'Be good and you'd get a present from santa' Anyone else feel this is wrong wrong wrong!

[tigermoth]

Over the years I admit I've have said to my son, only good children get presents from santa/me etc, but the more I think about it the worse this sentiment seems.

Do I really want my son to grow up believing that poor children are bad and rich children are good?
And the number of presents you get directly corresponds to how many brownie points you tot up? Is christmas just a reward ceremony?

And what sort of man is this santa anyway? If he's this jolly and generous chap, the spirit of christmas, would he really forget naughty children? And what sort of parent am I, that my generosity is conditional? What happened to unconditional love, that thing parents are meant to have?

I'm not saying do away with santa - I just think he's not meant to judge children.

Could you actually resist buying a particular present just because your child hadn't been good enough? I don't think I could do this. I'm all for reward systems, but isn't christmas a time to call a truce?

PS sml if you are reading this, I've a feeling this topic was touched on while back as part of anothe topic - sorry if this is going over old ground for you!

hmb - historians have tracked down records kept during that time which clearly show a carpenter called Joseph and his wife Mary, both of whom were descendants from David, having a firstborn called Jesus in Bethlehem. They can also check the records of John the Baptist from historical accounts of that time, and of most of Jesus' apostles. No-one has ever denied the existence of Jesus, it's just a case of whether you believe he was the Son of God or not. But lots of Biblical references are true, such as the slaughter of innocents, the star shining at that time (only recently discovered), who the wise men were, etc etc. Most historians do take the Bible very seriously as the historical references it makes there, have found to be true and it gives a good indication of what life was like then, all the successors to the thrones, and so on.

Willow2, sorry I took you so seriously! I do agree with your point about Satan, I mean Santa! Now I come to think about it, he is always dressed in red too, has a legion of elves, rides on hoofed animals.....ooooh the comparisons!

I think you can do FC without lying to your kids. As a real tiddler I believed in FC, in the same simple way my ds (3yrs) does, becauses he sees pictures of him and I knew that he was associated with Christmas presents. As I grew older and started asking questions, I was told about St Nicolas and my mother explained how he had come to be known as FC. She said that FC(St Nicolas) lived through all the hearts of mummies and daddies who wanted to make Christmas really special for their children. She said that because of the tradition of St Nicolas giving gifts to children that were good, then the things we asked for from FC had to be presents that we were prepared to go without if we couldn't try to be good.
We never put mince pies out or carrots and I don't think we ever believed that FC was alive and we certainly didn't think that he came down the chimney, but we still enjoyed the fun side of writing our letters, burning them and hoping that we'd been good enough for FC to come.
I'm not sure I've explained that very well but basically we were never deceived. We were allowed to believe what we wanted until such time as we started being inquisative and then we were drip fed the truth behind the fantasy.
I still think that the analogy of FC living in the hearts of mums and dads is wonderful and I will definitely be telling my ds and dd that as soon as they are old enough to understand.

I am not at all connected with this group but did a quick search and came up with this lots of interesting quotes from encyclopeadias etc further down the article.

Had to laugh at their name - Demonbuster.com but the quotes are interesting.

Actually Bugsy - that was pretty much my experience. You put it very well.

Rhubarb,

I am very interested. Are the records dating from 3BC (or whenever)? and where were they found, and who were they by? Are they the Tax records, for example? I am interested, and this is not a snide comment

cant wait to get to easter!

Interesting if bonkers site, Demented. Doesn't Saturnalia sound fun!

sml - I was referring to the fact that the jolly, fat, red-suited Father Christmas image of todays society ( example ) was invented by Coca Cola in the 1930's. Previous incarnations include a gnome, a bishop and the green man of pagan legend here

hmb - go to this link here for a sweet and easy to read document about Jesus' birth and the proof offered in the Bible. Bascially the Romans were very good record-keepers, so for instance when Joseph went to register in Bethlehem, this register was the very first births and deaths register, and I believe it still exists. Other documents written at the time of Christ by nobles and the literate, tell the story of Jesus and his band of followers. All the historical content of the Bible has been proved accurate so far. Scientist do not criticise the Bible's genuineness as far as historical facts go, they just question the claims it makes in there.

Hope the link proves useful, it also goes a little into the history of Saint Nick! (Old Nick also being another title for Satan/Santa!)

Found another good one here that explains the accuracy of the Bible as a whole.

Anyone else think that Santa is the devil by the way?

I can corroborate what rhubarb says (I read philosophy at uni too), not that she needs back-up. It's all good historical fact.

