Motherhood
Explaining Santa Claus and telling your kids about St. Nicholas can be tricky. How to handle it is a decision that each family must make for themselves. In this post, we tell how our family has gone about explaining Santa to our kids.
Note: Before reading this piece, I want everyone to understand that this is how our family has chosen to approach Santa Claus and other mythical holiday figures. This is in no way a judgment on what other families do or how they handle Santa Claus. I do not think you are lying to your kids if they believe Santa is real or anything like that. I hate that I have to even say this, but our current cultural climate appears to think someone is inadvertently judging you if they have a different way of doing things.
By Will and Erin Odom
My husband and I both grew up with Santa Claus visiting our houses on Christmas Eve.
Granted, he did things a little differently for both of us. Santa always wrapped my presents and had them under he tree. Santa left my husband’s presents unwrapped and piled in front of the tree.
We both have good memories of believing in Santa Claus and were not traumatized when we realized that he was not real.
We never felt lied to or duped. Neither of us ever doubted the existence of Jesus because our parents had told us that Santa was real. We never felt our parents were being dishonest.
However, when we had our own children, we decided to do things differently when it came to explaining Santa.
We weren’t comfortable with how commercialized Christmas had become and where the focus was going in our culture. I don’t remember it necessarily being that way when were kids. Maybe it was, and I was just oblivious to it.
We couldn’t figure out how to tell our children about Santa that would not require us to make up things and create more stories to cover those things.
(I know plenty of parents have been able to do this successfully,though–and if you’re one of those parents, please share how you do Santa in the comments! We do NOT judge you!! Each family is different and has unique family traditions–including the way they explain Santa!)
That being said, we still have fun with Santa. We take pictures with Santa. My dad dresses up like Santa for all his grandkids. We watch Rudolph and other Santa movies. We do all the fun stuff related to Santa.
So how do we go about explaining Santa to our kids?
First and foremost, we want our kids to focus on Christ’s birth as the reason we celebrate Christmas.
Yes, we do tell our kids that Jesus probably wasn’t born around this time and that he was more likely born in the spring, but this is the time that people celebrate his birth.
We don’t want them to get caught up in all the commercialism of the holiday. That’s also the reason that we give them three gifts each.
Is this still a struggle? Yes, they are kids, so it is a struggle at times, but we want to always direct them to the idea that we are celebrating the best gift ever given.
Explaining Santa
We explain to our kids that Santa is fun to pretend and that some families pretend he is real.
They know that there are some kids in their classes and in our extended family who think that Santa really does exist, and that it’s just fun to pretend.
We also make it very clear to them that they are not to tell other kids. It would spoil their fun, and we don’t want to do that.
So far, this has worked well.
When people ask them what Santa is going to bring them, they politely respond with the things that they want for Christmas. They just go with the flow and have fun with it.
Who St. Nicholas Was
We have decided to focus on the story of the real person behind the Santa Claus legend, Saint Nicholas.
We tell them that there really was a man named Nicholas who loved Jesus and loved to serve others.
They know that Nicholas was alive many, many years ago, and he liked to help other people who were in need by giving them gifts or money.
(If you ask my 5-year-old, she might actually say that Santa Claus is dead. ☺️ She is very matter of fact with most things.)
Nicholas gave gifts and aid in Jesus’ name, but he did die a long time ago. Now, he is in Heaven with Jesus.
Santa Claus is a way to carry on his memory.
Many European countries actually celebrate St. Nicholas Day during the first couple of weeks of December (the date depends on the country) in memory of his service and sacrifice. My friend Katie at Kitchen Stewardship, a Catholic blogger, has a fun recipe for St. Nicholas Spice Cookies that her family makes to celebrate St. Nicholas Day. You can find her recipe here.
There are a couple of good resources that we have used to help our kids understand this as well:
- Buck Denver Asks: Why Do We Call It Christmas
- The Legend of St. Nicholas
- Veggie Tales: Saint Nicholas, A Story of Joyful Giving
What Can St. Nicholas Teach Us?
St. Nicholas is a story about loving and serving others.
The story goes that he secretly helped three sisters on three different occasions. When the father caught him, Nicholas begged him to keep it a secret.
He gave to this family without expecting anything in return.
