Christmas?

As I walked through a Bathurst shopping centre yesterday, two things struck me:
A woman was saying to a little boy

He does see everything you do. If you don't behave you won't get that toy on Christmas Day.

Then, I heard two teenagers laughing rather loudly and then saw that they were amused by the things parents do to their children. A little girl was screaming her lungs out, as they tried to coerce her to have her photo taken with Santa.

How different is our gracious God from this myth that we foist on children! We try to manipulate them into being good by threats, then, on Christmas morning, they get the presents anyway.

What to do about Santa

This article, by Anglican Youthworks lecturers and a couple of grown up children is well worth pondering.

Do you tell your kids about Santa? Eventually, you cannot ignore that fat bloke. Other people won't let you.

I have to admit that I was against telling the kids about Father Christmas, until I was offered a job as Father Christmas!

This gave me the opportunity to provide for my family over the long summer vacation when people are not interested in music lessons!

Roger Wall, one of my fellow theological college students at Kenmore Christian College, had been Santa in the Kenmore, Queensland shopping centre [in those days there was only one; I bet there are more than one, now], offered me the job when he was leaving college.

I was a bit of a countercultural Santa, because I used to try to get the kids to think about giving, and de-emphasize the receiving angle. I wonder what the shopping centre would have thought of that?

There was also an electronic organ in the same spot as Santa's throne, so I used to play Christmas carols, but tried to play and sing ones which shared the message of Jesus' birth.