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Santa Claus (not the secret santa thread)

bth9673 said:
Oh yeah - we'd always leave cookies and milk for Santa and a #carrotsnack for the reindeer. The parents would leave a cookie with a bite mark and eat all of the veggies. We also would routinely drive around Wrightsville Beach to see if we could see Santa when we were really young. Stupid airplanes.
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This. #carrotsnacks for reindeers or GTFO.
 
bth9673 said:
Oh yeah - we'd always leave cookies and milk for Santa and a #carrotsnack for the reindeer.
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That's one of the ways I figured out Santa. Our Santa didn't like cookies and milk. He wanted carrot cake... my dad's favorite.

Also, Santa always left a letter. My dad's a doctor who has horrible handwriting. Only my dad could read Santa's letters.
 
My mom's fav play when we were younger was to drop chocolate covered raisins around and say it was reindeer poop.
 
For the deprived kids out there who don't understand what it's like to unwrap presents:

 
bigdoublezero said:
For the deprived kids out there who don't understand what it's like to unwrap presents:

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LOL I love this video. not sure why the wrapping is so important to the reaction, though. we still reacted to things like this... but didn't have to claw through wasteful paper to get there.
 
lbE08 said:
LOL I love this video. not sure why the wrapping is so important to the reaction, though. we still reacted to things like this... but didn't have to claw through wasteful paper to get there.
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You don't understand how spreading out the suspense of opening gifts could be better than having everything spoiled in three seconds?

Do you enjoy books and movies? Or would you rather just know the ending and have everything spoiled to save yourself the time?
 
lbE08 said:
LOL I love this video. not sure why the wrapping is so important to the reaction, though. we still reacted to things like this... but didn't have to claw through wasteful paper to get there.
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I kind of liked it because the morning took a lot longer that way. Plus it was hilarious when you'd open one that the parents mistimed. I opened Sonic the Hedgehog as like the second present one year and had the "HOLY SHIT THERE'S A SEGA GENESIS IN HERE SOMEWHERE?!>!?!?!!!" moment before diving under the tree and ripping open everything all at once.
 
I don't really remember writing letters to Santa, but I do recall getting notes from him thanking us for the cookies. Although we still get Santa presents to this day I can't remember when the notes stopped.
 
tsywake said:
Got gifts from my parents, but not as much as Santa. I think it was primarily just to try and help convince us that they werent Santa.
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This was what we did too.

My brother, sister, and I each had our own chair where Santa would put the presents (not wrapped). After we went through all of our presents from Santa we would eat a late breakfast and then would unwrap the presents from parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.
 
So our daughter is 1, so we're not really into the realm of her understanding (or not) such customs. But we're not going to do Santa at all, other than to teach her about St. Nicholas, as we would any other saint of the church. We'll, of course, explain who Santa Claus is, but we're not going to ask her to believe in something that we know isn't real (I'll save the the atheists out there trouble of pointing out the irony of a priest saying that). It's almost Advent, so I'll likely have a blog post up in another week or ranting about the perversion of the Feast of the Incarnation (Christ Mass) into the secular/commercial holiday known as Chri$tmas, give me the neg (or pos) rep if you're interested in reading more.
 
Terrible decision. The secular traditions of modern Christmas are AWESOME.
 
No one has been more on-point over the course of an entire thread than BDZ in this one.

I will refrain from passing judgment on parents who don't tell their kids about Santa Claus, but cannot begin to comprehend the reasoning behind it. Imagination, wonder, and magic are part of what make childhood special. Is there anyone in the entire world who regrets their parents telling them about Santa Claus when they were younger? Does anyone think their childhood would have been more enriching had they known all along that he wasn't real? Do you now take everything your parents tell you with a grain of salt because they let you believe that Santa was real? The idea of Santa Claus represents generosity and charity, and has brought and will continue to bring joy to millions of children. Thank God my parents didn't deprive me of that when I was growing up.
 
