subtitle:  Christmas-time at our house – part 4

This is the 4th installment in my Christmas-time at our House series.

In my last post, I started talking about Santa, and why a Christian family might want to get away from the hype of the season and focus on the HIM of the season.  For most of us, Santa Claus is part of our Christmas traditions, and has been for generations.  We don’t have lots of examples of what could be done instead.

In our respective families, my husband and I had different experiences with Christmas and specifically with Santa.

My grandma would take all of us cousins to have Breakfast with Santa every year at the BIG MALL, and then we’d watch a holiday movie together in the theatre. It was so much fun.

Then, of course, there was Papa greeting us on Christmas morning (he had to get there REALLY early because we were always up before the crack of dawn).  My sister found out the hard way (from her friends) that Papa was NOT Santa Claus!

So after my sister and I were told all about “Santa”, we always knew that our gifts labelled “From: Santa” were from Mom and Dad.  Even though we knew they were really giving us the gifts, we always still had a present from Santa – usually the biggest of all the gifts, our PRIZED PRESENT, as a surprise on Christmas morning!

In my sweetie’s family, at least since I’ve been a part of it, “Santa” was almost always Dad, and he deposited special, fun gifts into the stockings for Christmas morning. When he and his sister were younger, my sweetie would just receive a present from Santa under the tree.  This was often an unwrapped present, waiting as a special surprise.  Everyone had Santa gifts, but it wasn’t the focus of the gift giving.

As Christians, they wanted to try to steer things toward the real meaning of Christmas. Christmas Eve was not characterized by the ‘hurry and get in bed before Santa comes’ excitement.  Instead, as a family they went to church in the evening and celebrated the sacrament of Communion together, around one table, all at the same time.  That helped to set the tone and turn their hearts and minds toward Christ’s birth as the reason for the season.

When I was growing up there was a Dutch dairy farming family who lived near us that always celebrated December 5th with the coming of Sinter Klaas.  I’m not Dutch, so I won’t go into details.  But, there’s something to do with treats in wooden shoes, and special things for children, and lumps of coal and that kind of stuff.  I always remembered the way the celebrated, for some reason – their “Santa” was done before we really got to Christmas.  They had gifts on Christmas Day, too.  I thought that was interesting.

Because Santa Claus (or at least the image of Santa Claus) is everywhere this time of year, and he communicates lots of messages we aren’t excited about – namely the gimme-gimme-gimme attitude – we want to address him specifically, call his bluff, and move on to bigger and better things.

As I mentioned before, we really don’t want our children to feel left out of the fun and excitement of the season (it should be a time of great celebration) and we don’t want them to be made fun of for not believing in Santa Claus.  I certainly don’t want to be perceived as a ‘fuddy-duddy’, Grinch, or Scrooge, myself either.

So, what is a fun, exciting, appropriate alternative to Santa that can tell the true story while directing us to the true reason for the season – Christ’s birth?

We celebrate St. Nicholas Day, December 6th (or December 5th depending on which part of the world you live in).

Why do we celebrate St. Nicholas Day?

A website called St. Nicholas for kids really says this better than I could:

We used much of the detail outlined in Martha Zimmerman’s book Celebrating the Christian Year to help us design what the day actually looks like for us.  There are many resources now that you can tap into to find out about who St. Nicholas was, and how his story evolved into the Santa Claus we now see.

Following the links above will give you more details, as does Martha’s book.  I’m going to wing it here a little because I don’t have Martha’s book handy – either it’s sprouted legs or I’ve loaned it out and do not have it back yet.  And the specific details in the stories surrounding St. Nicholas are a varied, so you may know a slightly different story.  The general ideas are the same in all the stories, nonetheless.

But as for a quick summary about Nicholas:

Nicholas was a real man, a good Christian man who loved Jesus and did many good things.  He became a priest and was made bishop as well.   His parents were wealthy and died when he was young, leaving him with lots of money.  But he used the money to do things for the poor.  He was known for having bakers bake bread for the poor, and having them make the bread special with spices and dried fruits in the loaves.  He is also said to have had blankets and clothing distributed to people in the streets and to children.  He hired woodworkers to make wooden toys for the children.  And he tried to do all of these things in secret because he was a humble man.

Nicholas had a friend who owned a fleet of ships.  This friend also had 3 daughters, all approaching marriageable age.  The friend lost his entire fleet in a storm, and with it all his money.  The girls would have no dowry with which to get married and would likely have been sold into slavery just to keep them alive.  It was customary for the girls to wash their stockings at night and hang them by the window to dry.  Nicholas, knowing the family’s plight, wanted to help.  But he knew his friend wouldn’t accept his charity, and Nicholas didn’t want a big fuss made over his generosity.  So he sneaked up to their house one night and tossed 3 bags of gold into the window of the girls’ room.  The gold fell into and among the stockings, and when the girls woke they found the gold in their stockings.  They were thrilled and each then had enough money to get married.  Nicholas was found out somehow, though (I don’t remember how).

Nicholas is usually portrayed in a red robe, probably because of his rank of bishop in the Catholic church.  Bishops were (are?) often known to wear red robes with a pointed pontiff’s cap.

