Growing up, we always had a Santa in our Christmas, both at home and my Mormon ward. At home, Santa would always bring the large gift for each of the children. I was probably in 3rd grade when I figured out what was really happening. At ward Christmas parties, one of the ward members would dress up like Santa, and kids would sit on his lap for photos, and to tell him what they wanted for for Christmas. Recently I’ve seen less Santa at Church Christmas parties, ands more of a Christ centered program.
There is no directive from the Church via the Handbook regarding Santa at the parties, so it is up to the discretion of the Bishop. When I was Bishop, I think we alternated it, with one year a Santa party, and the next a more Christ centered theme.
My father, though not a large man, started playing Santa years ago with the help of padding, and even went so far as purchasing his own Santa suit when the ward provided suit started to fall apart. For many years the Bishop would ask him to deliver ward purchased gifts to families that needed help, dressed as Santa. This brought him great joy, and he still speaks fondly of those times.
What has been your experience balancing Santa vs Jesus in your Christmas celebrations? Do you still have Santa at Ward Xmas [1] parties? Or do you have a Bishop that prohibits Santa? Do you think Christians could balance both as my family tried? What is your thoughts on Santa given the real reason we are celebrating Christmas?
[1] No, I’m not taking Christ out of Christmas, I’m using the letter X as the Greek letter for Chi, which is the first letter in Christos, the Greek name of Christ. Using X for an abbreviation of Christ dates back to the 16th century.
Wheat & Tares 
The church moved several years ago to have everything have a priesthood purpose and this concept would cut Santa out of the Christmas party. I have not seen Santa at a Christmas party since that change was made about 20 years ago, but then I was in the Jello belt for the early part of that. So outside of conservative Utah Valley, Santa may still have been invited to Christmas parties. My wards Christmas party this year had a program made up of the full YW program which was 6 YW badly singing a song that 4 of then had never even heard before, the 15 primary children stumbling through a song they didn’t know, the YM not even showing up for an assigned musical number, and a spiritual reading by a counselor to the bishop. The best part of the whole dinner and show was the bishop’s matching suit, pants, and tie in a wild Christmas print. I love our bishop.
So, I suspect it is liberal and rouge bishops inviting Santa to the Christmas party now days because it is against the church’s move to make everything churchy with a priesthood purpose. Things are not always about Christ, but they think they have to kill the fun in order to be “spirtit’chal “. I used to love the Christmas parties where it was truly spiritual during the parts about Christ and then Santa came and we all laughed at the bishop dressed as Rudolph pulling Santa in a wagon.
In contrast, our ward Christmas party was neither spiritual or fun. It was painful to see the YW up there pretending to sing and embarrassed because they obviously had not practiced even once and the YM not even show up at the party. The primary children are always cute and lovable, but they couldn’t save the whole evening. Nor could the missionaries save the evening in their matching ugly sweaters given to them bu our wonderful bishop. Did I mention that I love our bishop? The dinner and program was near disaster, and even embarrassing in how bad it was.
The Christmas party used to be where we took friends and nonmembers. Now, my husband who is active is embarrassed to ask me who is inactive to attend with him. He actually apologized to me for how bad it was. That is a HUGE drop in quality because we don’t dare do anything fun. When did fun become a dirty word among Mormons? I don’t attend church because it damages my mental health, but I still love my Mormon tribe, and this hurts!
My CofC congregation has for many, many years done a Breakfast with Santa on the first Saturday in December. Sadly, the pandemic cancelled it last year and this, but maybe in 2022–fingers crossed. It’s a very big deal and attracts hundreds of folks, both members and nonmenbers alike. There’s free pancakes, kids get to sit on Santa’s knee (we take a photo for a dollar or people can just use their own cameras), and we clear out the entire sanctuary for a Christmas store where kids pick out gifts for family members at a very nominal cost. I’m pretty sure we didn’t set this all up as a way to clearly separate Santa from Christ at Christmastime, but that’s actually the effect. Last night’s Christmas Eve service was a beautifully spiritual experience, by the way, with a full house of masked attendees and streamed online.Anyway, I don’t think it has to be an either/or situation.Seems to me I’ve heard it said that “all things are spiritual,” so maybe the eye of the beholder is the key.
