Chapter 2 - Cultural Christmas v. Kingdom Christmas: Discerning the Divide Between Tradition & Truth

2.1 — How Culture Rewrote Christmas

Discerning the Divide Between Tradition and Truth

The Christmas most believers know today is not the Christmas the early Church celebrated. What began as a trembling remembrance of the Incarnation—the moment God Himself stepped into human history—has been reshaped, over centuries, into something nearly unrecognizable. The slow drift from holiness to holiday did not happen overnight; it was gradual, subtle, and largely accepted because it appealed to sentiment, nostalgia, and the desire for cultural belonging. Every generation added layers—traditions, customs, myths, commercial incentives, national interests—until the Incarnation was buried beneath a season of expectation that no longer reflects the Kingdom it claims to honor. What was once a revelation of divine humility became a festival shaped by human appetite.

The earliest believers approached the birth of Christ with awe, sobriety, and worship. They understood the Incarnation as a decisive moment of divine intervention, not a decorative story.  As Christianity spread through cultures that already hosted established winter festivals—Saturnalia in Rome, Yule among Germanic and Norse peoples, and various Solstice observances marking the darkest night of the year—it encountered rhythms, symbols, and communal practices deeply woven into the identity of those societies. Saturnalia centered on feasting, gift-giving, social role reversals, and a celebratory loosening of restraint. Yule emphasized fire, evergreen branches, logs, feasting, and rituals meant to invoke protection and renewed life during winter’s darkness. Solstice ceremonies focused on the turning of the sun, the victory of light over darkness, and the cyclical rebirth of the natural world.

Over time, as Christian communities emerged within these cultures, elements of these festivals were gradually carried into the developing celebration of Christ’s nativity—not as acts of pagan worship, but as cultural habits that were never fully disentangled from their origins. This blending does not invalidate the remembrance of Christ’s birth, but it does reveal that much of what we call “Christmas tradition” is a mixture shaped by devotion, nostalgia, and inherited cultural memory. Thus, what began as contextual accommodation soon became compromise.

Eventually, the celebration of Christ’s birth inherited the warmth, feasting, and festivity of pagan winter traditions, reshaping the tone and emotional register of the season. Instead of the Church redefining culture, culture redefined the Church’s celebration. Recognizing this does not demand rejection of all tradition; it simply allows us to discern what is rooted in revelation and what is rooted in ritual, so we can honor Christ without unknowingly preserving practices that obscure Him.

Centuries later, the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of mass production transformed Christmas yet again. With newfound economic opportunity, companies discovered that Christmas could be leveraged to stimulate spending, and they began slowly shaping it into a commercial spectacle. Gift-giving, once simple and Christ-centered, became an economic engine. Retailers discovered that sentiment sells, nostalgia sells, and “holiday spirit” sells. Advertisers crafted emotional narratives designed not to awaken worship, but to awaken desire—desire for more, desire for comfort, desire for belonging through consumption. The season became a marketplace, and the Church quietly adapted, believing participation was harmless.

In the 20th century, secular icons like Santa Claus completed the transformation. What began as a historical reference to Nicholas, a bishop known for generosity, mutated into a mythical figure shaped by media, marketing, and commercial imagination. His story eclipsed Christ’s story in the minds of children. His presence dominated decorations, songs, movies, and advertising. He became the symbol of Christmas, and Christ became the ornament placed beside him. What was meant to be holy became harmless; what was meant to be worship became a winter myth; what was meant to be about the Incarnation became a season of entertainment and excess.

Culture did not rewrite Christmas with evil intent—culture rewrote Christmas through human preference. And because the Church did not guard the sacredness of the Incarnation, we passively allowed this shift, believing that as long as Jesus remained somewhere in the narrative, the season was still meaningful.

But “somewhere” is not the same as center.

And what we call harmless tradition often becomes harmful formation. Children learn to associate magic with myth, not with God. Adults learn to associate joy with consumption, not with Christ. Families learn to associate unity with tradition, not truth. And slowly, subtly, without anyone noticing, Christmas became a cultural institution instead of a Kingdom revelation.

To reclaim Christmas, we must first be honest about how far it has drifted. Not to judge those who celebrate with innocence, but to awaken the Church to the need for repentance, recalibration, and holy clarity. The world has rewritten Christmas, but the Word has not changed. And until we return to the truth of Christ’s coming, we will continue celebrating a holiday that comforts us rather than a holy day that confronts us. The divide between tradition and truth is not thin; it is vast. And wisdom begins with the courage to acknowledge it.

2.2 — The Santa Narrative: Harmless Tradition or Formation by Falsehood?

An examination of mythmaking, imagination, and the impact of fabricating wonder through deception.

Few subjects provoke as much defensiveness in Christian households as Santa Claus. For many, he represents cherished memories, family warmth, and innocent joy. Yet the power of a tradition does not confirm its truthfulness, nor does the benefit of nostalgia validate its formation. The Santa narrative has been framed as harmless fun—a cultural rite of childhood that enriches imagination and fosters delight. But beneath the surface lies a deeper question: What happens to the spiritual development of a child when wonder is cultivated through deception rather than truth? Because no matter how gently it is framed, the Santa narrative is built on fabrication. And fabrication, repeated annually with adult participation, shapes the hearts of children in ways we rarely consider.

