After researching my last post I found out a whole heap of stuff about the Christmas story that I knew nothing about.
Now I have to try and boil it all down into something that I can tell a three year old and something that I can believe myself.
I have also found it quite confronting to examine my own thoughts on the subject. The problem is that whether you believe in it or not Jesus is the reason for the season.
There is also no point trying to ignore Santa as he is everywhere and so one has to find a way to meld them together coherently into some sort of Christmas story.
Growing up as I did in a western developed Christian country makes it extremely difficult not to believe in God and Jesus. I wonder how I would feel about it if I grew up in a Buddhist or Muslim country. I guess we will never know.
Maybe all the different organized religions are essentially just cultural interpretations of the same living energy that we call God?
Anyway…in our family, Christmas is Jesus’ birthday with Santa fitting in neatly as a follower of Jesus’ teachings.
Here is the Christmas story we have been telling our toddler.
God made the world. One day God decided that he would send his Son into the world to teach us how to be more like God.
God sent an angel to tell Mary and Joseph that they would be having a baby. Christmas day is the day we celebrate the birth of that little baby who was to be named Jesus.
Happy Birthday Jesus!
Jesus was born in a town called Bethlehem and he would grow up to bring much love and goodness into the world. This is why a lot of people celebrate his Birthday.
He was a good and kind man who helped the poor and the sick and taught people how to be more like God by loving.
On Christmas day the story of Jesus is celebrated by many people who give gifts to one another. One such man whose name was Santa Claus wanted to be like Jesus so much that on Christmas day he would give as many gifts as he could to people in need.
Santa would place the gifts in people’s houses while they were asleep and in the morning they would find the gifts but not know who they were from.
Every year on Christmas Eve Santa Claus travels far and wide to deliver gifts to all the children who are good and kind to each other just like Jesus. In the morning the children open their gifts and everyone celebrates with food and drink and thanks.
Happy Birthday Jesus…
This is a beautiful story. Very nice way to link Jesus and Santa.
Agree on the point that it is all the same God, we just call it differenly according to our culture and tradition.
Merry Xmas to you and your family!
We will serve only one God. It is not all the same God. God of Jacob, the God of David that is the father of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. That is the true God. The other stories told in other religions/cultures don’t tell that same truth. It cannot be the same God. There is only one truth not many different truths.
In actual fact Lorena some of the other religions do tell the same truth. All of the themes are the same only the packaging is different. Is not the God of Jacob and David also the God of Abraham? Is not Abraham also the father of Judaism and Islam?
How can one say that their truth is the only truth? A mountain has many sides and even though it may look different depending on where you are standing and how the sun is shining it is still only one mountain. I am sure that what Jesus was teaching was love and inclusiveness not exclusivity and division.
Just to take it one step further Lorena, maybe the one true God we have to serve is that little piece of God that is within each of us i.e. If we are true to ourselves then perhaps we are being true to what God made us to be?
Have you read the Bible…cover to cover? It was 100% inspired by God, and in it He says, I am God and there is no other. He made the mountains and can orchestrate life however He chooses.
I like your monolog for kids, but it leaves out the whole main point – sin. Jesus came to save us by His perfect blood to die for our sin in our place, then to prove He is God, He rose again.