Steve had the "Santa is pretend, we play along because it's fun" talk with Luke yesterday. They talked about God's love for us, His amazing gift to us and St. Nicholas' generosity in Jesus' name.
It's probably pretty confusing for a 5 year old since everything in the Big Box stores and on TV is about Santa and presents, presents and more presents! We've talked a lot over the last week about Jesus' birthday and that's reason we celebrate Christmas and that we give presents because we love others and want to show them that, like God showed his love for us by sending Jesus to earth.
Fastforward to today. My uncle stopped by and was talking to Luke about Santa coming tonight. Luke looked at him for a minute, then said point-blank "Santa isn't real ya know." My uncle seemed shocked that a 5 year old would say such a thing. I'm sure he was surprised that we had told him the truth, ultimately "ruining" Christmas for Luke. He looked at Luke and while pointing to his heart said, "Well, but he's in here and in here" motioning to Luke's heart. Luke paused for just a moment then said, "And so is God!" I was so proud of him!
