As Christmas roles around again, out pops Santa from the closet with bound-full exuberance ready to captivate the hearts of young children.
Somewhere in the back corner of the closet is God. Stored away, forgotten, and not given much interest at all.
One character, – who is not real and is the encouraged apple of children’s excitable eye for 1 day of the year.
The other, – who is real and is constantly interested in all people, not just children and is available 24/7 for eternity.
But who gets the most attention?
And why is that a problem?
For generation upon generation particularly in the Western World, the encouragement of children to believe in Santa as real, is considered an “innocent thing”, “no big deal”, “it’s all in fun”.
However, if we loved our children as we like to claim that we do, why do we knowingly and purposefully lie to them? There is nothing innocent in that.
At some stage cracks in the lie are going to appear and the truth will come out.
The discovery of the lie may come to a child as a great disappointment.
Primarily, because they were encouraged to wholeheartedly believe something told to them by their parent and supported by the world, that was a known lie.
The side-effect is that young children learn to not trust in their own feelings, not trust those that are supposed to love them, and lose faith in truth being a good thing.
At an age when children are so impressionable, to manipulate them for some fun, is not fun, and definitely not love.
All that said, yet a further hidden damage can occur.
If you examine the entities of Santa (fantasy) and God (real) side by side, you may begin to see something.
SANTA
- No one has ever seen Santa
- Brings gifts once a year in a magic sort of way
- Gifts brought are material
- Gifts want for more next year
- Regarded as a jolly, happy character
- Gift not given if you are naughty
- Completely separate person from your parents
- Can reach the whole world in a night
- Has special powers that can’t be explained
- Santa has helpers
- Santa is not of this world
- Creation of commerce to be monetised
GOD
- No one has even seen God
- Gives abundant gifts 24/7 to everyone if their desire is in harmony with the laws of love
- Gifts are spiritual,emotional and by proxy also material
- God’s gifts satisfy yet God still wants to give more
- Loving, compassionate, very fair, joyous character
- Gifts not recognisable when you disobey laws of love, yet always available to even the greatest sinner
- Completely separate person from your parents
- God is personally available to every individual, in the whole universe in an instant
- Has eternal powers that can be explained.
- God has helpers
- God is not of the material world
- Monetised by religions
There are some seeming similarities at play.
Because of this, when the lie is exposed about Santa, this can also translate to God as well.
That God is not real either!
Hope for a loving entity beyond your parents is now tainted.
There is very little enthusiasm to have an interest in an entity again that you can’t see.
Once bitten, twice shy!
An emotional barrier has been created that shuts down the childs desire to connect to God which carries on very likely for the rest of their life.
This only leaves parents as the ones to educate and guide the child about its self and all things in life. Not a very reliable source it seems!
The desire to feel about a loving outside source is never again considered.
While there are many other contributing barriers in life that damage a potential personal connection to discover God’s real character and nature, trying to maintain the Santa fantasy is a very easy one to eliminate.
The mythical Santa is not the enemy here.
It’s the motivation to continue imposing the lie upon children that is.
Santa is just one of many lies passed on from generation to generation.
To address these lies, seeing the damage caused in them, and correct them, is the most loving gift a parent could give a child for Christmas, and for life.
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