Santa Trials

 When you hear the word Christmas, what do you think of? Perhaps you'll think of presents piled under a tree, snow flakes covering windows, baking cookies, or listening to Christmas music. While all these things are lovely, we must not forget why we are celebrating.
  Even though Jesus' birth was not even technically in December, we say we are celebrating Him. But are we really?  I've noticed that for many people, Santa Claus is the center of Christmas. Sometimes he's even called "Father Christmas". While many people think it's no big deal, and say that it helps to make the season "magical" for children, I disagree. After all, it is Christmas.
  .
  Often, Santa Claus is straight out replacing God. Think about it—"he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!"  You could even replace Santa's name with Jesus' in this song and it would be correct.
  In a Christmas movie we watched recently, an elf got out the book of Santa's mistakes, and showed the others that it was empty. So apparently, Santa makes no mistakes.
  I recently saw something that said, "Santa is promoting me to big sister." Now babies come from Santa?
  The chocolate dollar bills they sell around Christmas time with Santa's face on them say, "In Santa we trust."
 
  Aside from all these things, I think it's dishonest.
 
  So there are some of my opinions. We still watch Christmas movies about Santa Claus, and sing songs that mention him, but we don't put him higher up then he should be.

  What do you think about Santa Claus?