{"id":1068,"date":"2010-12-20T18:22:38","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T23:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidcprice.wordpress.com\/?p=1068"},"modified":"2010-12-20T18:22:38","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T23:22:38","slug":"christian-parenting-the-santa-clause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/christian-parenting-the-santa-clause\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Parenting: The Santa Clause"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is the concern of responsible Christian parents. In case you can't read it: "Dear Children, one day you will learn everything about Santa Clause. On that day, remember everything the adults have told you about Jesus."<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christmas (with the possible exception of Easter and that rabbit) is probably the most difficult holiday for Christians.\u00a0 Seriously. We have to figure out how to deal with the fun stuff of Christmas–you know, gift-giving, flying reindeer and jolly elves in red suits with the real (and true<\/em>) reason we celebrate–the God-man coming to earth to deliver humanity from condemnation.<\/p>\n

We certainly want our kids to enjoy the holiday, but we want to do it for the right reasons and in the right way.\u00a0 For some, it’s an easy decision while others really struggle.\u00a0 So what’s the right approach?<\/p>\n

Growing up with Santa Clause myself, Karen and I struggled with whether or not to let our children enjoy Santa.\u00a0 Though, admittedly, we did play the role with Jacob until a couple of years ago, we have decided to take a different approach with Drew.\u00a0 As I have been on both sides of the issue, it’s not my intention to cast judgment on parents who struggle in making the right decisions (in the midst of trying not to become the most hated people in the neighborhood for ruining their kids’ Christmas!\u00a0 “What?? There’s no Santa! Whaaa!”\u00a0 You get the picture), but to offer some perspective and help engage in the dialogue.<\/p>\n

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Compatible?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To that end, Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle has written a helpful article for The Washington Post<\/em> that may encourage you in your decision-making.\u00a0 Here’s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

When it comes to cultural issues like Santa, Christians have three options: (1) we can reject it, (2) we can receive it, or (3) we can redeem it.<\/p>\n

Since Santa is so pervasive in our culture, it is nearly impossible to simply reject Santa as part of our annual cultural landscape. Still, as parents we don’t feel we can simply receive the entire story of Santa because there is a lot of myth built on top of a true story.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Can there be any sort of redemption to the story of Santa Clause for your family?\u00a0 Is it totally incompatible with the celebration of a Christian holiday?\u00a0 If you’re a parent who is trying to take a balanced approach in dealing with the Santa issue, I encourage you to read the rest of the article here<\/a>.\u00a0 After you do, I’d love to hear your take on the subject.\u00a0 Do you agree with Mark’s approach?\u00a0 Which of the three options are you a proponent of?\u00a0 If you’re a parent, how have you handled it with your own children and how did you arrive at your conclusion?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas (with the possible exception of Easter and that rabbit) is probably the most difficult holiday for Christians.\u00a0 Seriously. We have to figure out how to deal with the fun stuff of Christmas–you know, gift-giving, flying reindeer and jolly elves in red suits with the real (and true) reason we celebrate–the God-man coming to earth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4,5,9],"tags":[684,89,407],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3jKZO-he","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1135,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/2010-in-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":1068,"position":0},"title":"2010 in review","date":"January 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter\u2122 reads This blog is doing awesome!. 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I'm talking about actually speaking the text back to Him using conversational pronouns (I may have just made that term up, but you get the point), for example, changing \"He\" and \"the Lord\" to \"You\". \u00a0It makes for an amazing prayer and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian Living"","img":{"alt_text":"f8e40b35_o","src":"http:\/\/davidcprice.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/11\/f8e40b35_o.jpeg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}