Wednesday, December 03, 2008

To Santa or not?

I have been really ambivalent about introducing Santa to my kids. I believe that he has come to symbolize a materialistic view of Christmas. Being Catholic, I would prefer my kids to come to see Christmas as a celebration of the birth of Christ.

However since we don't live in a bubble, Santa is all over the place and hard to miss. As a donation to the school, I gave g money to take a picture with Santa. It's one of the school's many fundraisers. As I was walking her to school, I was trying to prep her for the picture taking so that it wouldn't be a picture of Santa with a screaming, crying little girl trying to get off his lap. She told me quite confidently that she will smile and that Santa buys toys for kids. All my good intentions of keeping Santa out of the C household has been thwarted.

I am still looking for ways to deemphasize this. Maybe volunteering on Christmas Day, maybe making presents for less fortunate kids, I don't know.

In any case, I am still ambivalent about Santa.

1 comment:

Edward Cheng said...

festivus, a holiday for the rest of us. =).

you should talk about the man st. nick. who gave gifts to poor kids so they wouldn't have to go through a life of crime and prostitution. who's body was stolen from (present day) turkey to bari, italy so the italians would have a site to attract pilgrams.