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to believe in santa or not to believe in santa? that is the question.
Hey, so i haven't even had my child, & i know i have a while before it comes up, but it's my first & the father & i disagree on whether or not to raise our child(ren) to believe in Santa. he believed in Santa & i didn't, but we both love the holiday just as much. so i'm curious about experienced parents & mommy-to-be's opinions on having your kids believing in Santa Claus. i'm not religious & i realize christmas is based off of a Christian holiday, but i celebrate it for my own personal reasons.
i'm not looking for a religious/political discussion on the history of the holiday or any of that because i have my beliefs just like everyone else has theirs & no one is going to change them, just like i won't change yours. i'm simply looking for people's opinion & experiences of their children (or themselves) believing in Santa. that's it.
i'm not looking for a religious/political discussion on the history of the holiday or any of that because i have my beliefs just like everyone else has theirs & no one is going to change them, just like i won't change yours. i'm simply looking for people's opinion & experiences of their children (or themselves) believing in Santa. that's it.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: to believe in santa or not to believe in santa? that is the question.
I can't get the ticker to work, but I have two sons:
Baby RJ, born 1/25/2014
Formerly Twilightmv
Btw, YW.
We will share all the stories and songs and fun but I'm not going to present it as any more (or less!) "real" than any other story.
If I am asked whether Santa is "real" we will read The Velveteen Rabbit together and I will tell him that Santa is real in exactly the same way.
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes presuming there is at least one good child in each.
Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.
Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household -a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks (PF&D). This means Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second = 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe,moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the “flying” reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with eight or even nine of them—Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch) which could not be supported by the average roof. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance that would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth’s atmosphere.
The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g’s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4.3 million pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.
Therefore, if Santa did exist, he’s dead now.
One thing I wonder about is why parents who aren't religious/don't believe in Jesus and won't bring him up in the Christmas discussion, are some of the same parents who allow/encourage their children to believe in Santa.
I guess my thoughts on this are, weather you believe in Jesus or not, he (or his story) is the entire reason that we started celebrating Christmas. If you choose to celebrate Christmas, wouldn't it be okay and of some historical value to at least give some sort of a background to who he is without pushing it on your kids as a belief?
In my head, it feels contradictory to say "we won't mention Jesus because he's not real but we will let them believe Santa is because it's fun.
I am 99% sure that I don't believe in Jesus, but the part of me that knows that I can't prove otherwise might be making me a little biased on this. Maybe someone can share their thoughts on this?
100% Santa!!!!
Santa and Jesus are welcome here.
Lying to kids is absolutely necessary in many situations.
I still think its great to teach your children the other reasons for celebrating Christmas and I do the same with mine.
---guess who watched Elf last night?!
A Christian holiday honoring the birth of Jesus Christ, Christmas evolved over two millennia into a worldwide religious and secular celebration, incorporating many pre-Christian, pagan traditions into the festivities along the way. Today, Christmas is a time for family and friends to get together and exchange gifts.
https://www.history.com/topics/christmas
And to clarify, I'm not arguing it's history that Jesus is the actual son of God but there was someone who people believed to be the son of God and the celebration of (Christ)mas started due to people's belief in him.
Harry Styles = Life Ruiner
There’s a lightning in your eyes I can't deny
Then there’s me inside a sinking boat running out of time
Without you I'll never make it out alive
But I know, yes, I know we’ll be alright
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
J. 1.14.13 my reason for breathing
Pretty much every culture ever in the history of humanity has had some sort of winter celebration. Modern Christmas celebrations, even for devout Christians, are a mashup of traditions pre-dating Christianity. Jesus's birthday was added as a reason for celebration, not the other way around. there would definitely still be Christmas without Jesus, it would just have a different name. If you want to be historically accurate when your kids ask about Christmas, you're going to explain Saturnalia from Ancient Rome and pagan Yule celebration? Or are you just going to keep it simple and relevant to your family's belief system?
This is valid and something to consider. The name still comes from Christ though.
I am Christian and I see no problem with this. It's fun! It's a joyful spring celebration! Woohoo!!!
Really the Christians just stole all the Pagan holidays and renamed them to something that fit their dogma. The whole damn situation is based on theft and lies, but its fun and awesome for kids andplusalso gifts and chocolate.
So really everyone wins, right?
~*~*~You're Such A Pretty Melody, I'm Just Another Tattooed Tragedy~*~*~