The way I always saw Christmas/Santa/Jesus (as a kid) was thusly:

Jesus was born and he was our Savior. When he was born, people wanted to show how happy they were He was born and they brought Him gifts to show Him. Santa Claus celebrates Jesus' birthday by giving gifts to all of Jesus' children to remind children that He (Jesus) loves them and wants the children should give to other's to also show them that Jesus loves them.

Now, written out like that, it sounds very shallow and "Gifts = Love", but in my heart, it's more about the giving - whatever it may be. As an adult, it's very much the same but in a larger sense of giving. Does that make any sense?

Like I've said before, she bestows at least 5 nicknames on EVERYONE. Even the dog. Even Santa Claus.]

THAT'S why she kept calling me "Steve-o-rino"...

If she had, it SO wouldn't surprise me.

Sometimes the label will match the gift, like a bottle of wine of from Drunken Elf.

It's nice that Drunken Elf is not so much of an alcoholic that he keeps all the booze to himself....

In the post-divorce days, Mom suggested that instead of leaving milk and cookies for Santa (aka Channey), we leave a beer.

No, really.

Santa Claus celebrates Jesus' birthday by giving gifts to all of Jesus' children to remind children that He (Jesus) loves them and wants the children should give to other's to also show them that Jesus loves them.

I like this too. And I don't think it's shallow to equate gifts with love. I mean, that's *supposed* to be why we do it.

I also like what JZ mentioned earlier (or JZ via Hec) about how there was a St. Nick - and how he was giving gifts, right?

Here in PR, St. Nick brings presents and instead of cookies, you are supposed to leave a box of grass out for his camels. I think it's St. Nick - I'll have to check.

eta: The grass is actually for the camels of the Three Kings. The grass goes under the child's bed and then in the morning, the grass is gone and there are the presents.

My dad used to make us kids feel guilty for being excited about christmas presents, because the holiday was supposed to be about Jesus's birth.

Which is why the South Park flick "The Spirit of Christmas" so cracked me up. When Santa and Jesus are fighting and the kids are cheering "Go Santa! Go Santa!" and Jesus turns and gibes them a dirty look so they start cheering for Jesus instead.....

Classic.

Unless I had a partner with strong feelings about it, I don't think I'd do the Santa thing with a child. For one thing, I don't really know how, and for another I don't really feel like I suffered from the lack.

This. My parents were shocked to find out a few years ago that none of us kids were planning on elaborately doing Santa with our kids (I'll probably go get pictures at the mall. That was as "Santa" as any of us planned to get). Apparently they had much guilt that they didn’t give us that magical part of Christmas and were certain we’d give the true magic of Christmas to our kids. Cracked me up.

As a side note, as a Christian, it's important to me that Ellie understand that in our family, the story of Jesus' birth is not a fairy tale. How does she differentiate between a fun story her parents tell her for the magic of it and a religious tradition that we believe is grounded in truth?

Yeah, this is a tough one. One tradition that my immediate family didn’t do, but my aunt and uncle did with their kids (and we spent many Christmases with them) was “Jesus Birthday Cake.” Breakfast on Christmas morning was always some sort of sweet breakfast food. We’d sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and talk about the importance of the day.

Then we’d go open the stockings that Santa brought.

Damn. I can see the problem with this. She might not get it this year or next, but I bet after that she would.

Happy Birthday Emeline. I miss you something fierce.

My parents always made a thing of Christmas and I never felt betrayed or fooled when I found out Santa was real. I think I gradually figured it out and then tried to delay it so I could keep believeing in Santa.

I was raised Christian and I don't think there was ever a time that I thought because Santa (and the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy) weren't real that Jesus wasn't real either.

Santa was cool, but a once a year thing in our lives, but Jesus is every day.

vw-- My extended family did the Jesus Birthday Cake! I don't think we actually sang happy birthday but we had a Jesus Birthday Cake.

Thanks for the ~ma, guys. I'm pretty depressed about this. When he first went into the hospital, the doctors were all "Oh, gall bladders are routine! He'll be playing tennis tomorrow!" And then he didn't get scheduled for surgery for another 3 days due to a totally inexcusable series of fuckups, and then when he was out of surgery he wasn't able to be extubated for another 2 days but the nurses were all saying "Oh, this is totally normal for a man his age, he'll be fine" and now he has pneumonia and we've had to start talking about DNR plans. Happy fucking Thanksgiving.

On a lighter topic, we always had gifts from Santa at my (Catholic) grandmother's house, but were never encouraged to "believe" in him as such because, well, Jewish. The gifts from Golo (the giant who lives in Granddaddy's head - different grandfather from the one above) were always much more special, because Golo is real. Golo's Norweigen rat friends Sven and Olaf are also real, but we never got presents from them because they are cheap bastards.

And Tep, good luck with the move! So exciting!

{{Jessica}} and much health~ma to your grandfather.

Universe, you are once again on notice.