Santa Claus Teaches Us to Marvel at God’s Incarnation

My family loves Santa Claus. They love the magic, the wonder, and the excitement on the faces of young children on Christmas morning. They love the presents – mountains of presents – and the songs and the bells. I, the Grinch, do not love Santa. I was a precocious kid and figured out that Santa was not real at a pretty young age. I resented having to pretend to believe in something I didn’t. I imagine the feeling is similar to how an atheist feels in Church. But there is a saying in my family that “you have to believe to receive.” As a thirty-one year old Grinch Lady, this irks me to no end.

As an adult, I’ve tolerated Santa for the most part, but I’ve become increasingly concerned about his place in the Christmas tradition. Systematically lying to my future children doesn’t feel like a great idea. Nor does teaching them that being good will bring material prizes. Most importantly, how do I distinguish between God (whom I believe in) and Santa (who is a fairy tale)? There’s no guarantee that my children will grow up to have my faith, but I should at least be honest with them while teaching it. Fortunately for my family, wiser and gentler Christians have considered this problem before, and have come up with solutions.

Santa Claus and The Miracle of the Incarnation

Recently, I polled a group of Catholic friends about what they told their children about Santa Claus. Very few of them do the “traditional” Santa story – be good and you’ll get presents. Some tell their children that Santa is fictional, that he’s the spirit of Christmas, or that he’s Saint Nicholas. But one friend gave a piece of advice that stopped me in my tracks.

“I tell my children that the gifts are from Jesus,” she said. “Santa Claus brings us these gifts as a symbol of Christ’s incarnation.”  I did a double-take.

“You really use those words?” I asked, incredulous. “You mention the incarnation?”

She does. And why shouldn’t she? It’s the truth, after all. Christmas gifts, like all of life’s gifts, come from God. They are not earned through being good, but rather given freely through a divine love which we could never, ever, earn ourselves. And the wonder children experience finding these gifts under the tree is the same wonder the shepherds felt upon finding the infant Jesus in the manger. It’s pure, uncomplicated, unrivaled awe and joy. It’s a joy that takes you outside yourself. And it’s all because God loves us.

Believing Beyond Santa Claus

In a lovely essay for America Magazine, Katie PreJean McGrady defended belief in Santa, writing:

The spirit of Christmas is about one thing above all else: the mystery of the incarnation. This is when we celebrate the Word becoming flesh, and that is a miraculous, mystical thing. It is hard to wrap our heads around.

It is hard. It’s easier to understand a jolly man in a red suit flying around with reindeer than it is to understand God’s infinite, aching, love for humanity. Perhaps this is why many adults never really move past the Santa thing. But Santa Claus is only a symbol, and an incomplete one at best. Santa’s gifts are to the incarnation as a three-leaf clover is to the Trinity. A teeny, tiny inkling of a beginning of a concept.

It’s good for Christians to believe in Santa – up to a point. But the goal is not to sustain belief in Santa for as long as possible. Quite the opposite, in fact. I want my children to question. I want them to ask what it’s all about, so that I can help guide them to a deeper, fuller truth about Christmas. Because the wonder of Christmas morning isn’t about presents. It’s about The Presence. The active and constant presence of God in our lives at every moment. Christmas is about receiving this presence into our homes and into our hearts. It’s about faith.

Now that I think about it, you do have to believe to receive.