Traditions

Ben and I have chosen not to do the tradition of Santa Claus in our home.  We want the focus of Christmas to be on celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  God's great gift of love.  We prayed a lot about it when Taylor was born and have felt this is the best for our kids.  It was also important for Ben and I that our kids never doubt their faith or their existence of God in their lives.  When we thought about how the whole idea of Santa was really lying to them about someone they couldn't see it made us really think about how it would effect them when they came to find out we had lied to them.  After talking with several friends we decided to not do this tradition in our house.  I know it upsets some of our family and friends may not understand but we feel at peace about our decision.  We are not against Santa Claus and in fact have several displayed throughout of house during Christmas.  I do love the story of St Nicholas and what he did so the kids have been told that story.  We just don't have Santa delivery presents.  We have told them they are delivered by daddy and mommy and the reason we get presents is because God has blessed us and that everything comes from God. 

With Taylor this year since he is older we focused on giving to others so he participate in picking out gifts to give to others.  It look him a few times to understand but I think he got it.  Through out the month we also talked about how his gifts he got were a blessing from God and the reason for Christmas to celebrate Jesus' birthday.  The day after Christmas I when I told Taylor we were meeting family for breakfast he asked me if he was getting more presents; when I told him no he had gotten all of his presents he said to me, "I think Jesus needs to bring me more presents."  I totally cracked up!  A 3 years olds understanding of what we had talked about during the month came out in the this comment I think and I just loved it.  He said it so matter of fact with no since of being upset by not getting more at the time.

We have made several other traditions in our family because we want Christmas to be a special time for them.   As they grow we hope the come to know the love of our God and the amazing gift he sent us by sending his son Jesus.


We want to wish all of our friends and family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!