Miracles, Not Magic: "We aren't doing the Santa thing."

I know what you're thinking.

Allow me to explain. But, first, my very necessary disclaimers.

1. We aren't accusing anyone of bad parenting. Our own parents, especially. This is my most important disclaimer. We have no resentment for the Baby Boomers who raised us. For a short time, my parents told me Santa was real and, when it came time to figure out the truth, it worked itself out. I don't believe it marred my childhood in any way-- it was pretty cool to walk into the den on Christmas morning and find it had filled with gifts overnight.

I'm writing this blog post because Santa is not as simple as he used to be. He was harmless for the Baby Boomers and perhaps for the Millennials, but he won't be so uncomplicated for our children. Santa is one of the many things that were purely innocent in a world before AOL.

I'll explain shortly why I'm placing blame on the culturally-irrelevant shoulders of America Online 4.0.

The real villain here

2. We aren't actually trying to change your mind. This blog post is the result of years of deep thought and long conversations. It is purely for the sake of explaining my ideas and perhaps sparking a bit of dialogue about something that most people don't consider to be a parenting decision at all-- just something that you do. I did not come by these opinions lightly and I trust that you will make your own decisions with your own reasoning, based on what you know to be best for your own family. We respect that.

3. We aren't trying to be Santa-abolitionists. We do solemnly swear not to be "those parents" who are so anti-Santa that the very existence of a Father Christmas character in the school play strikes ire into their Grinchy hearts.

We believe that some things are still Santa-benign and we will freely allow our children to enjoy that part of the American Christmas experience.

This includes:
-making Santa crafts in school (I want a cotton-ball bearded Santa for my fridge and glitter that sticks to the carpet until spring. Mommy wants it real' bad.)
-singing secular Christmas songs (We will continue to jingle and we will do it all the way.)
-winning the coveted role of Mr. or Mrs. Claus in a Christmas play (My misplaced pride and ambition know no boundaries.)
- being creeped out by giant Santa inflatables in the neighbor's yard (That's right. I said it.)
- watching Christmas movies-- perhaps even The Santa Claus, which blatantly tells children not to listen to the jaded adults who don't believe. (I'm going to tell myself that won't throw a wrench in my master Santa plan. So, maybe not... Thanks for that, Tim Allen. To inconsistency and beyond.)

So, with all that in mind, let's take off our Santa-colored glasses and set aside all the fuzzy feelings we may have. I'm going to find other ways to make childhood magical for my kids, like letting the three wise men wander around the house looking for baby Jesus, but my husband and I won't be telling them that Santa Claus is real. Here's why:

1. At the heart of Christmas, there is an object of blind faith-- but it's not Santa. 

I never want my children to be told that belief in Jesus, like belief in Santa, is something to grow out of. 

And here's where the Internet is to blame. The fact is, my kids almost certainly will be told that only children-- or childish people-- believe in Jesus. I was told this. Santa did not mar my childhood, but being told by a stranger on the Internet that I was an idiot for having faith in God absolutely did. I would go so far as to say that that moment was the final nail in my childhood's coffin. It was the beginning of a long journey of doubt, rediscovery and, eventually, healing.

Our parents did not have the same access to so many opinions-- in the Deep South, if they met a vocal atheist, he was probably the angry kid who sat by himself in every class and clearly had an unhappy home life. His pessimistic opinion on life after death wasn't threatening because it felt so isolated, foreign, and attention-seekingly unhappy. You just didn't vocalize your struggles with faith the way we do now.

Now, even if we place very strict parental controls on our web browsers, our children will be able to see an infinite number of trollish, anti-religious comments at the bottom of any given web page, whether it had anything to do with religion or not. The only place of communion the typical atheist has is online, where everyone who has lost their taste for faith is free to gather. Having this access creates the illusion that everyone in the world is "enlightened" and "intellectually liberated, " but you, little Christian kid, are the last stupid person on earth.

