How do You Deal with Christmas?

[JemStone]

As Parent/Grandparent how do you deal with Christmas/Santa Claus with your children?

Has Christmas become a secular holiday?

Does peer pressure cause envy by non-religiously reared children towards Christian kids?

 

[Jarhyn]

As Parent/Grandparent how do you deal with Christmas/Santa Claus with your children?

Has Christmas become a secular holiday?

Does peer pressure cause envy by non-religiously reared children towards Christian kids?

By recognizing that people need certain celebrations in our lives no matter what we call them or ostensibly celebrate.

Things get shitty around that time in winter and getting together with family to have the last good big meal you're going to get for a while was something baked into us.

Giving gifts and showing appreciation before the suck truly sets in is a part of that, too.

 

[steve_bank]

As I remember it the RCC moved the celbration of the birth of JC to coincide with a pagan winter celebration.

There are two sources of what became the popular culture of Santa Claus. There was a Christian known to be charitable who became Saint Nicolas or Old Saint Nick. The amecdotal story I rermember is he rode down the streets on a horse tossing coins to people.

Santa Claus stems from a 19th century American poem.

Christmas is a bend of commercialism, pagan ritual, and Christian ritual.

Christmas has long been a secular holiday whee one indulges in gluttony and material goods. There are Christians who do not celpbrate the traditional Christmas out of principle.

What became the modern Christmas tree has pre-Christian roots.

I expect it can be a problem for kids raised atheist. Same with Jews and Muslims.

 

[bilby]

My parents made the decision nver to knowingly lie to their children about anything (it was the 1960s), and I am a third generation atheist, so Christmas was an entirely secular and fictional-characters-are-real free zone for my entire childhood.

We exchanged gifts and had a huge meal, just like everyone else; We just didn't pretend it was because Santa or Jesus were something other than made-up stories.

I am not aware of this causing any problems whatsoever for me or my siblings, but the parents of our friends sometimes got their noses out of joint because we weren't toeing the line. I think my father's position was "I don't get upset with you for lying to your children, but I won't let you dictate that I must lie to mine in order to defend your dishonesty".

 

[Rhea]

We celebrated the Solstice with our kids - so they still had a celebration. In fact, our stated purpose was that winter celebrations are a comon human need when it is cold and dark, and it’s still cold and dark… so… BONFIRE! We did our own gift giving tradition (as a fmaily prior to the party) and the bonfires are pretty spectacular and all their friends came over. We live in the country so it wasn’t a contained fire-tray kind of thing, it was the entire year’s pruning, brush and scrap wood pile, typically a 20-foot tall pyre that burns all night. So the kids got to have something that all the friends knew about and they and their parents all came over for it.

Then we’d have “Christmas” with the in-laws, but they are all secular or Jewish so it was just tradition, not religion.

This kind of vibe:

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

What Rhea said. It's about the Winter Solstice. It's actually quite the scientific celebration that's been overlaid with religious voodoo.

 

[Rhea]

Yah, we talked a lot about physics and astronomy and how they culminated in the stars our skies, and the early sunsets and the snow on the ground.

We also celebrated the Summer Solstice, ftr.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Yah, we talked a lot about physics and astronomy and how they culminated in the stars our skies, and the early sunsets and the snow on the ground.

We also celebrated the Summer Solstice, ftr.

Same here. From the standpoint of human history we've always been keyed into the position of the sun. It allowed us to hunt and grow crops. We thought the sun and other objects were gods in the past, pretty understandable considering the depths of our ignorance. But today there's nothing religious about the solstices and the movement of the sun on the horizon. It "stands still" or sleeps for three days before returning and bringing back the light. Sounds pretty familiar to religionists, wonder where they got the idea, particularly christians.

 

[steve_bank]

Yah, we talked a lot about physics and astronomy and how they culminated in the stars our skies, and the early sunsets and the snow on the ground.

We also celebrated the Summer Solstice, ftr.

Have you had any reactions from local Christians?

 

[southernhybrid]

My son is an adult, and my ex, his biological father was a Baha'i, who thought it was wrong to celebrate Christmas. But, when my son was very young, I did the Santa thing with him, had a small tree and gave him the type of gifts that a child his age would want. I really don't see anything wrong with pretending there's a Santa when it comes to young children. I figured it out he was imaginary on my own by the time I was five, and so did my son. It did me no harm to believe in fairy tales prior to that age. I even had two imaginary friends who lived in the basement of my house when I was 2 or 3. I remember their names and personalities to this day. Kids often tend to be imaginative. The weirdness comes in when a person can't seem to give up their imaginary friends, or like a former poster used to say, "God is Santa Claus for adults".

