Why we don’t do Santa

If you have spent any time parenting in the Christian world, you’ll know that the topic of Santa is a hot one. On one side you have parents who believe that Santa is Satan himself, and on the other you have those who vehemently defend him lest we deprive our children of any imagination and whimsy at all. Although I don’t hold to either of those extremes, we have chosen not to include Santa in our family traditions.

I grew up in a secular household which featured various Santa traditions. My husband grew up in a Christian household with none. Neither of us were particularly influenced or traumatised by those experiences, however, it seemed like an obvious choice for us not to include Santa once we had our own children. Not because we were anti-Santa, but because we were pro other things. Our values took precedence over anything else, and in the end, there just wasn’t any room left at the table.

I do want to begin by saying that this is not a salvation issue! I know many Christian parents who hold various beliefs, causing me to pause in my tendency to view the world through ‘black and white’ goggles. So, while I do have opinions about this topic, I’m under no illusions that everyone will agree, and that’s OK! We are united in our common goal of pointing our children to Jesus and living a life worthy of the calling we have received. Praise God!

In our family, we tell the truth

Early on in our parenting journey we committed ourselves to being parents who spoke the truth in love. This takes shape in various ways—in our house we don’t keep secrets (we have surprises instead); tell white lies to gain compliance (‘This cake is spicy—you wouldn’t like it.’); or make threats we have no intention of following through with (‘If you keep doing that you won’t get any presents on your birthday.’).

It also means we don’t talk about Santa as if he were real

We want our children to hear our words and believe them. As we tell our children extraordinary stories about people being instantly healed, God creating the world with words, the Red Sea being parted, walls falling at the sound of trumpets, the Son of God being killed and then rising again, the possibility of our sins being totally forgiven … we hope and pray that they will believe our words and continue to trust them as they grow.

When I tell them these unimaginable stories, I want them to know they can trust what we say. So, while I can totally see that Santa is fun, magical and exciting, he's not real, so we don’t say he is.

Santa promotes a ‘works-based’ righteousness

If you asked the question, ‘What must I do to be saved?’, many people would respond with: ‘Try to be a good person and hope for the best’. But we know this isn’t true. There is nothing we can do to be saved, because salvation is the free gift of God.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8–9

Our salvation comes from God, not the good things we do. We will spend SO MANY YEARS trying to convince our children of this. God loves and forgives us not because we are good, but because he is good. In fact, he forgives us despite the fact that we are bad.

Santa works against this lesson:

He's making a list and checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty and nice’

Santa rewards children who are good, and the ‘Elf on the Shelf’ tattles on naughty children. While this has fairly horrible implications for children who are poor (and therefore get fewer presents), the bigger implication is what it says about our righteous behaviour. If we are good, we are rewarded. And honestly, I just don’t want to undo all the work I’m doing with my kids—teaching them that Jesus died for us even though we were his enemies.

Grace is the free gift of salvation and there’s nothing we can do to earn it. We think this is such an important lesson that we choose to promote traditions that help teach this lesson and avoid those that don’t.

Santa is like a mini-God

He sees you when you're sleeping;
He knows when you're awake;
He knows if you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness’ sake!

Santa can deliver toys all around the world, in a single night without breaking a sweat (even squeezing down my chimney that doesn’t exist)! Santa is omnipresent (everywhere at once), omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful). Wow!

Sound familiar?

God is holy—he is set apart and unlike us. He has attributes none of us have and I just think we need to be careful sharing those attributes with mythical creatures.

It’s hard to compete with him

Man, he’s exciting, isn’t he!? Who doesn’t love a jolly guy who delivers toys in a red, fluffy suit? The anticipation, the excitement, the magic! And while that’s why many people do do Santa, it’s a lot of effort and, to be honest, quite distracting from the Christian meaning of Christmas.

In our family we talk about Jesus all year round, but Christmas is a great excuse to really focus on learning and remembering why Jesus turned up. So we spend our time and effort doing that.

Leading up to Christmas we spend time reading the Bible, making gifts for people, going to events, serving at church, reading books and doing fun things as a family. All these things reinforce bigger truths and values. Santa is distracting at best and undermines the gospel of grace at worst. So, we just don’t bother with him!

Some people seem to think not doing Santa is cruel, but it hasn’t ruined Christmas for us yet! I love Christmas, and so do my kids. We have a lot of fun, even without Santa, and I know that these lessons are working towards something bigger, better and even more exciting—celebrating our God who took on human flesh to save us from our sin.

In my next article, we’ll look a little bit more at how we can have fun without Santa—how to avoid being a ‘Grinch’ at Christmas.

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Leah is a Children’s Minister by trade, a mother of four, and a proud Sydney Anglican. She is the founder of Raising Disciples where she shares ideas and resources on how to disciple children within the home.

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