We don’t do Santa.
Every year around this time, I get questions from Catholic mamas with very little children, trying to think through the Santa question and make decisions for their family. If you haven’t yet decided how to handle Santa in your home, and you’re wondering why some people skip it, this post is for you!
I truly don’t have (much) of a bone to pick with Santa. When our oldest was little, we weren’t exactly sure though that we wanted to pretend Santa was real, wrap gifts from Santa, tell the story of Santa coming on Christmas Eve with gifts…it felt a little off and we started to talk about it as a couple to figure out what we really thought would be best for our family. So hear me, if you are a Catholic family rocking the Santa thing and loving it, I think that’s great! This post isn’t meant to convince or divide. If you are like we were, looking at your little baby or toddler thinking, ‘I’m just not sure about that',’ you’re not alone! I want to share our thoughts simply to give our perspective and encouragement for other families thinking they might be leaning toward skipping Santa, but aren’t sure what that would look like because they don’t really know any other families that don’t celebrate with Santa.
So, WHY “no Santa” in the Dodge home?
First and most importantly, we never want to undermine the real miracles of the Bible, the Saints, or the Eucharist. When our oldest was a toddler, we thought this through, and landed here: If we tell him that Santa Claus (or the Tooth Fairy, or Easter Bunny, we skip those too) is real, that he does this miraculous thing and goes through every chimney in the world in a single night, he’ll believe us. He trusts us to tell him the truth. When we tell him God created the world and man ex nihilo in six days, that Noah’s Ark was real, that the Apostles healed and raised the dead, that Saint Joseph Cupertino and Saint Martin de Porres levitated, that Saint John Bosco could bilocate, and on and on, he will believe us. He trusts us to tell him the truth. Then when he’s in his elementary years, he figures out on his own, due to facts not lining up with reality, that we were NOT in fact telling the truth, that Santa is not real, he does none of the things we affirmed repeatedly for years. Why should he continue to trust us that the true miracles of the Bible and the Saints are real? Why should he believe in the transubstantiation of the Holy Eucharist at Mass? This is our primary reason - we did not want to have this elaborate, ongoing falsity potentially undermine our passing on of the faith. To us, it’s simply not worth that risk.
Second, Saint Nicholas is real! The stories about his life, his acts of charity, and the traditional celebrations for children on his feast day are amazing! In the photo above from many years ago, my children did their first “photos with Santa” ever. A parishioner at our church does a fundraiser each Advent, dressing up in the bishop costume as Saint Nicholas; his wife decorates and hands out candy canes! It’s amazing. So in our minds, why celebrate a secular, untrue version of Saint Nicholas, when instead we could teach our children about the saint and celebrate in traditional, fun ways on his feast day December 6th? We have a handful of picture books about Saint Nicholas in our Advent book stash; I wrap those for the kids to open one each day, and the Saint Nicholas ones I place on the days leading up to December 6th. We set out their shoes on the evening of the 5th near the front door, and give them traditional gifts like an orange (to represent the golden coins) and a candy cane (to represent his bishop crosier). We usually also wrap a new book for each child, and some years use it as a good day to give new rain boots or slippers. As a swap for writing Christmas present lists for Santa, many families have their children write letters to Saint Nicholas on his feast day, asking for his intercession for specific petitions! The children love Saint Nicholas’s feast day and look forward to it as Advent begins.
Third, while we do love giving gifts on Christmas morning, we want the primary attention to be the meaning of the feast, not the activities of the feast. One way we do that is through going to Midnight Mass - Christmas gifts come after Mass. We also skip Santa to help focus our attention on the Nativity of Our Lord and not on Christmas presents. By not doing Santa, we are able to have frank, simple conversations with our children about their Christmas gifts and wish lists. They know Santa is not real, and mom and dad are the ones who give them gifts. We’re able to have them make their list of a few things (we do one bigger gift and three smaller ones each for the children), and then be all done talking about it! No one is wondering if Santa will bring something outlandish, there are no dashed dreams. In fact, we even explain the Christmas budget to the older ones, and tell them if something they are thinking of for their list is outside of that budget. Truly, it takes a lot of pressure off the Christmas morning expectations, and leading up to Christmas, the children are thinking of Christ’s birth, not whether or not Santa will bring them things on their list.
So, what does this actually LOOK like in reality?
At first, our extended family pushed back. Since then, others have chimed in too to criticize this choice. The wonder, the magic, the imagination - how will you still have magical Christmas experiences!? Why take that away from them? In our experience with ten years of raising children without the jolly secular character, Santa is not what makes Christmas magical. The patient, diligent, hopeful celebration of Advent makes Christmas magical! The things we do leading up to Christmas, the preparations for feasting, decorating the tree and the house…there is so much joy and anticipation in the Advent season! The family quality time and traditions, the special prayers, the charitable actions for family and neighbors make Advent and Christmas magical. None of our gifts say “from Santa” on them, and my children are no worse off for it. Christmastide is absolutely still “magical” for them! They still love the gifts they receive, perhaps even more so, understanding their saved money all year long to provide Christmas gifts for each child. As for the “imagination” argument, that the Santa lie helps promote imagination, children that don’t do Santa have plenty of other opportunities to use their imaginations. My children are saturated in wonderful stories that keep their imaginations active. They know these things, Middle Earth, Narnia, Avonlea, are pretend though - we have never told them they are real or pretended the magic in them is true. This is pretty different than the Santa thing, where the child for a time believes the components of the story are real (that’s not actual use of imagination, is it?). Additionally, if they want to read about and talk about the Santa Game (which is what we call it in our house), they are welcome to! Some years we’ve even done cookies for Santa and carrots for reindeer because, though they knew it was pretend, they wanted to play the Santa Game too.
But what about your children “ruining” Christmas for other children by telling them Santa isn’t real? In ten years of parenting, this has never happened. First, it’s no one’s responsibility to support the Santa game in other people’s families, and I don’t think this should even be a consideration for people when they are deciding! I do get asked about this part a fair amount though, so I want to share how we have handled it! When our oldest was four, the main families in our social circle were doing Santa, and we wanted to talk with him openly about it to help him avoid the reveal. We explained what the “Santa game” was, and explained how parents play make believe with their children, and the children think Santa is real. We explained it’s the parent’s wish to play the game, so they might hear other children talk about Santa coming, Santa bringing them toys, going to visit Santa for photos. We told him if a friend talked about Santa Claus as if he were real, his job was to help the parents of that child to play the Santa Game too - he could pretend along with them if he wanted, or just change the subject.
In our home, it’s fairly simple - Saint Nicholas is real, Santa Claus is not. We read about Saint Nicholas and celebrate his feast day, and Christmas gifts come from mom and dad. It’s worked out beautifully for us, and we wouldn’t have it any other way!