We’re just a couple of days from Christmas and once again Facebook is full of posts about threatening to take children’s Christmas presents away if they misbehave or pretend to burn them if the children misbehave.

Then there’s the horrible elf on the shelf meme that says that they didn’t have elf on the shelf but rather a belt hanging on a hook to make them behave.

Why must we use Christmas to manipulate and threaten children to behave?  If you do Santa, fine. But please don’t seriously make children believe that they won’t get any presents from him if they are “bad.”  There are many poor children who won’t get any presents. Let’s not teach children that they were “bad.”

I love this article about doing Santa in a way that encourages kindness and doesn’t have to disappoint them when they are older.

I strongly believe presents are given out of unconditional love, not because children  “deserve” them. After all, Jesus gave us the unconditional gift of forgiveness and love and mercy and grace when *we* didn’t deserve it!

Our children are only young once. Let’s do our best to keep Christmas magical for them as well as use it as an opportunity to teach them about unconditional love, the Bible calls it “agape love,” kindness, and giving!

Merry Christmas!