Christmas goodness December 6, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Kids, Religion , trackbackOn Sunday, I took the girls to a kid movie place. We saw "Noddy
saves Christmas" and "Candyland". They love Noddy (G-d knows why) and
so I thought they would like it. Candyland got a little too scary, so
we left before it ended. Then the questions started.
Soleil: Mommy? Why doesn’t Santa visit us?
SM: We’re Jewish. Santa is only for Christians.Soleil: But everyone in toyland got toys and Santa visited everyone there.
SM: Maybe they were all Christians.
Soleil: Mommy? Santa said only good people get presents. Does this mean Jewish people are bad?SM:(oh boy!) No honey, Santa only visits Christian people.
Soleil:So Jewish people are not good?
Oy!
I finally let her onto the SUPER TOP SECRET that Santa is not real. But
that her Christian friends believe he is real and we can’t spoil the
secret. I explained how Christmas is a birthday for one very important
person to Christians. And Santa really doesn’t have much to do with the
very important person’s birthday, but it is a good way to give presents.
We talked alot about how it was SUPER TOP SECRET.I can’t believe she associated that if you don’t get a visit from Santa, you are bad with all Jews are bad…
But then again, I have trouble with the whole Santa thing anyway. Okay, so to celebrate Jesus’s birthday, you have a fat guy give you presents based on your behavior? Huh? And it’s a myth anyway, but it’s okay for your parents to lie to you about this, but you can’t lie about eating that last piece of candy? You see my difficulties, no?
How do Christian parents deal with Santa and the birth of Jesus? Really? I am curious. Do you tell your children the good and naughty crap? Yet we are all good and bad, so shouldn’t we all not get presents? And is this about gifts? Or about the gift of Jesus?
So far, Soleil has agreed to the super top secret. She even agreed when one friend said Santa was real. I am now waiting for the question of "Mommy, I am lying when I say Santa is real. Isn’t that bad?" And we will discuss when lying is and isn’t okay (a grey grey line indeed, but something that IS okay in Judaism).
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My husband and I are Catholic and attend mass each Sunday, so Leah is aware of the birth of Jesus. We also put out a nativity scene right next to the Christmas tree and read her stories like Mortimer’s Christmas Manger. We do also tell her that Santa is real and like magic, but I don’t threaten her that she won’t get gifts if she is bad (but my parents do). It is not an easy balance, but I remember how excited I was to see Santa as a child and don’t want her to lose that sense of wonder just yet.
Delurking to say that this came up in my house yesterday too. I deflected my 6 year old son by pointing out that Christians have Christmas and Santa Claus but they don’t have Hannukah (and may perhaps have let a little hint about 8 days worth of holiday slip in there - very poor parenting I admit and pretty unwise, considering we’re trying to tone down the rampant consumerism of the holiday, but hey, it worked…). I then followed it up with a discussion of how different people are different, believe different things, etc., and how nice it was that we could all learn about everyone else’s ideas. Though to be fair, he was much more concerned with finding out whether Santa Claus visited his American cousins (we live in Israel) and whether his father and I had gotten presents from Santa Claus when we were kids. Once he found out that neither we nor his cousins were getting visits from the jolly red guy he let it drop. I’m sure the whole thing would be a lot harder if we lived in the States though, other than the occasional Christmas movie on tv (why do they do that here, anyway?), there’s really no awareness of Santa Claus to cause confusion or jealousy.
Good luck navigating this particular minefield. I still think of Christmas in the US as a giant party that I’m not invited to…
Heading back into lurkland now… A very Happy Hannukah filled with latkes and jelly doughnuts to you and yours.
While I don’t have time for as thorough of an entry as this deserves (oh, could I write on this topic!), I will say that I grew up, much like Soleil, curious as to why we were not visited by Santa.
We were the only Jewish family in our neighborhood, and I was the only Jewish kid in my elementary school grade. The kids would tease me about not being “good enough” for Santa to visit. My parents also filled me in on The Secret, and I tried my best to not spill the beans. Admittedly, I think the teasing got the best of me in Kindergarten or first grade and I blurted it out to some bully or another.
Raising our boys in an interfaith family (though primarily Jewish home) will be an interesting journey as well. I am making an effort to celebrate Hanukah in its fullest within our home, and to date, the only Christmas celebrations we have had have been up at my in-laws. It has been easy to explain this (”We are Jewish, we celebrate Hanukah…Grandma and Grandpa are Christian, so we celebrate Christmas with them”).
Though I have told D that we need to talk seriously about what aspects of Christmas he does/does not want to incorporate into our home, as starting next year I think we will need to focus on Family Traditions. I’d be happy continuing it as we have been so far, but also respect the fact that he may want some aspects of Christmas in our home.
We really try hard to emphasize Jesus during Christmas and not Santa. This is getting harder as M gets older, but right now she is just as enamored with the story of Jesus’ birth as she is with the story of Santa. We tell her that Santa brings us gifts (we don’t do the good or bad thing, I always hated that) to remind us of the gift that God gave us, Jesus. We also teach her the story of the real Santa, St. Nicholas. And we try, as a family, to focus on giving to others during this season (sharing God’s love just like he shared Jesus with us) so that she doesn’t focus as much on all the getting (oh, there is so much!). I am not too comfortable with the lying part of her belief in Santa, but the joy that comes from her belief outweighs my negative feelings about “lying” to her, so we will continue with Santa for as long as she wants to.
No clue how to address this one. I actually don’t like the whole Santa lie and hated the way people used it as a “behave or you won’t get presents club” when I was a kid. I do love seeing kids’ faces light up when they see Santa, so maybe we’ll try to play up the magic/fun/fairytale part and downplay the whole lying and naughty or nice part. Who knows. It bugs me…