Those Parents

It's Christmas time again. Time for celebrating the birth of Christ, putting up Christmas lights, decorating the tree, spending time with family, and Santa bringing everyone gifts.....or maybe not. Well at least not the last part, not in our house.

Yep, we are those parents. When Jazlyn goes to school next year, her friends will tell her she's wrong, those friends' parents won't like us, and we will become those parents.

I don't believe our kids are missing out on anything by us not doing Santa. Jazlyn is just as excited about Christmas as any other kid. She is still getting gifts. She just knows that they are from us, not Santa.

Jazlyn has seen Santa and she knows the story of Saint Nick. She understands that the Santa she sees out during Christmas time is only pretend. She knows that he is just a man dressed up in a suit.

Let me share why we are choosing not to have our kids believe that Santa is bringing them presents every year. Our reasoning is that we don't want there to be any confusion later in life for them over whether Jesus is real. We don't want to tell our kids for years that Santa is bringing them presents, then have them find out that it isn't true, causing them to possibly question other things that they have been taught by us. I know some kids could understand without it being an issue, but this is still the decision that we have made for our family.

Let me say(type) that I have nothing against people that do Santa. Actually, I hardly know anyone who doesn't do Santa. Even though we might not do everything exactly the same, we can still be friends, right? I don't think that my family is any better than other families that do Santa. I'm only sharing my life.

We have already told Jazlyn that she shouldn't tell kids who do believe in Santa that he isn't real. So please don't come after us for being those parents.

Merry Christmas!

~Melissa