Hey Mums! Mainly wanting to hear from families who are Christian/religious and your advice on this topic... and/or how your family go about it.
So our baby is only 6 months old, my partner is a Christian and I am beginning to open my mind to it all. We grew up very differently, him on the other side of the world. For him... Christmas was nothing to do with Santa and all about the the birth of Jesus Christ. For me... it was a mixture of religion and Santa. Both of us still received presents at Christmas, mine came from 'Santa' and he knew his were from his parents.
The discussion came up last night about what we will do for our son. He doesn't want to lie to our son and wants him to understand the true meaning of Christmas, which I'm happy with but I also want the fun of Santa included. I just have such happy memories of putting cookies out for Santa and carrots for reindeer etc and wanted to have that family tradition for our children.
We ended up agreeing to compromise... we are at this stage (obviously it won't matter this Christmas anyway) planning to have our son experience both the religious side of Christmas with the Santa story included... however when our son asks if Santa is real, we will tell him the truth. If my husband had it his way, we wouldn't be doing Santa at all...
Sorry for the long post, just curious of how other families deal with the combination of a religious based Christmas and the Santa story. Also same with Easter. Thank you :)!
8 Replies
I know many many mixed marriages and the ones that work are the ones where both accept each others way and make room for both. Ive seen it be very difficult for someone from a background of religion without christmas to compromise and let it in so its nice to hear your partner is open-minded to compromise. After all if its from your childhood it is your custom and tradition and being able to pass that on to your children if you want to is really important.
Hey... I'm a Christian, grew up with my father a minister actually! My parents never denied us Santa, we still thought Santa was real at about 8-9 years old, until we found out, like all kids do through friends etc. Of course the focus was still mostly on church, but very much a mixture of the two. One thing I hated was having to wait for presents to be unwrapped til later, as church was so early! My parents also showed us the meaning of Christmas through inviting people from the community who were down and out to Christmas lunch, which we loved. So I guess just because we were Christian didn't mean we had to exclude Santa and the other things that made Christmas magical. Xx
Why can’t christmas just be about fun! Sorry but I get so annoyed at parents forcing religion on children.
I agree. I grew up with a very religious father (Catholic) but my parents still did the Santa thing. It was fantastic.
I grew up Anglican and went to church every Sunday, we still had Santa.
My husband grew up Catholic and did all the masses etc and still had Santa.
Our kids are being raised religious but they also have Santa.
As long as your telling them the meaning of Christmas then i don't see why it would be a problem to have Santa and the fun he creates for kids
We enjoy the "stories" of santa and they are just that stories and all our kids knew the truth and they have all grown up to absolutely love Christmas. Nothing ruined for them at all, but plenty of outsiders telling me I ruined it for them lol We do the tree and presents and and sometimes a birthday cake. We have also given to a 3rd world family. My kids also loved to do the Christmas Shoe Box.
Non practicing Catholic here but my kids always knew Christmas was about the birth of baby Jesus. Santa also played a very big role in our house and always will. As they got older and started asking questions, I thought it best to be straight with them and tell them the truth. When we did tell them, I always said that even though they now know it was us acting as Santa, there will always be gifts from us that they don't know about. (I still threaten that Santa won't bring a gift even thought they are 26 and 15 now!)
I’m Christian and do is my hubby we do Both Santa and Jesus and it works
Fine . It did feel weird to ‘lie’ about Santa at first but then I realized kids need imagination and ‘magic’ it’s
Part of childhood it’s the ‘magic of Christmas !
When our kids ask if Santa I real we talk about old Saint Nick who started the Santa tradition and go on to talk about generosity and those things and dance around the truth of Santa to keep the magic . It’s trick this year as our son is 6 and more
Clued in but we are keeping Santa alive by Just asking him
What he thinks when he asks and he comes up with his own conclusions
I know other Christians who don’t do Santa and that’s ok it there are plenty that do .