St. Nicholas

[franciscanheart]

amen, cmom. amen.

[Christie_M]

[quote name='tomasio127' date='Dec 7 2005, 01:51 PM']

or

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um. ?

[quote name='Nathan' date='Dec 7 2005, 03:48 PM']If I ever get married and have kids, I think I'll do the whole Santa Claus thing, too -- at least in the early years of childhood (8 or 9 would be pushing it a little). I think it's important that little children have their imaginations and sense of wonder stimulated like that, through positive mythology like Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. It's a good, clean, safe introduction to the Real Thing: Christ.
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same here. though I would rather my kids beleive in St. Nicholas for the Santa.
Did you know that if you say Santa Clause realy fast it sounds like St. Nicholas??

[sraf]

Up on the housetop, reindeer pause: Out comes good old Santa Claus! Down through the chimney with lots of toys, all for the little one's Christmas joys. Ho! Ho! Ho! Who wouldn't go? Ho, ho ho! Who wouldn't know - Up on the housetop, click, click, click, down through the chimney wi' Good Saint Nick!
*AHEM*
[quote]The surrender of Christmas to a morphed form Odin, the so-called Santa, is worse than our surrender of All Hallow's Eve to the pagans.[/quote]
First of all, Christianization ROX. Unless you're a pagan.
Secondly: If you believe in the Collective Unconcious, as Jungians do, then you postulate a realm of archetypes such as the Wise Old Man, the Earth Mother, the Trickster, the Fool, etc. These elements show up again and again in so many different cultures, often with shocking similarities even when the people making them are continents - even oceans - apart. When people loose these myths, we lose some of ourselves. Perhaps that is why we attempt to consume and consume so much, trying to make up for a lack of real myth which can teach us some very real things without detracting from the reality of God.
(Myths and legends are masks that God wears...)
Christians do need some elements of these myths: how often is God the Father shown as a Wise Old Man? When the Wise Old Man needs to come down into less-uber-Christian mainstream, it trickles into Santa Claus. (Mary can be perceived as the Earth Mother or a number of other things.)

Yes, Virginia (confirmation name, ahem) there is a Santa Claus. And when he leaves the world, we will be depleted of myth.
Long live myth.

[cmotherofpirl]

There is nothing wrong with reading your children "The Night before Christmas", the probem is teling them its true.

[sraf]

Exactly. Thank you. :