If my children ever believe that they need to out-grow Jesus, I've done something wrong. The person of Jesus Christ, the miracle of His birth, is the only object of blind faith in Christmas. My list goes on, but this is the most important reason why I reject the Santa conspiracy. (I'm using my hyperbole font. Can you see it?) It's not good enough to say that Jesus is the reason for the season. We must make Him the one and only real reason. He must not be usurped by another figure who receives greater reinforcement by our secular society. 

That leads me to...

2. Our society no longer aids us in raising Christian children, so we cannot waste our faith capital on anything else.

There is very little that we can ask our children to just trust us on. Everything else we'll teach them has concrete consequences. Don't touch the stove, you'll burn yourself. Don't be mean, you'll lose your friends. Don't gossip, you'll ruin someone's reputation (and eventually know what that feels like yourself.)

We have virtually no concrete evidence that Jesus existed and no concrete evidence at all that He is the Son of God. We cannot waste this window of opportunity on a figure that we will eventually dismantle. If I want my children to trust me when I say, "You can believe in God, even though you can't see Him," then I can't sabotage myself by saying, "Yeah, that equally improbable guy called Santa Claus... about that..."

What's more, we don't just face the challenge of raising faith-filled children in the absence of hard evidence. We have a very powerful cultural love of Santa which reinforces that one, not the other, is real. If you take your children on a walk in any mall, which one will they see more of, Santa or Jesus? This is another challenge our parents did not face, before it was politically incorrect to say, "Merry Christmas." If left to its own devices, the big, bad world would lead our children to believe in Santa and literally nothing else. (Think about that. Literally nothing else.)

I feel like 50% of my faith education was damage control because I was being told left-and-right that faith is foolish. Our children will eventually have to decide for themselves if they want to carry on with the faith we've given them. One day, they'll make the decision: I do believe in God or I do not believe in God. Until then, I do not want to waste my children's trust on a fabrication.

Next, a problem that may or may not be culture-specific...

3. How do you thank Santa?

This may be a greater problem in the South than in other parts of the country. Everyone wants to raise a grateful child, but the South places particular emphasis on the importance of "please" and "thank you." Children everywhere write beg-letters to Santa (hyperbole font again) but who writes a thank-you note? I know I didn't.

But, I did write a thank-you note to my grandparents because my parents wanted me to learn that my material blessings had a source.

The fact is, a disembodied gift-giver is hard to thank. Teaching our children how to be grateful is an ongoing process. When they're very little, we just ask, "What do you say?" and follow it up with, "Go give Grandpa a hug!" The real experience of gratitude is something that has to be cultivated and taught. But, in their most formative years, children are let off the hook. They receive a pile of presents and we expect them to be grateful, but we don't have anyone for them to tell, "thank you."

Does this sound familiar at all? As an adult, did you remember today, yesterday, every single day to thank God for your blessings, material and immaterial? Oops. Now you do.

Problem 3.B.: Why create a false middle-man?

Even if your parents did take into account the thank-you problem, why did you waste your time thanking someone who isn't real? Sending book-end "please" and "thank you" notes to Santa does not cover your bases. Don't give Santa credit for anything and don't tell yourself that it's good enough because "at least they're learning to be thankful."

Santa stands in the way of one of the biggest challenges to raising Christian children. He's a distraction from the true source of everything we have to be thankful for. We have to counter-balance our natural tendency to receive and want moremoremore before we have the opportunity to be thankful for what we've already been given. Teaching true gratitude is an uphill battle from day one. So my plan is to skip the bull and jump right into the life-long challenge of imbibing my children with the spirit of continual thanksgiving to God. (And be prepared to fail because that's truly a matter of God's grace.)

4. For the logic-minded child, Santa is confusing. For the whimsy-minded child, he's a contradiction.

In addition to our negative tendency to greediness and ingratitude, we also have a very positive compulsion to make sense of life's mysteries. I recently asked my friends how they resolved the problems in the Santa story.

