Apparantly he has no idea who Santa is! I don't have a huge opinion on Santa either way... I have friends who totally have their kids believe in him, and others who tell them he's fake from the very beginning. But I could go either way.
This year, Carsen is very excited about Christmas, but he's excited about the real meaning of CHRISTmas. We told him that Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus' birth. He's very excited about making Jesus a birthday cake on Christmas! :)
I love Christmas. I love the extra time with family. I love the extra feeling of love in the air. I love the music. I love the cards. I even love the gift-giving. The only thing I don't love is how easy it is to forget the real reason why we're celebrating, so it's nice to have a little reminder with my 2 1/2 year old every now and then... "Mommy, Christmas is Jesus' birthday??".
At first I felt bad that he didn't know who Santa was. I'm over it, though. We'll tell him... either this year or next...
Plus, if he has any memory of Santa last year, I don't think he'll be too sad about not having santa be a part of our Christmas this year! :)
We've gone back and forth on the Santa thing too. We finally just decided to let them believe what they want, but not to flat out lie to them. So for all of Addie's questions, we answer them with a question. For example, "Mommy, is Santa real?" us: "Well, what do you think?" or "Do you want him to be real?" Usually the answer is yes. We don't do any special "Santa presents" or anything. We just don't wrap the gifts in their stocking (mostly candy and dollar items) and if they want to think that's from Santa, then fine. We let them believe, but we don't enforce it. He's a small part of our Christmas, but we definitely make sure they know the true meaning! :)
ReplyDeleteWhen our boys were little we let them believe in Santa, however, we made sure we told them the real meaning of Christmas. My mom bakes a Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (my sister believes that would be Jesus' favorite) or Christmas eve. The kids (even ours at 17,18, and 20) gather around and we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.
ReplyDeleteI do remember the first Christmas I saw Keith and asked him what Santa gave him - if I remember right it wasn't a well received question. I didn't get it then as I had grown up with Santa and not been reminded why we had Christmas. I remember thinking how horrible it was that Keith and Erin didn't have the fun of Santa. Obviously, I wasn't a Christian at the time and was focused on the wrong reason for the holiday. I think it is important to let kids know and celebrate Jesus Birthday on Christmas.
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