How I deal with the Jolly Fat Guy

Sue from Navel Gazing at it's Finest is hosting a contest about Christmas traditions. Well, I love Christmas! I love the lights, the glitter and the glorious food. Above all else, I love that we are celebrating the birth of my Saviour, without whom there would be no reason to celebrate at all.

Although I love Christmas, Way Cooler and I don't have a whole host of traditions, we didn't even put up a tree until our 6th Christmas together, (please do not make fun of us, we know we're pathetic) but we did start something last year that helped us out of a bit of a dilemma we had. Our dilemma involved a fat guy with a beard and a frightening ability to circle the globe in a matter of hours.

I was really puzzled about how to deal with Santa. I can't say I was taken with the thought of telling my kids that something is true when it really isn't. Plus, we believe that Jesus is the main and most important reason for Christmas and we want nothing to overshadow that!

However, we live in a society that is rather big on Mr. Claus and I did not want to never discuss him or pretend the legend didn't exist because of a story my friend Char told me. She had a friend who never talked about Santa it was just Jesus, all the time. This is good, but one day her daughter walked into W*l-mart and saw a picture of Santa and said "Look Mommy, there's Jesus."

I did not want my children equating the Creator and Saviour of the universe with a benevolent deity who gives you what you want and is always jolly. Enough people do that already.

Thus, I was delighted to discover an idea in a parenting magazine that I copied shamelessly. We started it last year and it went over so well that we will do it again this year.

We celebrate St. Nicholas Day. On (or around, I'm not really a stickler) St. Nicholas Day we invite the grandparents to come for supper and then after that we read the story of St. Nicholas and then we open stockings that night.

I love this idea because it starts the party earlier in December, (and who doesn't want more party anyway?) allowing us to still talk about and have Santa as part of the season but not overshadow the whole celebration of Christ which we do on the 24th and 25th. Plus it spaces out some of the gift giving, helping to prevent gift overload on the 25th.

The lady in the magazine was way more Martha Stewart than I will ever be, she cooked a Mediterranean meal as this is the region St. Nicholas was from. In our case, Santa is more from the bar region as we had chicken fingers, wings, nachos and milkshakes. She also decorated to the hilt, but that's not really me either.

So, if you too are puzzled over how to give the guy some space without headlining the whole show, feel free to steal the idea. I already did!

Just a plug, if you've never read Sue's blog, you have got to get over there and read it. She is utterly hilarious. Ghetto Pinata is really one of my favorite blog posts ever. I like it waaay more than anything I've ever written, it's even better than the never-ending BHTTW saga at Pioneer Woman. Just make sure you comment!