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From Fear to Freedom: Rethinking Santa and the Spirit of Christmas
Reconciling Santa and My Evangelical Upbringing
“Let’s put the ‘Christ’ back in Christmas!”
Yes, my husband and I were some of those Christians for the majority of our 18-year marriage. Because of our firm belief that Christmas wasn’t just primarily, but solely about the birth of our savior, everything about the season revolved around Jesus.
As adults, this didn’t impact my husband and I the same way it did our kids. Especially for our three oldest children, Christmas has largely been a holiday that epitomizes the ‘us vs. them’ mentality so prevalent in American evangelicalism. The Santa story wasn’t something we participated in or talked about much. The most attention old St. Nick received in our household was the 47 times a year we had to remind our kids if their friends, cousins, or classmates talked about Santa Claus be respectful and don’t bring up how Santa isn’t real.
It was normal for our kids to ask, “But mom, aren’t parents lying if they tell their kids to believe in Santa? Why is it ok for us to let other kids believe in a lie?” I copied a response from another mother that I’ll discuss more below. Along with the line I would give my kids, my husband also had a whole spiel he would give about how traumatized he was…