Rhubarb

Santa can't be the devil unless Bill Gates is also Santa.

bill gates is satansanta?nooooo that would have to be george bush

It was an interesting read, but it would seem that the nearest date of a written supporting text is 100 years (or so) after the birth of Christ, Is this the case (It has been a very long day and I could have mis-read it)? Not that this disproves the historical case for Christ, but it is not the same as saying that there is a document that proves that a birth of a boy called Jesus occured to Mary and Joseph at the time expected. It proves that 100 years after the event people believed that this was the case. The two things are not quite the same. Are there any earlier texts, or is Heroditus the earlies non-christian supportive text ?

I was watching a documentary (I think it may have been the Jesus one last Christmas) that went back through the historical records and found the line of David. I'll see if I can find any sites on it for you.

I have found these two, this is quite good as it shows Jesus' family tree taken from the New Testament and two early historians, Josephus and Eusebius. And this which is more general proof of the existence of Jesus.

In finding Jesus ancestry, you have to go right back to the Old Testament, to the line of David. The Bible, in effect, gives us a family tree from Genesis onwards. But if you start with David, many of the figures the Bible mentions are real people mentioned elsewhere in history, on scribes and so forth. The Kings they mention are also real and ruled at the dates the Bible says they did. So we can follow the line from David right up to Joseph (and even Mary was a distant cousin of Joseph's, so she was from the line of David too). That Jesus himself existed is given in the last link and the first two. There are quabbles on the exact date he was born and so on, but most of the Biblical material concerning Jesus and the people around him is considered accurate.

Sorry, I've totally hijacked this thread now - maybe I should start another one, proof of Jesus? If anyone is interested I will, otherwise I will just go and stand in the corner again!

I think the document in question is mentioned in the dead sea scrolls? I might be wrong though.

This is all very interesting (genuinely - I am a non-believer, but interested in religion, and would be interested in your thread rhubarb), but I am going to return to the original topic.

I am with sml. I resent the implication that by not perpetuating the FC myth I am denying my children some essential part of childhood. I choose to celebrate Christmas despite not holding any religious beliefs because I feel they would be missing out without it. But Christmas is more that just FC and presents. For us it's about family, and love - the whole peace on earth and good will to all beings type of thing, and I try to carry this through in the way we celebrate.

I do believe make-believe and fantasy is important, but IMO this should be from their imaginations - that is the whole point of make believe. If it's a wholesale myth that everyone talks about, and everyone believes in then it's not them using their imaginations is it? Does that make sense?

I want to instill in my children a deep love of the magic in nature, and the chance to enjoy every aspect of their childhoods for as long as possible (part of my reason for HE, but thats another thread!). I think this is far more important than some myth (and note how careful I'm being not to use the word lie!) which encourages materialism and peer pressure.

Oh and all you pro's please stop twisting the words of us anti's. Oh and just for the record, on the issue of sex-ed, my son is 4, the whole sex issue hasn't come about yet, but he has had a very careful explanation of periods already. He asked and I told him the truth. I think that's important.

anais, ooooooooooooooooh!!!!!!!!!!

(sorry, couldn't resist. We should have sound effects really.)

Lol Droile. Sorry I really shouldn't post when I'm tired, it wasn't meant tocome across quite so stroppy

Rhubard *(and Crunchie!!) interesting you say that christmas is taken from a pagan festival. I have always wondered if it was taken from the jewish festival of Channukah. Same time of year and same ideas, i.e. giving presents, and the candle arches you see everywhere at xmas, are the same as channukah candles i.e. the Minorah.

After all it wopuld make more sense as Jesus and his followers were all jewish and were used to the channukah winter festival.

Lil, just about every religion past and present has had near identical myths, celebrations and traditions - virgin births, concealed babies, resurrection, winter festivals - the lot. Us non-believers tend to think this shows up the fact that none of them are true (bit too much of a coincindence) but I expect believers would say this just proves they are true, and that's why they are universal.

But this isn't an attempt to restart the religion thread - even though it was one of the most interesting and, oddly, non-personal, unaggressive threads I could imagine, given the controversial nature of the beast.

That is because we are all so nice

Lil, I have got to say the present giving of Channukkah seems to have come about because of Christmas, it isn't such a tradition.

My feeling is that there is always a need for a mid-winter festival, Channukkah (the fesital of light) is very appropriate, as is Yule and Christmas. You only have to look at all of them to realise they all come from the same source and probably come from the need to celebrate in the darkness of midwinter.

The minorah (sp?) is all about the 8 days of the holy oil, and the whole story was about the destruction of the temple by the romans. Now I'm not sure about my dates, but I think this was about 70BC, therefore Channukkah is not that much older than christmas.