The person of Nicholas is who Santa Claus, as we now know him in Western culture, was originally patterned after.  Our picture of Santa comes mostly from the poem ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (note on the history of the poem is at the bottom of the linked page), and from Thomas Nast’s illustrations in Harper’s Weekly.  Coca Cola has certainly helped to perpetuate the image, as has the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

St. Nicholas day is the perfect opportunity to deal with “Santa” right away.  At our house, St. Nick is celebrated on December 6th.

When we put the Christmas tree up (usually at the end of November), we also hang up our stockings.  The stockings we have now are so cute – they have little men on them that look like St. Nicholas-es or old-fashioned Santas.  Even looking at them reminds us that our Santa is a little different.

On the morning of December 6th we share the fun of gifts in the stockings (even if it falls on a school day, which the kids just love).  We fill them with chocolate gold coins and 3 kinds of other things, small things as a general rule, in order to help us remember what Nicholas did:

1. Gold coins remind us that Nicholas was generous and secretly gave money to his friend’s family to help them when they needed it.
2. Something useful and personal, usually socks and underwear or pajamas – Nicholas provided warm clothes necessary for people on the streets.
3. Something wooden, usually a toy or even a book – Nicholas had toys made for the children.
4. Gingerbread cookies and fruit – Nicholas hired bakers to bake special yummy breads for the poor and he gave food to the poor as well.

My sweetie and I usually do the shopping for this, but the kiddos are getting into it now, too.  We talk about what each item represents, we tell the story about the stockings, and we talk about why St. Nicholas is a person to be remembered.  We talk about St. Nicholas’ love for Jesus and the spirit of giving that overflowed out of that love.

We share about how St. Nicholas evolved into Santa and how we can still see similarities –  Santa and St. Nicholas both love(d) children, they both give/gave gifts, they both wear/wore red, etc..

As our children are getting bigger, we also talk about what things we can do during the Christmas season to help those around us who are in need like Nicholas did.  Supporting a family through the local Christmas bureau, donating money to my son’s sister school in Africa, and gathering non-perishable items to take to the Food Bank are all things we have come up with.

We have also had a St. Nicholas dessert after dinner in the evening – a nice loaf of cinnamon bread or something of that sort (I did a beautiful braided bread one year).   When the children were tiny, we made little St. Nicks out of apples, marshmallows, raisins and cloves, with a little red paper hat.  Then we ate them for a snack during the day!

On December 7th, the stockings are put away and we’re done with “Santa” for the season, at our house anyway.

We have shared with our children the significance of the character that symbolizes Christmas for many people, and the truth behind the person.  We have focused our eyes and hearts back on Christ, dealt with Santa and the stockings, and now we move on to the rest of the Christmas season, anticipating the celebration Christ’s birth on Christmas Day.

One of the best things we’ve seen come from this is that none of the kids run to the Christmas tree on Christmas morning to see what presents they got from Santa (he’s already done his thing, so to speak).  They run straight to the nativity.  That story is for another post in this series.

The same disclaimer applies here as to all posts in this series:  This is how we do it, and we’ve been intentional about what we do.  I share it as an idea for those who might be looking for options or who are interested in what other families do with these traditions.  I am not an expert, and I don’t know the specifics of your family situation.  I love how we celebrate this part of the season, and thought it would be good to share.


Oh, one other note regarding extended families and their acceptance of these different ideas.  My sweetie’s parents have been very supportive and participate in these weird things with us for the most part.  Mom has even said that she wished she had known some of this stuff when they were raising their kids because they probably would have done things much differently.  Because we don’t totally discount Santa, the cousins and grandparents who still celebrate Santa in the usual way aren’t offended and so far no one’s fun has been spoiled either.

In our house, me and my sweetie (i.e., Mom and Dad) are not pretending to be Santa and the children don’t get gifts from Santa or St. Nick, so they aren’t carrying around the idea that Santa is really Mom and Dad.  The kiddos can say to their friends, even, that Santa Claus comes from St. Nicholas, and they know that St. Nicholas is (was) real, so it’s really a non-issue for them.

We’ve done this from the very beginning with our family.  But I know that other families may just now be investigating what to do with Santa, even after years of celebrating in the usual way.   Given this same information we’ve used since the beginning, you can make a transition with your family.  You can choose to move Santa out of Christmas Day and over to St. Nicholas Day (our kids love that, actually because it means another day with gifts!).  Or if you keep Santa on Christmas Day you can still begin to educate your kids on who St. Nicholas was and why we (our whole culture) celebrate with Santa now.  For other ideas, e-mail me if you like, get your hands on Martha’s book, or check out any of the following (very limited) list of resources:

St. Nicholas for kids
The real St. Nick   (thanks for this one, Christine!)
St. Nicholas on Wikipedia
The St. Nicholas Center
Christianity Today: The Real St. Nicholas

… and there must be a hundred other good resources at least!

There are great ways of including Santa Claus or St. Nicholas in your festivities while keeping your focus on Jesus and His birth.  Think about the WHY and what you want your children to remember most about Christmas.  Whatever you do with Santa, decide for yourself and your family to be intentional about it.  Then go and celebrate and have fun!!!

click for the next post in the series – Santa Lucia Day (Christmas-time at our House: part 5)

(Picture credits – all from PhotoBucket; art and pictures linked directly to photobucket users)