"How did he carry so many presents in his sleigh?"
"It was a bottomless sleigh, like Hermione's purse."

"How did he get to every home in one night?"
"He could stop time."

"How did he eat so many cookies?"
"He's fat." and "My mom was a dietitian. We put out carrot sticks."

Most children are both logical and whimsical. They want to make sense of a fantasy, so they patch up the plot holes with more fantastical reasoning. I wasn't that creative as a child, so I spent every Christmas Eve night trying to put together the pieces. When it didn't fit together, doubt set in, and I came to my own conclusion, as most children do at an appropriate age.

So, why does the whimsy-minded child sustain the fantasy longer than the logic-minded child? Well, obviously it's because their parents never told them that magic isn't real.

Yeah, I caught that parenting contradiction. When my parents told me that cartoon characters only exist inside the TV, I rolled with it. When they told me about Santa, I rolled with it... until I got frustrated when none of my reality-based explanations worked out.

This reason may seem trivial, but I never want to contradict myself and I never want to discourage my children from following their desire to make sense of the world. A child who exercises critical thinking skills from that age should be rewarded with the sense of satisfaction we feel when our curiosity and confusion is met with answers that make sense.

Saying, "It's magic," is a cop-out response that cuts short the problem-solving process and elaborates the story. If you answer with anything more detailed, you're adding realism to a lie that you have to undo and almost certainly making the let-down harder when it finally comes. I don't want the Santa story to make sense at the expense of other essential parenting decisions, like explaining that real life = real life and make-believe = make-believe.

5. Arguable point: Santa adds to the materialism of Christmas. 

I say that this is an arguable point because I do believe that parents can counteract some of this. So, #5 is really just a statement of inevitability. As I said before, children can be selfish, greedy, and ungrateful. But, doesn't that sound like a lot of adults you know, too?

The fact is, whether we tell children that Santa is real or make-believe, they're still going to be itching to get out of church on Christmas morning so they can go open their presents. Why burden a child's forming conscience with the very appealing distraction of PRESENT-MAN? When did Jesus ever give me a new bike? When you allow kids to be distracted by Santa, bringer of Xboxes, materialism happens. All Jesus ever gave me was eternal salvation. Pfft.

And finally, I've saved the best for last. May I present...

6.  THE CATHOLIC DOOZY: If your whimsy-minded child never stops believing on their own, when do you tell them the truth about Santa?

That's an important decision for a lot of parents to make. Do we tell them when they're 5 or 6 and only give them a few short years of Santa? Or do we tell them when they're 9 or 10 and let them enjoy the ride as long as possible?

The age of reason is seven. Seven years of age. It occurred to me with great horror that, on Christmas morning, some children will receive the Eucharist-- truth itself, God's presence on earth, the most welcoming door to eternal life-- and then go home to receive presents from a fairy tale.

THAT IS NOT OKAY.

At what age are children old enough to receive the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord, Jesus Christ, but too young to spoil the magic of Santa?

Trick question. That age does not exist. In this way, Jesus and Santa cannot peacefully coexist.

Of course, the easy fix to this doozy is to tell them the Christmas before their First Communion. 

Or maybe... just don't make Santa real in the first place. Because, the truth of the Eucharist exists before they receive Him for the first time. It will continue to exist if they decide to stop going to Mass when they leave for college. It will always exist and Santa never will. 

Truth has value and we decide how strong it is for our children. If we make it a weak, amorphous concept with our contradictions and let-downs, truth won't have much meaning. But, if we treat it as fragile and respect its worth, it won't matter that Santa is easier to believe in than the Eucharist. 

We might just save ourselves a few challenges in raising good Christians and, more specifically, good Catholics.

Or maybe we'll just be thieves of joy.

Don't touch the glockenspiel.