Growing up we always had a ward potluck and then sang Christmas songs because it was a ward *party,* and not a sacrament meeting or worship service. Our Sunday service prior to Christmas Day was the most Christ-centered meeting of the year. As a child I enjoyed both. The music at sacrament meeting was plentiful and was utterly wonderful. Even as a young child I remember being so moved by it and loving it. Equally, we loved our ward Christmas party because it was jovial, loud, and fun! At the end we sang Santa Clause Is Coming to Town and we had to sing it louder and louder and louder until Santa ran into the cultural hall to our delight. There wasn’t time for all of the children to sit on Santa’s lap, but we all received a small bag of candy. We loved it.
Even as a child I never conflated the secular celebration of Christmas (the Coca-Cola initiated commercial Christmas) with the Birth of Christ. I think my parents did a good job of placing emphasis on Jesus while also bringing in St. Nicholas. In our household we never saw Christmas a zero sum game where Jesus and Santa competed for attention.
Today I live in an extremely conservative and orthodox part of Utah Valley. Fortunately unfortunately the area in which I live is also not very thoughtful. As a result we are culturally orthodox (theology isn’t in the local lexicon) but also culturally in fashion, which means our ward Christmas party had a nativity scene program AND a cameo by Santa, much to the delight of all of the children. And why not?
Ward parties should be, well, parties. It’s a time when members can come and talk loudly and laugh and sit with people they don’t normally see, and talk and laugh, and laugh some more. It’s also a splendid and comfortable event for non-members or those less inclined to attend church on Sundays to come and be a part of the community. I hope the church never issues a policy that puts strict guard rails on ward Christmas parties. We need more ward parties, particularly now with so much division. Light, fun events seem to transcend the distrust so present in our society and, sadly, in many of our wards. Light-heartedness is a wonderful elixir for our times.
My grandmother grew up in the Mormon Colonies in Mexico. At her ward party Santa arrived. They didn’t have electricity yet. Santa started to light candles on the Christmas tree. He got too close to the tree and caught on fire.
Later that evening she saw her father puting salve medicine all over his limbs.
Santa should never be allowed at ward Christmas parties. Period.
The secular world celebrates a false Christmas that is nothing more than a commercial festival. Santa is the center of this festival as a promoter of greed and excess. Children expect the latest iPod and video game to be handed to them with no effort on their part whatsoever. Even the expectation that they be good has disappeared.
When wards give into this modern festival of greed and gluttony they do their members a real disservice. Especially the children. The real world won’t pass out goods and services just because someone expects it. The real world expects hard work in order to pay the bill.
The scriptures teach that man must earn his bread by the sweat of his own brow. It is time that wards return to teaching this lesson, rather than the false one that the modern Santa teaches.
Santa has been at every ward Christmas party I have been to in the USA, as far as I can remember, in both relatively liberal wards in California and conservative Utah wards.
I’m not a fan of the Santa game, but I wouldn’t stop other folk from playing. If I were to raise my kids over from scratch, I would tell them as early as possible that Santa is a game parents play with their children, and it’s our little secret – don’t tell your friends – that the parents put the gifts out at night; try not to let the secret out.
This is a little tangential to the question you’re asking, but since you brought up Jesus and Santa (and it’s something I’ve been thinking about this week)…
My young son got a lot of one-on-one time with his grandparents this week, which is awesome. But, it also means that Grandpa and Grandma had lots of opportunities to talk to him about Jesus which is something his mother and I don’t normally do. My parents know we’ve left the church but we haven’t established any boundaries that prevent them from talking to him about religious things. This is something I know we’ll have to address in the future (especially if topics such as worthiness or following the prophet come up), but for now we’re letting it play out.
We also don’t put a lot of emphasis on Santa at Christmastime, and when we do talk about him we tend to talk about him as a figure from stories like Batman and Luke Skywalker. My wife doesn’t like St Nick getting all the credit for the gifts, which I think is fair. But we did tell the kiddo his stocking stuffers were from Santa this year so we are playing the game, as Rockwell put it, to some extent.
If at some point my kid asks me, “Is Santa real?” I’m going to level with him. I want him to know he can always rely on me for a straight answer. And if he asks me whether Jesus is real? Well, the answer is a little more complicated. Obviously Jesus was a real person but whether Jesus the Christ, Savior of the World is real, that’s different. For me, based on my understanding of the NT’s creation and the level of trust I have in LDS prophets, he’s not. But it’s really a subjective thing that’s going to vary from person to person (I get the sense that most of the participants here on W&T are bigger believers in Jesus than I am and that’s cool).
So what do I tell him? Are the tenets of the larger family religion something I let him absorb only to pull back the curtain like we do with Santa Claus? Or do I make space for Jesus to be real—since in the eyes of so many family members he’s as real as I am?
