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Transcript 004A — Santa Claus and Children
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum
CALLER: Good evening, Mr. Camping. I would like to know, how would you handle this situation? A little child comes home from public school and starts talking about Santa Claus. How would a parent dea1 with this without hurting the child? And should the parent make a big deal about this in front of a child? And how should they distract the child's attention away from Santa Claus without hurting the child?
HC: A very interesting question and a very practical question, because every time we start getting closer to Christmas, Santa Claus looms very large in the minds of people.
The fact is that little children by nature are not attracted to Santa Claus. They are actually afraid of him normally. He is an imposing figure with his red suit and his big beard, and children by nature are not very attracted to him. But parents really believe that their little two year-old ought to get the joy of knowing Santa Claus. And so they instruct their children, normally, to be interested in Santa Claus, and they begin to talk to their children about Santa Claus, that he's going to provide a gift for you, Santa Claus loves you, and if you do wrong Santa Claus may not have a gift for you. And they begin to tell all kinds of stories to their children about Santa Claus. By the time the children are in school they are ready to be very interested in Santa Claus.
But now what is a parent really to do? The Bible says, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." When we tell our children that there is a Santa Claus and that Santa Claus is going to bring a gift to them, and we really point to that man with the red suit and the white beard, we are lying to our children. It is an outright lie; it's a outright falsehood. It is very serious, for two reasons. First of all, it is grievously serious because we are disobeying God's command to speak the truth. Secondly, it is serious because we are undermining our own integrity with our children. Later on they're going to learn that Santa Claus is only a man dressed up in a red suit and a white beard. They're going to see more than one Santa Claus, and there's going to be confusion. When they get a little older they'll begin to understand. Whether the child recognizes it or not, or whether the parent recognizes it or not, the integrity of the parent has been severely weakened more than he may realize. For both reasons this is a very wrong thing to do.
Actually, when you examine this idea of Santa Claus, Santa Claus is the world's substitute for God the Father. Who is the giver of every good and perfect gift? God is. Who is the one who punishes us for wrongdoing? God does. Who is the one who knows everything about us? God does. But all of these attributes are ascribed to Santa Claus. It is a very insidious, deceitful way of denying that it is God who rules over us.
Now I'm a Christian parent. I have a little youngster. What am I to do? The fact is that we are to begin to teach them these things when we walk by the way, when we lie down and when we rise up. We're to bring our children up in the fear and nurture of the Lord. We have to begin to instruct them that this world is a very deceitful world. And so when they're two or three years of age we can begin to, when we're driving downtown and they see a Santa Claus, we can say, "Oh, do you see that man over there? He's dressed up in that red suit and that white beard, and he calls himself Santa Claus, and a lot of the children think that he is the one who gives them gifts. But that isn't really so. If they get a gift on Christmas it comes from their parents, or their brothers and sisters, or their uncles and aunts. They are the ones who bring them gifts. But you know, there is someone else who really gives us the gifts, the greatest gifts that are most important, and that is our Heavenly Father. And He is the one who really gives us gifts."
Now you take your child to the next corner or the next store, and you say, "You see, there's another man dressed up in a red suit. Look at all those children sitting on his lap and telling him what they'd like for Christmas. Do you know what's really happening?"
We should tell our children the truth: "The parents are listening, and the idea is that when they hear their children say they want this or that, then the parents will try to get that for their youngster for Christmas." We can be very honest about it. We want our children to grow up realizing that the world is very deceptive. We want them to realize that they can trust their parents with the truth. We want, above all, that our children recognize that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift.
Thank you for that question.