a grinchy bump

Your a mean one, mister Grinch.

BTW - Kwanzaa is a cultural festival intended to add to the Christmas festivities, not supplant them.

How come you don't have Santa Claus or gifts at your house?

Hi, Diana -- I'm pasting below some stuff I wrote about our Christmas traditions on the parenting page:

My partner and I are both United Church ministers, and really wanted to create rituals for our family that would help our kids grow up knowing the stories of their faith, the practices that nurture the soul, and so on.  I grew up with Santa Claus but I'm not the hugest fan, one reason being that, on a global scale, it doesn't work -- there are millions of children who do not receive enough to eat, let alone gifts, so the myth that "all good children get a present on Christmas Day" is, unfortunately, cruelly untrue. But the most important reason was that I wanted to get back to the original myth/stories of St.Nicholas before Clement Moore and the Coca Cola company got hold of him!

In our house, we celebrate for a whole month.  December 6th is St.Nicholas' feast day.  The night before, we hang up stockings, and on the 6th, we find that they are filled with mandarin oranges (a symbol of St. Nicholas, and a beloved hold-over from my christmasses past!) and chocolate coins.  We tell the story of St.Nicholas anonymously giving money to a poor family so that their daughters could marry.  We choose a way to give anonymously like St.Nicholas, either that day, or beforehand in preparation for it.  We often buy a gift from a charity's giving tree for a child in need, or buy warm clothes to donate through the homeless mission in our town.  We always enclose a card from St. Nicholas.

Christmas Eve and Day are celebrations of Jesus' birth -- going to church, baking a birthday cake, playing with our playmobil nativity set (!), family time.  We visit with family when the gift-giving part of the day is over at others' homes.  We do not exchange gifts at all.

On January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany, we celebrate the visit of the Magi.  I had read about a tradition of leaving hay and water and boots on the front stoop the night before, and this is what we do.  The hay and water are for the camels, as the Magi pass by on their way to find the Christ child.  A present is left in the boots of each of my children, as a token of thanks, and a connection to the gifts given to Jesus.  This also helps when they return to school after winter break and have something to show when the other kids are talking about their Christmas presents.  Plus, I love to buy things for my kids!

So that's our traditions -- connected to Christian stories, with plenty of magic and mystery, and opting out of the commercialized Christmas.  When people ask, "how far along are you with your Christmas shopping," I can cheerfully respond, "Oh, actually, we send cards but we don't do presents at Christmas.  It is wonderfully freeing!"  It often starts a conversation.

BTW -- my boys (10 and 6) know the connection between St.Nicholas and Santa Claus, and we taught them from a very young age to not interfere with anyone else's traditions of Santa.  If asked, they simply say, "We don't celebrate Santa Claus at our house."

Blessings!

Praise to you and your family!! What great memories you are passin gon to your children. Teh ideas are great and celebrating the Magi with hay and water are a great way of adding to the Jesus birth story. Thank you for leting us know about it. Good luck in staying away from Santa and those questions about what the boys want for ChristmasAt my church we have a birthday cake on Christmas Eve and sing Happy Birthday Jesus!

Have a great family time on Dec. 25.

Your traditions sound very lovely, clergychickita - thanks for sharing that.

We do Santa with a twist.  I've always been bothered by that "good children get presents" aspect of Santa as well, so I told my children that Santa is the angel of Christmas, who inspires us to love - and the gifts that we give are from us, out of that love.   Pretty cheesy, I guess......but I couldn't think of another way to explain myself when I ask my children to help pick out gifts for children in need.  And when the kids ask if Santa is real, I say, yes, but in a way you'll understand when you're older.   And I hope one day they will!

Hi clergychick...fabulous traditions!!  We've always exchanged gifts but I've never promoted Santa, toothfairy, easter bunny as it felt wrong to lie to my boys.  I know it's all in fun and have no judgement about it for others, but we're science nuts in this family and there is enough mystery in the universe to satisfy seeking minds...

i love the santa thing.  i tend to spend as little time as possible in the malls etc. at this time of the year, as i get most of my shopping done well before december.  the most i see is on the christmas specials on tv.

So who hasn't gone to the CHF website and donated a donkey yet?

IT

Russ

No donkey, but a goat!