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Santa Claus

It's that time of the year when people everywhere give me a smile as they look at my greying beard. Children look at me, then run to their mothers and tug at their hands. "Mother", they ask, "is that Santa Claus?" The young mother looks up with a smile and then puts her head hastily down as she sees that it is indeed Santa nearby..!

It's that time of the year when Santa is everywhere. Fat Santas, cherubic Santas, thin fellows, stout men, they are in shops and malls, in display windows, looking down artificial chimneys or cheering their reindeer on.

Christmas is all about Santa isn't it?

But in Austria, this year, they feel that it is not all about Santa. In fact Santa, has nothing to do with Christmas.

Say the Austrians, "We're against the fact that Santa Claus has become an advertising symbol. It obscures the true meaning of Christmas."

Do we really need a Santa Claus? What better gift could the world have got two thousand years ago than the Christ child being born in a manger? Do we have to dilute the magnitude of God's gift to the world with a fat man dressed in a red clownish costume, with a silly white cotton beard running behind his reindeer and throwing presents into the laps of greedy children?

A British vicar reduced young children to tears and stunned their parents when he told the children in his congregation that there was no such a man called Santa. He told the children that if there being a Santa, he would burn up, as he and his reindeer would have to travel at 3000 times the speed of sound to deliver gifts to 91.8 million homes..!

And yet we tell our kids this rubbish.

I reckon that if Bush had been raised on the true meaning of Christmas and not on fables and stories of Santa Claus, he wouldn't be the big world bully he is turning out to be. Most of the Americans have grown up fondling Santa's beard.

What the world requires today is to believe in the Prince of Peace who was born in a manger in Bethlehem. He brought into a warlike Roman world of two thousand years ago, the message of Peace and Goodwill.

The Romans like the Americans of today, thought they were the conquerors of the rest of the world. The Romans fell, their civilisation fell, but the message from that manger spread.

Today a Santa Claus, American in commercial origin is being thrust on the world as its Super Salesman. We need to stand up and tell them to go back to the real meaning of Christmas. To tell them that it was a belief in the Christ child that helped build America.

Not Santa Claus.

Like I said at the beginning, its that time of the year when people give me a smile as they look at my Santa like beard. But what I would love to hear is a mother hugging her child and saying. "Christmas is not about Santa, my dear, it's the story of the greatest gift that was ever given to man, the gift of Life..!

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