The latest craze for parents of young children is "The Elf on the Shelf." The concept is that families can adopt an elf from the North Pole into their family. During the day, the elf sits around the house taking notes while the child eats, plays, watches t.v. etc with the intention of reporting back to Santa. At night, the elf "flies"back to the North Pole, lays out the lists of naughty and nice and then comes back to the home by morning. To make things more interesting than that, your elf can 'play tricks' on you with mischievous behaviors.
My problem with the Elf on the Shelf is that is teaches children to be good "because someone is watching and you might get caught." As parents, I think instead we are supposed to teach our children to have character. Character is what you do when no one is watching you. If our goal is godly character, or that which pleases God, then we strive for obedience because we love him not because we fear getting caught. The latter is religion my friends, not relationship. I want my sons to have a loving relationship with a loving God and seek to obey him because they want to, not because they think people are watching. Further, I don't want my sons thinking that God is just like Santa Claus. He is not some imaginary being that if you are good, you can present a list to and you might get everything you want but not necessarily what you need.
God wants to change us from the inside out, not the outside in.
"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." Romans 12:2 (MSG)
Recently, I had an experience with my older son that hit this message home. I walked into our living room to find him and my other son watching a movie on the television that he had downloaded to his phone. I asked him what they were watching; he told me the title and it was a movie that is currently in the theater. He had downloaded a pirated copy from the internet. Immediately, I told him to turn it off and proceeded to explain to him that what he had done was stealing. We talked about that it didn't matter if he was never caught, it was still wrong and God and I care even more about it as an expression of character. He was of course remorseful, didn't fully grasp it as illegal, and most concerned that I was disappointed in him; it was a great opportunity to explain how God wants to know that we can be trusted in 'little' things so that eventually we can be trusted with big things that will affect his kingdom. The most pathetic part was that the copied movie was a terrible copy; the guy even dropped the camera during recording. So typical of the Devil who wants to offer us a worldly cheap imitation in exchange for God's best for us.
As you can tell, with two young teenage boys, I still have my challenges ahead of me. But I firmly believe, God does not hold us as parents ultimately responsible for our child's decisions - each is individually accountable for that- but he does hold us responsible for our stewardship. Our children ultimately do not belong to us, they are His, and he has given them to us for a time. Someday we will be held accountable for how we equipped them to tackle life, impact the world for God's kingdom, and ultimately what we taught them about Jesus. Until that day,I will continue to enjoy the Christmas folklore, traditions, and activities, but I will not use it to teach character or integrity.
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