Does buying kids stuff that they don't really need, often made in sweatshop type conditions, show charity or generosity?

Secular Christmas isn't the same as religious Christmas, if you want a secular "holiday," by all means, go for it. My interest is religious Christmas. Santa, as some have said, is great for imagination, and wonder, and magic, but the fictional Santa being treated as a reality isn't the only way to achieve those end. In fact, I believe that the story of the real St. Nicholas, and the legends surrounding his life, are even more powerful. And perhaps still even more powerful to realize that his spirit of charity and generosity is still active today, hundreds of years later, in his memory. No reason to make him into something he's not (a fat, jolly, old man in a red suit). Why can't he just be the Bishop of Myra?

Furthermore, Santa doesn't bring joy to anyone, but rather, others do (perhaps in his name). But that's the lesson that I'd rather have my daughter learn, not that by magic some guy flies around the world with reindeer to give out gifts, but rather that we can be like St. Nicholas by bringing joy to others. My other big issue is that the marketers/advertisers have done an excellent job in fooling us into believing that Christmas is a season of giving. It's not. It is a season of receiving. That is what the Incarnation is about.
 
sadly it is the carrot that's suffers most during chistmas. there are turkey and eggnog and missletoes and even trees but there is no carrot
 
unwrapped in separate piles, no extra wrapped presents from parents. would look at/play with Santa gifts for a while, have brunch, clean up, then unwrap other gifts under tree
 
Santa wrapped his presents and left them amongst the other ones underneath the tree. My parents also gave us gifts - I'd say close to a 50/50 split. Typically they had the same wrapping paper and handwriting (?!).
 
awakeandready said:
My parents gave us gifts as well, gifts were all wrapped (but Santa had different paper) and they were all under the tree.
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Thank God.

I can't fathom our future children waking up to a pile of unwrapped presents. What a crock.
 
RevDeac06 said:
Does buying kids stuff that they don't really need, often made in sweatshop type conditions, show charity or generosity?

Secular Christmas isn't the same as religious Christmas, if you want a secular "holiday," by all means, go for it. My interest is religious Christmas. Santa, as some have said, is great for imagination, and wonder, and magic, but the fictional Santa being treated as a reality isn't the only way to achieve those end. In fact, I believe that the story of the real St. Nicholas, and the legends surrounding his life, are even more powerful. And perhaps still even more powerful to realize that his spirit of charity and generosity is still active today, hundreds of years later, in his memory. No reason to make him into something he's not (a fat, jolly, old man in a red suit). Why can't he just be the Bishop of Myra?

Furthermore, Santa doesn't bring joy to anyone, but rather, others do (perhaps in his name). But that's the lesson that I'd rather have my daughter learn, not that by magic some guy flies around the world with reindeer to give out gifts, but rather that we can be like St. Nicholas by bringing joy to others. My other big issue is that the marketers/advertisers have done an excellent job in fooling us into believing that Christmas is a season of giving. It's not. It is a season of receiving. That is what the Incarnation is about.
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No.

You would think of all people a preacher would understand the importance of narrative. Santa DOES bring the joy. All of the trappings do. It's an absurdly joyful time for children and adults alike, and it's a time for fun traditions in an era that tends to lack them. (You think a child would have the same amount of fun on Easter if you took her to CVS and just bought her a big bag of candy? No, you need the bunny. You need the hunt, and the magic.) To say that that it's a time for receiving and not for giving is pretty jaded and really not representative. If it were only about receiving, secular Christmas just wouldn't exist. The economics don't make sense. Preparing a child for some utilitarian existence where everything has a purpose and nothing should be given or received unless it fills a specific need does that child a great disservice.

Kids can have both the Feast of the Incarnation and secular Christmas. The two don't have to necessarily be opposed or in perfect alignment. I'm sure pagans said the same crap about Christians mucking up wintertime feasts when they co-opted those traditions into Christmas way back when. It's OK to have fun stuff in life. God wants that.
 
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