Make-Believe Vs. Un-Fun Rigid Dogma

WARNING: This post contains some information concerning the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and other holiday charcters that may shock some children. Parents, it might be in your best interest to keep the kiddos who can read away from the screen.


Today is Easter Day, the day that Jesus rose from his grave, but this day also carries conotations that make some Christian parents grimace. Easter eggs, chocolates and all kinds of other goodies brought by a big bunny and placed in Easter baskets. Though most folks don't find this threatening, some think that raising a child to believe in these things is detrimental to both their spiritual and mental health. I for one find this confusing, but to some it makes perfect sense.
I would like to say that parents who decide to not let their children believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and other characters like the Tooth Fairy are fully within their rights to believe this way. It is entirely the right of the parent to decide these kinds of things. The thing I have a problem with is the eagerness that some (though not all) of these well-meaning Christian parents seem to have about finding something wrong and dark in something so seemingly harmless as a rabbit delivering eggs or a fat old man delivering toys to good children. These kind of people are the same ones who count curse words in classic novels and claim fellow Christians will not go to heaven if they do not believe the same as they do on a miniscule issue. Madeleine L'Engle states that these people are "of a minority, small, but growing, of people who seemed to think they were called to discover the devil in other people." As Christians, we should bring light to the world, not look for more darkness. The world is bad enough as it is, so why try to find something so bad in innocent children's characters? What's the harm in letting a child believe?
One main problem some parents have with these holiday characters such as the Easter Bunny is that they believe that they somehow take away the main focus of the holiday, such as Christ's birth on Christmas, and his Resurrection on Easter Sunday. It is true that some children may find the presents to be the largest part of a holiday, but this often happens only because the gifts and traditions have not been placed in the proper context by a parental figure. When I was a young child, I recieved presents from Santa Claus and I got Easter baskets full of candy and toys from the Easter Bunny, but I also knew the true purpose of the holidays because the extraneous traditions were put in their proper place.
The proper place for thses things is in a part of the brain labelled "Strictly for Make-Believe". When I was was younger, I did believe in the Easter Bunny, but it was the kind of belief that I also had when I played at being a cowboy or an astronaut. Somewhere in my brain, I knew the logistics of a large, sentient rabbit delivering baskets of candy and eggs to children across continents weren't very convincing, but it was fun to believe it for a little while. The funnest part about make believe is truly believing it. You can't go about it half way. My parents never had to have a sit down conversation with me or my brother concerning the reality of these charcters because we mostly knew it was all make-believe. I am of the persuasion that most children believe the same way as I did and that children aren't so dumb as to place certain things over the realities behind their make-believe. For example, I knew I was an astronaut piloting some kind of strange vessel constructed of corrugated cardboard to distant galaxies, but I also knew that mom was making my lunch right in the next room. I understood the difference between reality and pretend, and it's all because I had the right context.
So, in the end, we should rejoice for the Lord has risen on this day and we should try to see the good instead of the negative because he has made a way for us all through through his death on the cross and his resurrection on the third day.

Cool Beans,

Noah