Stream of Santa Consciousness

“Dear Santa! Are you real? If you live at the North Pole, how come I can't see your house when I look on Google Earth?”

That is the opening of a letter to Santa in “Arthur Christmas.” It makes my nerd head spin. It is from a girl who believes in Santa even though a slew of evidence and all here friends tell her she shouldn’t. But before you begin to think that this is a story about faith or belief in something you can’t see, you need to remember something. Not only does this story take place in a reality where Santa does exist. It is a reality where 2 billion children receive a present from him every year. In our world parents play the game of deceiving their children and everyone grows up to the realization that it was an elaborate lie done “all in good fun.” In the world of “Arthur Christmas” parents surely realize that the presents are not from them. They have to all know that Santa exists. What boggles the mind is that any kids in Arthur’s world doubt Santa.

And that, folks, is how you can ruin entertainment by over-thinking things.

Of course, I over-think things in real life as well. Like Santa.

I know most people don’t take Christmas all that seriously. It is just a time to celebrate traditions and be with family. I appreciate that, but I also want to mold the traditions my family celebrate at Christmas time. We don’t ban secular symbols around our house. We have trees (plural!) and nutcrackers and even some Santa themed decor. We watch all the movies. However, we never did try to get our children to believe in Santa. I know it is all supposed to be fun, but I like to keep my kids in the loop about what is pretend and what is real. Christmas for us is about celebrating the very real birth of our Savior. The nativity is our central and most repeated Christmas decoration around the house.

This past week I was able to participate in a big evangelistic push here in Germany designed to remind people of the true meaning of Christmas. People dressed up as Santa and went around talking to people at the Christmas markets. The irony of that whole event was completely lost on my German friends. (They don’t really do irony.) Sure enough, it created huge opportunities to talk to people who would normally not give a stranger much attention. Of course, they also repeatedly had to navigate the awkward situation of telling a family the true meaning of the season without enlightening their children to the fact that there was not really a magical elf that delivered presents around the world.