Hello! Congratulations-- you and I have made it through the existential crisis. The vocational tailspin. The recreational bankruptcy. We crawled through a tunnel of confusion and came out with clarity on the other side. Through no achievement of my own, I snagged a dream job.

Since August of 2012, I've been employed as an after-school art instructor for Young Rembrandts drawing class. I roll in with my box of awesome stuff, teach K-5 how to draw something cool, sanitize my hands, and roll back out to do it another day. I'm only with the kids for an hour a day-- sometimes longer if the parents think I am a good candidate for spontaneous adoption-- but, it's definitely the most exciting, fulfilling, hilarious hour of the day.

Some of these kids have been with me through every session since I started. I can freely admit that I have my favorites. I have a crew of little co-veterans who keep coming back to color with me, of course I have favorites. These are the kids whose parents give me Christmas cards with pictures of them, insist I keep their 100th School Day pencils as a present, and tell me all about their grandmothers who draw, their moms who speak Spanish, their computer games, their favorite color, their favorite class, their favorite bug...

Because I'm an extracurricular teacher, I'm a guest in these schools. I teach where they put me, so this comes with interesting challenges. At one school, I hold class in the teacher's lounge. Here, I am a scorned woman, forced to envy the bountiful contents of the vending machine. I lay awake at night wondering, why won't the kids stare lovingly at the board like that? Why don't they covet my markers the way they covet M&Ms? They give their unwavering attention and fierce competition to the potato chips while my Bob Ross teaching style goes unappreciated... My only saving grace on Monday and Thursday is that they always forget to bring money and the vending machine makes a very, very offended noise when you press its buttons in vain. The vending machine is obviously on my side, but the kids still prefer the cranky snack box to me.

At my other school, I teach in the art classroom (yay!) which doubles as the music classroom (*drysob*.) My kids are pretty good about not touching the instruments, but every now and then I still have to say, "Patrick, get away from the gong. Sam, that kazoo doesn't belong to me. LILLY! Don't touch the glockenspiel!"

NO, LET ME LEARN.  I <3 HARP.

I teach a lot of kids who are barely-not-preschoolers, so I do a lot of reminding and commanding. I try to be cool about it, though. They've been sitting still in school all day and now they're in another classroom, for another hour, looking at another board, with another pencil in their hands. So, I try not to be too hard on them. I speak kindly, raise my voice only when necessary, and God's usually looking out for me when I'm about to lose my cool. One time, the Holy Spirit totally t-boned my temper as it was about to get away from me. I was in the middle of an empty threat, making something up as I went along as usual, when the grace of humor took over midway. It came out as, "If you guys don't settle down, I'm going to turn into a DRAGON!" Anger crisis averted. We all had a good laugh and, fortunately for me, they still got the point. It was probably my commitment to the act that sold it... unfurling wings, bulging eyes, Gandalf-is-angry voice. It was a good moment.

The biggest challenge is utilizing the Montessori method. How do you teach a classroom of eight kindergartners, three 2nd graders, two 3rd graders, and two 4th graders how to draw the Mona Lisa? More importantly, how do you teach that group at a pace which won't bore the older kids, but also won't make the barely-not-preschoolers burst into tears when they feel like they're being left behind? The answer is one part bribery, one part cheating, and one part intrigue. Lure them in with the promise of balloons, let the older kids work 1 step ahead, and shock them all with a magic trick-- making waist-length hair appear from a tiny bun. (I am my own prop when drawing Italian women. Cha-ching.)

But, the best part of this job outweighs everything. Disappearing tables, filthy post-party teacher's lounges, children getting on the bus, crotchety janitors who turn out the lights while I'm hanging the drawings, vending machines, glockenspiels, Sharpie wielding kindergartners-- none of these things could scare or frustrate me out of loving these kids to death. Even the kids who are only there because their parents don't know the difference between art class and after school care, I love. I love hearing their rambling stories while I'm in the middle of explaining how to draw an ear from the side. I love the panic on their faces when asking to go to the bathroom, as if I'd ever say no. I love it when they write random words at the top of their drawings like "GAVIN ESPN ART FOOTBALL GAME." I love it when they get angry on my behalf when we discover that the front table is absolutely covered in teal ink. I love listening to their crazy theories on how the teal ink got there-- yes, someone put a marker in the pencil sharpener. That must be it.