Nicholas can teach us that it is better to give than to receive and that we get more joy from giving when we don’t get anything in return.
Loving and giving unconditionally don’t come with strings attached. This includes the gifts what we give our children.
The gifts that Nicholas gave were not based on the girls’ behavior, and the gifts that we give our kids are not based on their behavior.
We don’t want to raise entitled kids, but we do want them to know that we give them gifts because we love them, not because they earn them. Or not because we expect anything in return.
God doesn’t give us His love because we earn it or deserve it, but He gives it unconditionally. The same goes for our gift giving.
The Magic of Christmas
When people find out our kids know about Santa, we often get comments like, “Oh, how sad.”
But, in reality, we are happy with the way our kids have learned about St. Nick.
It doesn’t mean that Christmas is any less “magical” for them.
As I mentioned, we still have fun with Santa and all that it entails.
They write letters and make lists. We will make cookies for Santa. They will leave out reindeer food. We still watch Polar Express and Elf and Santa Claus. We laugh and enjoy the fun and magic of it all.
We still have a great time while keeping our focus on the most important aspects of the season.
Marion
This is great,thank you for sharing!
Erin
You’re welcome. Merry Christmas!
Amy
We have always used Santa as more of a “Spirit of Christmas” figure. He only fills the stockings in our home and those are mostly filled with needed things, like body wash, shampoo, hair bands. When they started to question him being “real” and asking if Santa was real, I would simply ask them… ” Do you think he is real?” if they said yes, then my answer was then he is. We are not religious and so this is how we celebrate the giving, kind, generous spirit of Christmas in our home.
Margaret Berry
Thank you for sharing! Some friends and I were just having this conversation recently! Merry Christmas!
Patsy
I know that I’m old-fashioned and I grew up in a more simple time. As you said about your husband having his presents unwrapped by the tree and you presents were wrapped, I had the unwrapped presents growing up. When we had our children, we did the unwrapped presents by the tree, too. To be completely honest, I usually did that because they were either too large to wrap or I was exhausted from last minute wrapping and it was easier to just put them in a stack for each child. We did stockings, too. And, always put an orange in the toe of the stocking because my Dad told me that many times they would only get an orange for Christmas. I still believe in Santa and tell my grandchildren so. I believe our hearts have room for Jesus and Santa. I enjoyed being the Santa (or Mrs. Claus) when my children were growing up. I have no emotional scars from being told there was a Santa and my children and grandchildren don’t either.
Amanda
We were split on Santa because my family celebrated him growing up and my husband’s did not. We decided to instead celebrate St Nicholas day on Dec 6 and it has become one of our very favorite traditions. Every year we sneak around and leave stockings full of goodies for our family and friends on their front doors to find in the mornings. My kids LOVE being sneaky and we talk about who St Nick really was and what he did for people. It really is so fun and teaches our kids about giving without expecting anything in return. We can keep the focus of Christmas on Christ but still have fun with Santa also. We also let them know not to burst any kids bubbles who might believe in Santa.
Vanessa
Love the idea of leaving gifts for others anonymously to celebrate St. Nick.
Tammie Walls
Erin,
I thought this was great! I don’t have any children (not by choice), but I would explain in a similar way as well. Jesus Christ gave us the ultimate gift of Himself and gave us the gift of giving, sharing and loving. Saint Nicholas was a man who took part in fulfilling needs for those he could and it caught on. Yet today we are faced with Christmas being so commercialized it is no longer about touching someone’s heart or putting a smile on someone’s face. I get more joy out of giving than receiving, yet when I do receive I’m sure it brings joy to someone else. I live a long way from my family. My Daddy asked me what I wanted for Christmas – I said the greatest gift that would make me happy is a bag of Gibble chips and some Snyders hard pretzels. Oh come on, he said. That is not a gift. I said when you can’t get it here, it is a treasured gift. It’s not about the money, the size of gift, the number of gifts. Its about making someone smile and feeling loved because you took the time to think of them. That is my intake on it and it has worked well for me.
