A few weeks ago, when our son William awoke from his nap, he said, “Mom, I want to talk.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Santa.”

It’s become a ritual. He stays in his crib, surrounded by his “sleep stuff,” and asks questions about the North Pole, Santa bringing presents, and … well, actually, it pretty much centers on Santa bringing presents. At one point, I decided I should try to reframe the narrative and introduce the spiritual aspects of the holiday. “You know, William, at Christmas, it’s Jesus’ birthday. We give presents to celebrate because Jesus was born, and Jesus loves us.”

“Oh.” He sucked on his pacifier for a moment and then asked, “Does Santa love me?”

Fun as it is to sit with my 2-year old and weave a fantasy about elves and reindeer and a bearded man dressed in red, when I hear a question like that, a part of me wants to do away with Christmas altogether. I want to protest the commercialization of the holiday — the red and green candy that appears in drugstores as soon as the Halloween stock has been removed; the chirpy holiday songs that have nothing to do with the spiritual aspect of the season; the mounds and mounds of unneeded, and often unwanted, plastic and tinsel and gift wrap; the tacky decorations; and the fact that my son thinks more highly of Santa than God.

I’m not alone. Plenty of families face the same dilemma, whether due to religious concerns or general weariness from the amount of stuff we, and our children, have accumulated through the years. Maybe we should all pull names out of a hat and only give one gift apiece, or we could give the money to charity, or why not forget about presents altogether and just enjoy Christmas Day as a family. I entertain those possibilities, but I come back to the thought that gift giving is good. At Christmastime, materialism should be a blessing.

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