Curious to hear from any of you how you handle this stuff with your kids.
We didn’t have Santa at our ward party, but the program was short and sweet, so I was happy.
We never pretended that Santa was real with our kids. We also didn’t make a point of being sour about “worldly” Christmas. We kept it light, but always told the Christmas story.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Most ward parties I’ve been to (both in the U.S. and Latin America) have had Santa. I’m fairly ambivalent about it. Our kids were around age 8 or 9 when we stopped pretending he was real but rather Santa is the spirit of selfless giving in secret. I get why the Church wants to shift attention away from Santa at parties. Just like ward basketball, road shows, scouting, and other activities that the church no longer does because they’re generally widely available in the community and not really scalable for a worldwide church, Santa can easily be found at the mall or Cabela’s for families who want it to be part of their tradition.
John Charity is right. When I was a child, we would have a simple bread and milk supper for the ward Christmas party. The program would consist of depictions of the Savior’s childhood. When it was over, each child would receive an orange and a small box of Cracker Jack.
Today’s parties consist of Santa being pestered by ungrateful children about a wish list over a mile long. It is an entitlement to these children, without gratitude.
The part Santa plays in this is not something that wards should be fostering. The First Presidency would never have Santa run into the stand during the Christmas Devotional.
Merry Christmas BB. Thanks for all the insightful posts.
The best ward Christmas party we ever attended was an adults only party. It was a sit down, semi-formal dinner The youth served as the wait staff. EQ presidency and their wives performed a humorous LDS version of 12 days. A member played a funny Christmas song on his guitar that he wrote. The bishop read the Christmas story. Then we sang carols with thr guitar player providing the accompaniment. No Santa. No over the top churchyness. Just a bunch of ward friends sharing time and talents together to celebrate the season.
From the very beginning we acted like Santa was for fun, not serious by joking and making it fun, same way we treated cartoons on TV and make believe story books. There is serious life and for fun life, and kids pick up the difference instinctively. When our kids got old enough to understand make believe and games we let them know that Santa was a game for fun. They were about 5-6 when we explained it. They were not a bit surprised. We explained that they didn’t need to spoil it for others. There was never any confusion that we thought Jesus was real and that Santa was make believe. But just like the letter of “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause” we explained that Santa is all about giving to others. You know, kinda like Jesus is all about giving to others, but Santa is make believe. We must of done something right because when our youngest was 10 he got cash from his grandparents and what he wanted to do with it was go to the mall and buy something for the Giving Tree to give to another child whose family couldn’t afford Christmas.
I genuinely don’t understand the either-or experience of some (here’s looking at you JCS). I don’t understand why there cannot be healthy doses of both. Santa can be fun and magical and teach us about selfless giving, but it’s also important not to set Santa up as a vending machine or portray Santa in a way that the poor are bad since Santa doesn’t visit them, or get upset if Santa didn’t give us everything we want.
I suppose everything I wrote above could equally apply to Jesus.
Our ward parties have always had Santa thankfully here in SoCal. We normally do a Sat morning breakfast in pajamas. It would be weird to turn a pajama party into a fireside. As others have mentioned above, we can still have Jesus devotionals on Sunday. But this particular venue is a party. Even Jesus attended a lot of parties; look it up. People need to lighten up.
I’m seeing a lot of social media posts of Mormons showing how they are reigning Santa in with extra doses of nativities and “eating fast food on the floor like Jesus did!” crap. It seems we never run out of ways to outdo each other. Good times.
One time my ward in northern Utah had an evening Christmas party. I think the primary president organized it. Families went by group “to Bethlehem to pay taxes”. There was a meal intended to feel like one Mary and Joseph may have eaten. It was ham and cheese served in pita pockets.
I don’t remember if Santa came, but I think so. The ward usually did include Santa. Why not?
If you look up St Nicholas, he lived during 300 AD. He came from a family who was very well off. He did not keep his inheritance for himself, but rather, gave it to the poor in secret. I love the story of him giving to 3 young sisters who needed a dowry to get married. He did not stay behind to ask for any thanks or take credit for his generosity. The Santa of today is not only magical, but also teaches young kids about serving others without expecting praise or a reward. I don’t think we need to vilainize him.
We had Santa at our ward party this year. He was in the hall taking pictures and it was fun! Once you came into the cultural hall, everything was beautiful and soft music was playing. I loved it. We definitely need more lightheadedness mixed with spiritual things.