I love that I can be real with them when they're being ridiculous. When they can't find something, they like to ask me where it is. They say, "Mrs. M'reah, where's my eraser?!" I tell them, "I don't walk around stealing your erasers-- if you can't find it, look for it!" (That's not true at all, I regularly walk off with their stuff. I'm worse than my mom at the dinner table, surrounded by ill-gotten forks once everyone has been served from the big dish you can't move.)

Most of all, I love that I'm finally tapping into the best gifts God gave me. I can't list all the ways in which this job has been healing for me. It was the perfect job, coming at the perfect time. Even though it's only two hours out of my day, four days a week, I finally feel like I'm not just along for the ride while I'm in Tuscaloosa. I'm not just a footnote in someone else's epic adventure, waiting patiently while all the cool plot points happen to them. Sure, I followed my husband here-- this is his deal, his journey, but I think I finally found a good reason to be here for myself, not just as a placeholder or something to take up my time while I wait for Mark to graduate. My kids give me purpose.

So, I'll leave you on a poetic note. Several months ago, as I was settling into this job, coming to terms with how blessed I am, and I began musing on the Bible verse that first urged me to do more with my talents. Luke 12:48 says, "Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more." I couldn't justify sitting on what I'd been given, I had to push myself harder and develop those skills because they weren't given to me for nothing. I feel like I did that faithfully, in different ways, throughout high school and college. (Of course, it's hard not to develop your talents in a testing, scoring, grading environment.)

Then, I graduated and nothing became of graduate school. Nothing became of my terrible first job. It felt I wasn't becoming anything. I was using many of my basic talents; including, but not limited to, typing skills learned during my ten-year deployment in the war zone known as the Internet, organizational skills learned from living in dorms the size of refrigerator boxes, and the ability to navigate all manner of office tools-- specifically Xerox whispering, fax charming, and advanced Microsoft-speak. But, what was going to become of everything else? The stuff I actually cared about? It felt like my light was being hidden under a bushel basket. I could feel the lamp going out. Just a few more chapters in this series of unfortunate events and I was going to give up on it entirely.

My spirit animal during that difficult time in my life.

But, everyone who has ever been called to do something outside their comfort zone knows that God has no patience for that nonsense. I was musing on this bushel basket idea-- Mark 5:15-16, "Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father." So, I thought to myself, "Bushel basket, bushel basket... why does that sound so familiar?" And I remembered I've seen bushel baskets before. They're made of wood or wicker and are used to gather produce like apples.

They're made of wood or wicker. Bushel baskets are flammable. If you put a basket too short on a candle too tall, it could catch fire before the candle was extinguished. My circumstances weren't hard enough to make me give up on making myself useful while in Tuscaloosa! (At least, not after that epic revelation.) I just had to set fire to my self-pity and resentment and all the stupid scars I'd accumulated since moving here.

To celebrate that and finding my new job, I drew this. (Very quickly and without much planning, or I'd lose my nerve and spiral down into "I CAN'T DO ANYTHING" again.) Mixed media, pen and colored pencil.

  Maybe one day, I'll free-style it and teach my kids how to draw this instead of another snow/ice fishing/winter/I-don't-understand-Alabama picture from the lesson planner in Chicago. Just kidding, I can't do that. But, I'll always look at this and remember my kids. Thanks for the chance to stretch my dragon wings, Young Rembrandts. Now, put the cap back on that Sharpie-- if it goes back into the box like that, it'll look like I struck oil and smell twice as bad.