My current husband is an atheist but we always did a Xmas celebration with his Catholic parents when they were alive. He and I used to give each other gifts, but we don't care about gifts any longer, and since our grandchildren live out of state, we simply ignore Xmas for the most part. We usually get together with some atheist friends for a Solstice Day party.

We do send Xmas gifts to the grandchildren as well as something to the atheist son and his non religious wife. All of us consider it a secular holiday. My grandkids are past the age where Santa is real, but I think they may have believed the dude was real when they were very young. They both attend a charter school associated with the Council on Secular Humanism, so I imagine that helps keep them from feeling left out. They seem well adjusted.

To be honest it was the Baha'i ex who was the biggest problem He expected me to recognize his holidays, but refused to celebrate Xmas, even in a secular way. I was an agnostic during most of that marriage, still considering I might find a religion that makes sense. Never happened.

I think it's easy to celebrate Christmas with Christian family members as long as they don't push religion on you. One year, I asked to say the Humanist Blessing at the in-laws. I made it up. It went like this. "Since the sharing of food is a human. universal, practiced in all known cultures, it's my pleasure to share food with all of you today". One Catholic family member got pissed and insisted on saying a religious blessing after me. He was a jerk. Everybody else was ready to eat.

 

[JemStone]

One year, I asked to say the Humanist Blessing at the in-laws. I made it up. It went like this. "Since the sharing of food is a human. universal, practiced in all known cultures, it's my pleasure to share food with all of you today".

You may have started a new tradition. I'm going to borrow that this year.

 

[Jarhyn]

In some respects I believe it is correct for parents to lie to children.

Parents have the responsibility to expose their kids to things that would be abjectly dangerous if encountered "in the wild", and one of the things that is abjectly dangerous "in the wild" is unchecked personal belief in authoritatively delivered 'fact'.

For many of us, The Santa Hoax was in fact the impetus to come to understand The God Hoax. This is an important thing to learn as a child: that people they respect can lie and that their peers can deliver to them lies told by those they respect, and that every belief deserves as big a helping of doubt as may be dished up, as often as the dishing serves.

There are limits: one or two big lies, one or two small ones, just enough to teach the principle, and revealed often and early enough that the lesson sticks.

 

[bilby]

In some respects I believe it is correct for parents to lie to children.

Parents have the responsibility to expose their kids to things that would be abjectly dangerous if encountered "in the wild", and one of the things that is abjectly dangerous "in the wild" is unchecked personal belief in authoritatively delivered 'fact'.

For many of us, The Santa Hoax was in fact the impetus to come to understand The God Hoax. This is an important thing to learn as a child: that people they respect can lie and that their peers can deliver to them lies told by those they respect, and that every belief deserves as big a helping of doubt as may be dished up, as often as the dishing serves.

There are limits: one or two big lies, one or two small ones, just enough to teach the principle, and revealed often and early enough that the lesson sticks.

I don't think you need worry. Even without a parental endorsement of Santa or God, I still encountered plenty of liars, both amongst my peers and amongst adults in positions of authority; I certainly don't have any more personal belief in authoritatively delivered 'fact' than my peers who were raised with both ideas presented to them as true.

 

[Jarhyn]

In some respects I believe it is correct for parents to lie to children.

Parents have the responsibility to expose their kids to things that would be abjectly dangerous if encountered "in the wild", and one of the things that is abjectly dangerous "in the wild" is unchecked personal belief in authoritatively delivered 'fact'.

For many of us, The Santa Hoax was in fact the impetus to come to understand The God Hoax. This is an important thing to learn as a child: that people they respect can lie and that their peers can deliver to them lies told by those they respect, and that every belief deserves as big a helping of doubt as may be dished up, as often as the dishing serves.

There are limits: one or two big lies, one or two small ones, just enough to teach the principle, and revealed often and early enough that the lesson sticks.

I don't think you need worry. Even without a parental endorsement of Santa or God, I still encountered plenty of liars, both amongst my peers and amongst adults in positions of authority; I certainly don't have any more personal belief in authoritatively delivered 'fact' than my peers who were raised with both ideas presented to them as true.

It's exactly the authority of parents that needs to be betrayed. It's that authority dimension of conservative thought that needs to be broken.

 

[southernhybrid]

In some respects I believe it is correct for parents to lie to children.

Parents have the responsibility to expose their kids to things that would be abjectly dangerous if encountered "in the wild", and one of the things that is abjectly dangerous "in the wild" is unchecked personal belief in authoritatively delivered 'fact'.