We had a Santa at several ward parties in both California and Salt Lake for the few years. None in the Vegas area this year, though.
Showed up to the ward Christmas party and it was basically the ward Christmas sacrament meeting — musical numbers and a narration of the scripture story. In the chapel, no less. My kids had been looking forward to a “party” and instead got ambushed with another Sunday meeting. However, the promised refreshments turned out to be quite the spread and social hour, and I think it made it up to them. (It certainly did for me.)
Fast forward a week (and a day) to the Sunday before Christmas, when they repeated some of the same musical numbers and re-read the Christmas story. I don’t think anyone would’ve minded if they’d saved some of the songs for Sunday only, shortening the hour-long wait for refreshments.
I first heard about “shepherd’s dinner” from my Young Women leader, whose affluent family had that as a tradition on Christmas Eve. I thought, So that’s what rich people do for fun: Pretend to be poor. But the idea grew on me over the years, and I started doing it with my kids. One year my in-law visited and made us a traditional Christmas eve dinner from my husband’s family. My then-7-year-old was upset that I hadn’t bought flatbread and (non-alcoholic) sangria, like we had for several years. So I ran out looking for naan late Christmas Eve, and the tradition became firmly established. We even tried goat cheese one year, and then never again. But Larry, “ham”? Really???
Jesus and Santa are both liberals. I’m cool with that.
We’re in Virginia, and have almost always had a Santa aspect to the ward Christmas party. Usually something along the lines of a “special visitor” at 5:30, then the dinner starts at 6:30, so those that aren’t interested can easily avoid it.
The program varies wildly depending on who is planning it. A ward talent show with musical numbers, a sing-along, a reenactment of the Christmas story involving multiple staging areas around the room (and the participants struggling to squeeze between the tables to move between them), etc. Don’t know what they did this year, as it’s always a full house and there are less than a dozen folks in the ward who wear masks. Not quite ready for that yet.
As for Santa at home, most of what my kids got was from friends, school, etc. When asked, I’d always say he represented the spirit of Christmas and doing things for other people. Santa got credit for their stockings and a single gift each, as long as there was someone in the house who wanted that. I was happy when it ended, though, and I started getting credit. (Selfish? Maybe. I can live with that.)
The part that sent me scrambling was when the oldest asked why Santa only brought them one gift, while he brought the neighbors lots (think one medium sized LEGO set vs. six sets, including at least one big one, $40 vs. $400). The explanation we came up with was that, while Santa may bring the gifts, his budget is determined by the parents. Fortunately, that was enough to satisfy them.
@Laurel
Ham!
Cheese & ham, no less. Not kosher.
My mother-in-law goes out of her way to remind her grandkids and her kids about how Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. Every year, she insists on doing the family gift exchange not on the 24th (nor on the 25th) but on some other day in December. This year we did it on the 19th. On the 24th we have a different special gathering where the grandkids play out the nativity to Luke 2 and we sing, as grown adults, a most insufferable child’s song called “Happy Birthday Jesus” and eat a Jesus birthday cake afterwards. She seems to be among a group of highly conscientious Mormons who are ever so concerned that Santa and the commercialization of Christmas are hijacking a message about the birth of Jesus (a story about as believable as flying reindeer, although Jesus the man and the philosopher are certainly worthy of celebration. But Christmas is about the miraculous virgin birth and magical stars and wisemen, nonetheless), and are ever so worried that we forget about Jesus. If only they had the courage to take it up with their local leaders and area authorities to make church less about Joseph Smith and more about Jesus, that would make sense.
It’s funny you should mention this. I’ve spent the day watching documentaries about Christmas celebrations in Europe (Rick Steves, etc.), and it’s been interesting to me how traditions incorporate Saint Nicholas in religious ways–there doesn’t seem to be much of a conflict between him and Christ. The portrayal differs greatly from the commercial Coca-Cola Santa Claus. And I watch all the usual Christmas standards featuring Santa, but I did feel a bit of holy envy toward the humbler depictions of an early Christian saint.
When I was a missionary in Texas a few decades ago, all the evangelicals said that Mormons were bad for believing that Jesus and Santa were brothers. (I might have some letters mixed up somewhere!)
On a positive note, this is the first year I can remember hearing more in Sacrament Meeting about Christmas than tithing and Joseph Smith.
Awwwwww… Look Jesus and Santa are holding hands…
My two childhood hero’s really are friends.