Santa

Dinky Jr. and I love to play Battlefield 1942. It's not the killing. In fact, when he plays or when we play together, it's on a multiplayer map with no other players. His only interest is in learning how to fly the planes and choppers and drive the cars. Flying the Apache helicopter is my favorite thing to do. I've learned to do it with the keyboard which is rather difficult. I would love to have a joystick so that I could maintain rotor speed...right now it's either on or off, which makes flying in tight situations hard. When I was lamenting about this and the fact that I can't afford a joystick to my boy, he said, "We're going to see Santa at the party tonight, why don't you just ask him for one?" This morning he asked me if I had talked to Santa about it last night. I made like I was too shy to talk to Santa about it.

I have a hard time with the Santa thing. I feel like I'm lying to the kids. They're so sure that he's a real person. What do you do when they ask him for something you can't afford or hadn't planned on giving them? And when they find out he's not real, how do they continue believing in Jesus Christ who has many of the same characteristics? He's charitable and loving...and even more invisible than Santa. Santa is at the mall, after all. One of the things I love about my children is their unabashed belief in things they cannot see and in what we tell them is true. Right now, they believe in both Santa and Jesus. How do I help them keep their faith in Christ when their faith in Santa has been shattered? How will they still believe in me?