So how do we keep the magic in Christmas if we don’t tell our children that Santa is real? I like to keep a low, what I call freak out level, when handling most things where the child wants to view or read something and the parent is trying to say “no.” Well, there are families that really freak out and don’t allow family or friends to even mention Santa Claus. There is a way to enjoy the jolly old elf without worrying that you are breaking your child’s trust. The key is to allow your child to enter the story with you! The season of Christmas is magical because you are celebrating the birth of Christ, a beautiful miracle and gift from our loving Father. If you allow your child to join you in the play of storytelling and having fun with the story of Santa, it doesn’t break the magic....
– it preserves trust and your child will not be set up for a heartbreaking reality. We play with the stories of elves, goblins, and fairies at our home without any worry that we are not being faithful to the love of our Lord. With that being said, I encourage honest reading of the elves and fairies when dealing in folklore. They were and are dark little creatures that live in oral tradition. The traditional origin of fairies span from previous remnants of God’s specific judgment such as the fall, the flood, and any other number of tales where God judged evil. Some traditions say they are old Celtic gods, others that they were a defeated group and were punished forever to be wee folk; some traditions claim they are fallen angels. Oral ethnic tradition is important to know. So if you are homeschooling, give your family a classical education mix which will include a full gamut of folklore. Understanding folklore will help your child to prepare for cross-cultural understanding, future missions work, and to understand references in society and literature. The first awareness that I would want my child to know about this topic is that even in the cultures they come from, fairies are dark creatures. They can be good when they choose to be - if the people around them keep them happy (appeasing the gods). Usually they are tempters, troublemakers, mischievous beings, or downright evil. This also lays a great groundwork for understanding Mosaic law regarding righteous worship and Joshua's commands for the new land.
My point to all this is that folklore is necessary for children to know and it can be fun if the child is aware of the traditional personalities and spiritual origins of the folklore characters. Santa Claus is truly a story, not based on any elf or fairy folklore at all, other than an American poem. He is actually based on the real life of Saint Nicholas who gave gifts to community families anonymously at Christmas time. The American version of Santa was created sometime a few hundred years ago. The famous poem of ‘Twas the night before Christmas was the first image of him as a fat cherry faced, round elf with the names of the reindeer at his sled. It’s a great poem and fun to read. Allow your children to hear the story, poem, and engage in the story of Santa. Just don’t purposely create a “reality” around him without your child’s knowledge and consent. This way you are maintaining truth and letting your child have fun with folklore (even if it’s modern American folklore.) Take the opportunity instead to share the very real magic of Christmas – the star, the virgin birth, the nativity, the perfect timing in history of our God to come to this earth – our Immanuel.
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