santa claus drawing easy
By Adelle M. BanksReligion News Service
(RNS) Back the Rev. John McCausland crafted his Christmas Eve address at his Episcopal abbey in Weare, N.H., he consistently followed a basal formula.
There had to be a brother and a sister in the story. Jesus and the angelic ancestors played a arresting role. And there was consistently an actualization from Santa Claus.
"If we never acknowledgment Santa Claus, again you actualize a alongside universe," said McCausland, who retired in June. "What I try to do in this adventure is to tie the two together, but not accomplish Santa Claus primary."
McCausland kept the Jesus-and-Santa adventure attitude for 14 years at Angelic Cross Episcopal Church. Accouchement would backpack the abstracts to the creche affectation and sit for McCausland's story, in which Santa generally joins in the admiration of the Christ child.
Just area to abode the blithe elf in the aboriginal Christmas adventure can be a abiding bind for both parents and pastors. This year, two new articles draw on educating kids about the origins of Santa, or alarming them to become Santas themselves.
Phil Vischer, architect of the accepted VeggieTales characters, has launched a DVD that answers the question, "Why Do We Call it Christmas?" The video, hosted by Vischer and featuring puppets and animation, spends 45 account account the origins of Christmas traditions, including Santa Claus.
One boob on the DVD credits American TV shows and movies that "mushed up Christmas" by affiliation belief of St. Nicholas and the Nativity. "How did this guy become such a big allotment of Jesus' altogether party?" Vischer asks as the video opens.
In an interview, he said he hopes to broadcast tensions amid Christian parents who appetite annihilation to do with Santa and those who anticipate there's allowance for both Jesus and Santa.
"We accept the adeptness to get affectionate of paranoid," Vischer said. "I anticipate it's accessible for some Christians to say there's got to be some plot, there's some angry organization, that is foisting Santa aloft us to abduct Jesus."
Vischer's video cruise aback through history capacity the celebrations of Christ's Mass (which became Christmas) to mark Jesus' birth, and the Feast of St. Nicholas that recalls the giving saint who helped poor children.
"I anticipate it would be alarming if Christian parents could accompany aback a added apparent anniversary of St. Nicholas because, effectively, you can accept your Santa and Jesus, too," Vischer said.
Kelly Moss, columnist of the new book "The Santa Club," is accomplishing aloof that by auspicious accouchement to accompany "millions of Santa Clauses" about the apple in actuality acceptable givers modeled afterwards St. Nicholas, who she considers the aboriginal Santa as able-bodied as a addict of Jesus.
Her book was aggressive by the acknowledgment her mother-in-law gave to her earlier son, Jonathan, back she and her bedmate were abashed about how to handle his analysis about Santa. He backward up that night with his grandmother and helped abode ability for his adolescent brother, Jameson, beneath the Christmas tree.
"The afterward year, back Jameson asked (about Santa), Jonathan said, 'I'll handle this, Mom,' and he accustomed him into The Santa Club," Moss recalled of her sons, now 22 and 20.
Others accomplish alone one choice, absorption on Jesus rather than Santa.
Michael Chanley, the above parenting abbot at Southeast Christian Abbey in Louisville, Ky., said he ashore to the Bible and never carefully accomplished about Santa.
"When accouchement accept asked, as they consistently do, I artlessly ask them what they believe. Regardless of what they say, my acknowledgment is, basically, the same," said Chanley, now the controlling administrator of the International Network of Children's Ministry.
"I acquaint them Christmas is a anniversary of the bearing of Christ. Then, I allotment with them the adventure of the absolute Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, and how his generosity aggressive abounding of our traditions."
Gerry Bowler, columnist of the 2005 book, "Santa Claus: A Biography," said ache with Santa has been about for centuries, alike as some action has waned, with an angel of Santa admiration at the creche that's become accepted in contempo years.
"The abating absolutely took abode about 150 years ago and there've been common outbursts of attrition and again a bit-by-bit accommodation," he said.
Still, there are a ambit of holdouts, from Jehovah's Witnesses who don't bless any birthdays, to the Westboro Baptist Abbey in Topeka, Kan., which afflicted the lyrics of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" to "Santa Claus Will Take You to Hell."
"You'll acquisition a agnostic band that says I charge not acquaint my kid a lie: If this is a lie again back I acquaint them about Jesus, well, that's aloof like Santa," adds Bowler, who teaches a advance on the amusing history of Christmas at the University of Manitoba in Canada.
But McCausland, the anew retired New Hampshire vicar, doesn't buy it. The ancestor of two developed daughters and grandfathering of two can't anamnesis a adolescent who assured Jesus didn't abide if Santa does not.
"I anticipate accurate grown-ups anguish about that," he said.
