Yesterday, I had the opportunity to volunteer in Noah's preschool class. As you can imagine, twenty excited kids the week before Christmas break can get a little crazy. At one point, as they were lining up for recess in a less-than-orderly fashion, the teacher said, "Remember who's watching you?!" as she pointed toward the classroom "Elf on a Shelf" perched above the circle area. "The elf!" said some kids. "Santa!" said others. But one little boy looked decidedly skeptical. "Elves aren't real!" he said with determination. "God is always watching us."
Boom! How do you answer THAT (in a public school classroom, no less?) The teacher rolled with it, though, and quickly affirmed, "Yes, you're right, God is always watching, but right now we're trying to be extra good so the elves give a good report to Santa."
It's a fine line we walk at Christmastime, we who hold young hearts and minds in our hands. Before Noah was born, Mike and I debated over whether we would even do the Santa thing. He thought we should just focus on giving gifts to each other, but I couldn’t imagine Christmas without the magic and wonder of St. Nick making an appearance during the night.
As that moment at preschool illustrates, the conflation of cultural, commercial, and church traditions can make Christmas really confusing for kids. But it's not just the kids who are confused. There's quite a bit of media attention right now regarding the "War on Christmas" and how we can celebrate this time-honored religious holiday in an increasingly diverse and pluralistic society.
It all hints at complicated questions that reach far beyond Christmas and into the year-long issue of how to raise faithful children in a world where spirituality takes many forms and sometimes seems utterly absent. It’s a parenting struggle Mike and I have wrestled with from the beginning and I’m sure will be dealing with for many years to come.
I was thinking about this issue this morning as Sarah and I played with our Christmas play sets. For Noah's first Christmas, we got him a Fisher Price Little People Nativity Set. It was a lovely way to make the Christmas story accessible and fun for him (OK he was two months old at the time, but you know, we had high hopes that in the future it would be lovely). And indeed it is lovely and fun and a great way to talk and teach about the story of the first Christmas with little ones.
Then along came Sarah, (alas, poor second child!) and we were at a loss for that perfect first Christmas gift. We wanted to get her a special Christmas toy similar to the Nativity set, but there was nothing else especially religious we could find, so we went with the "Tree Lighting in Discovery Park" play set, which has a musical Christmas tree and little figures that can ice skate, sled and take carriage rides through the park.
This year, we got out both sets and put them next to each other in the playroom. It's not uncommon to see Baby Jesus going for a carriage ride or a snowman chatting up a camel or a Wise Man hitting the slopes on the little toboggan.
The happy mixing of the figurines is a good example of how we are creating Christmas traditions in our family. First and foremost, Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus. But can there be joy in the secular traditions--Santa, elves, red-nosed reindeer, talking snowmen, etc--that have come to be part of the Christmas season too?
I think for our family, the answer is yes. I'm still working out how to walk that line between teaching our kids that the Elf on the Shelf does not have the same omniscient power as God while still leveraging the Santa card to encourage good behavior during December. But as I learned in preschool yesterday, maybe the key is to use those Christmas traditions, both secular and sacred, to remind our kids (and ourselves) why we celebrate this time of year.
Maybe the best I can do for right now is let the Wise Men go sledding.
In our house, we'll watch some of the classic Christmas specials, but we'll also watch the Veggie Tales St. Nicholas special about joyful giving. We'll buy gifts for each other, but try not to go overboard, and to focus on finding things our family will truly enjoy. We'll sing "Deck the Halls" (because you've gotta hear Sarah do the "fa la las," it's fantastic), but we'll also sing "Silent Night." We'll try our best to make these days both happy and holy, because that’s what the holidays--holy days--are all about.
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