Santa

It has been a long time since I blogged. I took a little break. Nothing exciting going on or any real reason for the break, I just didn't really feel like blogging :)

I wanted to share my thoughts on Santa Claus. I never thought about Santa Claus so much in my life as I have in the past month or 2. Because I have a child, I began thinking about what my exact position on Santa Claus was, I wanted to find out the exact origin of Santa Claus and as it turned out, there are MANY, MANY stories about the origin. Each website claiming the origin of this jolly, round man was different, some drastically different.

Most all agreed that he was a patron saint who was a very good saint and did good things for children. This was the only common thread. Many different parts of the world claim him and all claim he did different good things. All in all, he wasn't a bad man and his origins are not evil or bad in any way.

The problem that I have with Santa Claus is that he has been so commercialized and so saturated in to the American culture that Christmas has become all about Santa Claus. In reality the origin of Christmas has absolutely nothing to do with Santa Claus. This is what bothers me. Christmas is Jesus' birthday- end of story. Bringing Santa in to the picture clouds the TRUE meaning of Christmas and makes Christmas all about presents even further, which should not happen.

Also, has anyone truly thought about the fact that parents are flat out lying to their kids? Why is this huge lie, a lie that forces parents to make up fantastic stories about a fake man, so ingrained in to our culture?

I am not putting parents who do the whole "Santa Claus thing" down. Please don't think that, I definitely think the "Santa Claus thing" is kind of fun and exciting and does bring a certain amount of magic to the season. I just think it is a very interesting tradition that Americans have come up with, so interesting that it has caused me to think about it in depth for the last month.

Also, I wanted to apologize in advance to any parents whose kids may be around my son. I am so sorry if he tells them that Santa doesn't exist. I truly don't want to shatter your kids innocence or destroy their Christmas magic. But I am going to do my best to instill that innocence and that magic in to my son using another person named Jesus.

I will get off my soapbox now.

Thank you for listening.