Christmas...

I'm as annoyed by Christian insanity over Christmas as the next person. Another "Keep Christ in Christmas" might put me over the edge. That's a whole other topic, though.

Instead, I want to pick on Santa Claus. Hang on. Don't freak out yet. Give me a few minutes.

I have absolutely nothing against the jolly old man. Really. It's just that he wasn't part of my childhood Christmas. He almost was, but my family was never really sure how to handle him. Basically, he was an excuse for presents appearing on Christmas morning rather than the night before. Because I never really believed in him, there's no traumatic childhood memory of realizing he doesn't exist, which has sometimes created problems.

Skipping over the trauma I caused my classmates, within three months of being hired as children's minister, I almost compared the nonexistence of Santa Claus to something else during a children's sermon. I don't remember what, actually. Yet, as I was walking up to give the children's sermon, I realized that anything alluding to no Santa was probably a bad idea. I can now only dream of the bullet I dodged there! Still, overall, I think Santa is a rather benevolent presence in life, even if a little creepy if you think about it very hard.

A couple weeks ago, though, I was talking with Sunday school teachers, all of whom are also moms. They were, of course, all sharing Santa stories. Who knew that Santa doesn't wrap presents at some houses? Or that he only fills stockings at others? Or that he only brings one gift at still others? One of the moms, though, was having to deal with her 4th grade daughter's realization that Santa isn't real.

As she and her daughter talked about Santa, she cried and told her daughter over and over again, "I've been lying to you. Santa is a lie."

Of course, the kid tried to comfort her mom, telling her, "No, it wasn't really a lie."

The mom dutifully responded, "Yes, it was. I want you to always remember that. I lied to you about Santa. He's not real. And I want you to know I lied to you about Santa because I really want you to know that I'm not lying to you about God and Jesus."

You can probably imagine the rest of the conversation.

There's something in there about the way Christians treat Christmas. I really, really am not upset if Christians choose to participate in the Santa thing. But I am kind of upset we feel like we have to.

Yes, the gifts go overboard. Yes, Santa's now totally secular and maybe always was so. More than that, though, it's the same thing we keep saying over and over to ourselves and our kids: the Gospel is not enough.

The Christ Child is not enough. We need a magic man to bring presents to make this a good holiday. We need magical flying reindeer. We need elves. We need gingerbread men and houses. We need all sorts of things to make Christmas special and memorable.

Those things aren't bad by themselves, but they help us lose our way. And if they all disappeared, what would we find?