For many of us, The Santa Hoax was in fact the impetus to come to understand The God Hoax. This is an important thing to learn as a child: that people they respect can lie and that their peers can deliver to them lies told by those they respect, and that every belief deserves as big a helping of doubt as may be dished up, as often as the dishing serves.

There are limits: one or two big lies, one or two small ones, just enough to teach the principle, and revealed often and early enough that the lesson sticks.

I never thought of my parents telling me about Santa as a lie. I just thought of it as playing pretend. Don't we all pretend to some extent? We fantasize about things that we want to happen, even if to some extent, we may realize we are just fantasizing. Sometimes we pretend we aren't who we really are. Sometimes fantasy, dreams and pretense help get us through the day, But, we are all a bit different in how we are impacted by things like this, so if other people feel they are lying to their children by playing along with the Santa fantasy, I can. understand their point of view.

I stopped believing in Santa at a very early age because once I thought about it, it made no sense that one entity could travel around the world in a sled, climb down chimneys, and deliver gifts to children around the world. When I asked my mom if Santa really existed she asked me what I thought. I told her it was made up and it was parents who gave their children gifts. She told me I was right.

It took longer to realize that god was made up because I was deeply indoctrinated into that belief. When I told some of my teenage church friends something like, we had been fooled and there was no way a god was going to send all non believers to hell, one of them looked at me, and said, "You think too much. Don't think so much about it." I will never forget that moment. it proved my point.

 

[steve_bank]

One can be cynical about a simple childhood myth of Santa Claus.

 

[Jarhyn]

In some respects I believe it is correct for parents to lie to children.

Parents have the responsibility to expose their kids to things that would be abjectly dangerous if encountered "in the wild", and one of the things that is abjectly dangerous "in the wild" is unchecked personal belief in authoritatively delivered 'fact'.

For many of us, The Santa Hoax was in fact the impetus to come to understand The God Hoax. This is an important thing to learn as a child: that people they respect can lie and that their peers can deliver to them lies told by those they respect, and that every belief deserves as big a helping of doubt as may be dished up, as often as the dishing serves.

There are limits: one or two big lies, one or two small ones, just enough to teach the principle, and revealed often and early enough that the lesson sticks.

I never thought of my parents telling me about Santa as a lie. I just thought of it as playing pretend. Don't we all pretend to some extent? We fantasize about things that we want to happen, even if to some extent, we may realize we are just fantasizing. Sometimes we pretend we aren't who we really are. Sometimes fantasy, dreams and pretense help get us through the day, But, we are all a bit different in how we are impacted by things like this, so if other people feel they are lying to their children by playing along with the Santa fantasy, I can. understand their point of view.

I stopped believing in Santa at a very early age because once I thought about it, it made no sense that one entity could travel around the world in a sled, climb down chimneys, and deliver gifts to children around the world. When I asked my mom if Santa really existed she asked me what I thought. I told her it was made up and it was parents who gave their children gifts. She told me I was right.

It took longer to realize that god was made up because I was deeply indoctrinated into that belief. When I told some of my teenage church friends something like, we had been fooled and there was no way a god was going to send all non believers to hell, one of them looked at me, and said, "You think too much. Don't think so much about it." I will never forget that moment. it proved my point.

My point is that as an atheist, the smaller myth of Santa is a good stepping-off point for the bigger myth of Jesus, as there are strong parallels between the corrupt motive of "for gifts" and "for heaven".

 

[steve_bank]

A kid goes from Santa Claus to believing we are in a simulation.

Should we stamp out all forms of myths and raise kids in a sterile stern logical environment?

 

[Jarhyn]

It would seem someone doesn't know how to tell the difference between believing that all belief in God is both unnecessary and equivalent to the belief that we are in a simulation, and belief that belief that such is necessarily true.

Steve, when you can understand "I don't believe it is the case cosmologically speaking that we are a simulation, but it is logically valid as a conclusion that creation reduces to simulation", get back to me and maybe we can have an adult conversation.

 

[steve_bank]

I have no problem with beliefs as long as it stays within the law and leaves me alone.

Obviously I have issues with American Christianity, bit I understand why someone would believe in Christian god. I don't begrudge anyone their beliefs.

Sneering at a childhood myth like Santa Claus represents to me a kind of bitterness. Who was it that called Chrtimas humbug?

Only the very young do not realize it is not real. Commercialization aside, Christmas that grew put of A Christmas Carol is a social ritual that people enjoy.