If you’ve been attending our church for any length of time you have probably heard our pastor mention that he doesn’t “do the Santa thing” with his family around Christmas.  I know I’ve heard him speak about this on several occasions and in the past I had thought that he was probably making too big of a deal about it.  While I recognized that the Santa myth had nothing to do with the real meaning of Christmas, I looked at it mostly just as a fun tradition that doesn’t really cause any harm.  When Chris would voice his opposition to it I felt like he was being a Bah Humbug Christian.  

Growing up in a Christian household that could easily be characterized as “Santa forward” I saw no problem in keeping on with the tradition when our kids were younger.  I didn’t really give it much thought until recently.  About a month ago Chris was preaching on Exodus chapter 32 (The Golden Calf) and it really opened my eyes to how much I had let this “harmless fun” of Santa, and elves and shopping, and holiday hustle and bustle obscure my focus at Christmas time.  It wasn’t so much the act of the Isrealites creating the golden calf that struck me; it was Aaron’s response to it in verse 5.  

When Aaron saw this he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.”  

It was instantly convicting to think about how easily we can fall into the exact same trap.  How can we know the true reason for celebration yet spend so much of our time and effort focusing on something that not only has no relation to that reason but is also infinitely less powerful and worthy?  Spending almost all of our time and energy on Santa and piles of gifts and meaningless traditions and pretending it is somehow a celebration of the birth of our savior is just as ludicrous as worshiping a golden calf and somehow trying to act like you’re really worshiping the almighty God who delivered your people.  We’re just fooling ourselves like Aaron.  Sure, a jolly old fat man and an ornately decorated tree in your living room seem relatively harmless but how much of our focus does that eat up?  How much are we convincing ourselves we’re celebrating Christmas when really we are just celebrating a golden calf and claiming it’s for the Lord?  

The question around Christmas isn’t just “do you do the Santa thing?” but rather “how much do you actually do the Jesus thing?”  For most of my life I have to admit that the ratio was skewed way in the wrong direction.  If given the chance to do it over I wouldn’t do the Santa thing again with our kids so I apologize to our pastor for my previous view on his Santa policy.  If you’re reading this and your family gets involved in the Santa festivities (and all the other trappings that can distract us around Christmas) please don’t see this as some sort of condemnation.  Rather, this is more a confession of someone who has lived a life of Christmases distracted from the glorious coming of our savior by far lesser things and is looking to turn his eyes where they belong.   This is my reminder for myself to do more of the Jesus thing this Christmas and every Christmas.  I hope it helps.