When celebrating Christmas with your children, do you do the whole "Santa Clause" thing?

We don't "do" Santa, but no shame to anyone who does ...

it just was never part of my husband's culture. It *was* part of my childhood; but as I grew up atheist and converted in my twenties, I am quite comfortable with many of the differences between my childhood, and my children's. Santa isn't something I felt the need to perpetuate. The Advent Wreath, Creche, Church Christmas Pageant, and Midnight Mass take up our energy. Then Christmas itself lasts twelve days, with multiple Christmas dinners and visitors (with accompanying presents) nearly every day of the twelve. Santa doesn't get missed!

I'm even *less* inclined to do the Easter Bunny thing! Between Lenten disciplines, Palm Sunday Processions; Tenebrae; Maundy Thursday services with foot-washing, Agape meal, Eucharist, stripping-the-altar and vigil; Good Friday "Way of the Cross" and Tre-Oro service; Holy Saturday Vigil and Midnight Mass; Easter-Sunday sunrise service and extended family dinner (with hymns and prayers); where would the poor little bunny find time to drop off his baskets?

One essential "change" to the Santa myth, for those of you that do it...

DON'T tell your children that "Santa delivers toys to *every* little girl and boy".

For one thing, that's a lie about all the families that don't have Santa for religious or cultural reasons. The Christmas Angels fill my Russian-heritaged children's shoes with sweets -- why would you gratuitously misrepresent their culture?

For another thing, it's an easily detectable lie. All you need is for your child to repeat it in the schoolyard to a Muslim or Jewish child, and the other child will answer "No, he doesn't. I never get toys from Santa". And after they fight, and the school calls you, you'll have to backtrack.

For a third thing, it glosses over the great neediness of millions of children who not only don't get toys, but don't have enough food, physical security, clean water, medical care, parents, or homes. I think about a little girl in Rwanda that the Christian Blind Mission missionary told me of, whose hands and feet were cut off by the terrorists that massacred her family before her eyes. To have her lumped by a myth in with happy laughing first world children enjoying the overwhelming wealth of our economically advantaged society seems offensive to me. Her needs so astronomically outweigh the "need" of my DD9 for a new pair of skates under the tree.

Santa comes to little children all over the world -- that's true. But not all children. If you introduce that idea early, it's easy to explain "Santa doesn't come to their house". The reasons are easy, too: "...because they're Jewish"; "...because they don't want to be distracted from Christ's birth"; "...because their country is so torn by war and poverty that even Santa can't provide their needs; we have to do that as Christ's hads and feet in the world". And so on.