Claire
Our approach to Santa is very similar to yours. We have taught my son (almost 10) about St. Nicholas, and have explained that Santa Claus is a nickname for St. Nicholas. We have explained to him that since St. Nicholas is in Heaven with Jesus, now it’s up to people on earth to carry on the gift-giving tradition, and that some of those people wear Santa suits and some don’t. My son will still talk about listening for the reindeer and things like that due to what he has heard in school, but if I ask him what he knows about Santa Claus he, like your daughter, will say “he’s dead” and he’ll talk about how he’s one of Santa’s helpers because he gives gifts. Like you, I don’t judge families who handle it differently. But sadly, sometimes our family is judged for the way we handle it.
Sara
Thank you for sharing this. We don’t have children yet but I am really on the fence about Santa Clause and other fictional characters. I really do like your approach and think it is a great way to explain the season of giving.
Luanne
My kids are grown now. At our house Santa filled the stockings. The gifts under the tree were gifts we gave each other.
Two years money was very very tight, and Christmas was going to be small. The first year, I came home from the store to find a box filled with gifts. The card was signed friends in Christ. We still hang the included ornament each each and say a prayer for who ever reached out and everyone who needs someone to reach out. The second year, a few of my husbands co-workers bought our children a couple of gifts and left them on my husbands desk.
These two very special years are what we talk about when we discussed Santa. God gave us the greatest gift of all when he gave us his son. St Nick was a wonderful example of how to spread that love this time of year. We can all be Santa’s and spread the love and generosity that has been gifted to us.
Kristin
Our oldest is 3 and it’s her first year to really understand the Santa concept. I wasn’t expecting it to feel funny but it does. I’m not sure how we’ll handle it. When I was growing up my mom told me the truth the first time I asked. (I was 5. She told me Santa was real like Barney.) I had a wild imagination and still enjoyed Santa even knowing the truth though. My brother was 7 years younger than me and we kept the truth hidden a long time. I have a lot of fun memories about keeping Santa around for him. My husband and I are trying to focus our Christmas more on Christ though than it was for our childhood and we are finding we have to be very intentional because it’s easy to have too much going on. Thank you for sharing what your family does!
Sarah
This is pretty much how we handle it as well. I was also raised this way, and love all things Christmas and still felt like it was a magical time of year. But, my MIL really, Really, REALLY, doesn’t like it and goes behind our back and tells them that he IS real. She can’t fathom not believing in Santa, she thinks it ruins Christmas.
Danielle
We tried explaining Santa to our very serious little 4 year old this year. It didn’t go as planned and about ge only thing he seems to have gotten out of it is that St. Nicholas is deceased. ? we’ll have to try your other resources. We have the Veggie Tales movie, but haven’t tried the others.
Pam Ott
We handled it similarly. Blessings
Laura Lee
My 5 year old told a little girl I watch that Santa was dead. We had talked about who st. Nicholasville was and how giving to others celebrates his life and what he repeesented.
I neglected to tell them not to tell other children this if they believe. Oops. The little girl had a strong belief so she was fine overall.
Jen
Erin, I really appreciate this post! It’s fun to hear how other parents address Santa and I even enjoyed reading the comments to this post. My husband and I have 5 kids ages 7 and under and have taught our kids the truth about Santa (St. Nicholas) as you have, without taking away any of the “magic” surrounding Santa Claus. I could literally say “ditto” to nearly your entire post, even down to our favorite Christmas movies. Our kids haven’t blown the secret for any other children and they LOVE visiting “Santa” at Christmas time, usually asking him questions about himself, as if they’re delighted to play pretend. And our older girls delight in the pretend of “Tooth Fairy Mommy” as well, with nothing lost to them. I think kids are so much more resilient and creative than we often give them credit for. When they ask why we’ve taught them the truth about Santa and such, we let them know it’s important to us that they are able to trust we will never lie to (or deceive) them, especially about Jesus, God’s Word, and spiritual things. But we keep the magic of Santa alive by celebrating who he was in real life and what he’s enjoying now in Heaven, and find ways to “be Santa” to others!
Thanks again for sharing!
Ashley
Thank you. I needed this. My 11 year old son (with asperger’s) still believes but we know our time is limited. I want to let him down gently. We’re christians so my children know about the Christ story but they also enjoy Santa. I really want to show him how to carry on the tradition of St. Nicholas. This seems perfect. Thank you for publishing.