas The Real Story of the Christmas legend”by Julie Stiegemeyer and the Second was “Jotham’s Journey” by Arnold Yteeide
Which is the first book in a 4 book series each telling a historical fictional story of the coming of Jesus from a young child’s perspective living in Bible times. These are now some of our favorite memories of story books and helped me and my sibling to remember the true meaning of Christmas. We also had the family rule to surprise each other with random gift if we thought of them not sticking to the traditional calendar. Love you videos and will be praying for wisdom for your family. You guys are doing great! @nateandsutton
There is a Santa Claus in our area who when he takes breaks he comes out to where all the families are waiting in line and tells them the real Christmas story.
You’re definitely not alone in this!
100% agree!! My kids know of Santa as a fun Christmas fantasy story, but Santa isn't getting credit for all my Christmas shopping!!lol
Jesus is the real reason for Christmas day and Who we live for all year ♡♡
We straight up tell them that it is a fairytale and that people who don’t know Jesus celebrate Santa on Christmas and then we explain to them that it’s Jesus birthday is on Christmas.
Proud of you both for wanting and trying to keep to everything Jesus honoring in your home. This world influence does not make that easy. Keep it up parents. Thank you for sharing your journey.
My husband and I have seven children. We never taught them that Santa was real because we wanted to keep the focus entirely on Jesus and celebrating HIS birth. Our children also knew not to tell other children that Santa wasn’t real. I am an elementary teacher and I saw how greedy children can be and how overly obsessed they oftentimes are about getting gifts without truly appreciating the gifts that they receive. My kids are all older now and they all say that not having Santa be a part of Christmas in no way took away the fun and the magic of Christmas.