Children are formed by story. They learn trust through consistency, truth through honesty, and discernment through clarity. When parents, teachers, and churches reinforce a narrative they know to be untrue, they unwittingly train children to suspend discernment in exchange for emotional reward. The child learns to embrace fantasy as reality because the adults they trust present it as such. And when the truth eventually emerges, the child must reconcile not only the loss of a beloved myth but the realization that the trusted voices in their life maintained a deception for years. We have been taught to laugh off the disappointment, as though a child’s disillusionment is a normal part of maturing. But disillusionment is the fruit of illusion. It is the predictable outcome of sowing what we know cannot endure.

Some argue for “the idea” of Santa—a symbolic figure who represents generosity, magic, and childhood wonder. But the idea is still presented through the same mechanism: a constructed story told as truth. Rebranding Santa as a symbol does not remove the underlying problem; it simply adds a layer of adult rationalization to avoid confronting the deeper issue.

When we teach children to anchor wonder in a myth, we inadvertently compete with the God who invites them into a wonder that is real.  

Scripture never calls us to fabricate magic; it calls us to reveal mystery.

It calls us to cultivate imagination grounded in the glory of a God who actually moves, speaks, and reigns.

The issue is not imagination—children need imagination to perceive spiritual reality. The issue is formation.

Imagination formed by truth produces faith.

Imagination formed by deception produces confusion.

Children learn patterns of belief long before they learn doctrines. When we teach them to delight in a story we later reveal as untrue, they internalize a subtle but potent message: the line between truth and story is flexible. And once that line is bent for the sake of tradition, it becomes much easier for deception—cultural, ideological, spiritual—to sit in that same space later.

Furthermore, the Santa narrative displaces Christ at the center of the season. Children emotionally bond with the figure who listens to wishes, rewards good behavior, and distributes gifts—imagery that belongs to God alone. Santa becomes the omniscient, benevolent giver. Christ becomes the supporting character. Even when families include Jesus in their celebration, He often becomes part of the backdrop rather than the center, because the emotional architecture of the season is already built around the myth.

A myth cannot coexist with the Messiah without competing with Him. And every competition for a child’s affection is a form of formation.

This is why “the idea,” no matter how symbolically reframed, still displaces truth. You cannot anchor a season in fabrication and expect Christ to remain the focal point. You cannot cultivate wonder through myth and expect children to recognize the sacred mystery of the Incarnation as superior. You cannot teach deception for a decade and expect truth to land without distortion. The Santa narrative is not neutral; it is formative. And formation that bends toward untruth always bears fruit that must later be undone.

Recovering Christmas begins with recovering truth. Not with harshness. Not with legalism. Not with judgment toward those who hold different convictions. But with a sober recognition that truth shapes hearts and deception shapes them too. If we want to raise a generation who trust God, know His voice, and discern truth from error, we must stop training them to believe in what we know is false. Wonder is holy. Imagination is sacred. But they must be grounded in the God who is real, not the myth we construct. Only then can Christmas be reclaimed—not as a story we embellish, but as a revelation we proclaim.

2.3 — When Sentiment Competes with Scripture

How nostalgia, family memories, and cultural expectations cloud discernment.

Sentiment is one of the most powerful forces shaping the way believers approach Christmas. We do not merely remember the season—we feel it. We remember the laughter, the warmth, the togetherness, the childhood excitement, the smell of food, the lights in the dark. These emotions become intertwined with the traditions that framed them, until we can no longer separate what was meaningful from what was myth, what was holy from what was habitual. Nostalgia becomes a lens, and through that lens, anything that threatens the tradition feels like it threatens the memory itself. This emotional attachment often becomes the greatest barrier to biblical clarity, not because the traditions are inherently evil, but because the emotions attached to them become sacred in the hearts of those who hold them.

We rarely admit this aloud, but sentiment often governs our decisions more than truth does. We cling to certain traditions because they comfort us, not because they honor Christ. We defend practices that shaped our childhood because they shaped our identity, not because they reflect Scripture. When someone questions those traditions, we feel as though they are criticizing our family, our upbringing, or our heritage. This is why conversations around Christmas can become surprisingly heated among believers—sentiment forms a protective barrier around tradition, and anything that confronts the tradition feels like an attack on the heart.

But the gospel does not bend to sentiment. Scripture does not submit to memory. Truth does not yield to emotion. And Christ does not share His glory with customs simply because they feel familiar. When sentiment competes with Scripture, one must bow, and biblically, it is never Scripture that yields. The danger is not that we love our memories—it is that we allow our memories to become interpreters of truth. We begin reasoning, “I had good memories with these traditions, so they must be harmless.” But emotional experience does not determine spiritual accuracy. Israel had many sentimental memories tied to idolatrous practices; emotion did not make them righteous.

The challenge is not to reject sentiment or to despise our past, but to place our emotions under the authority of truth. Jesus Himself confronted traditions that had emotional and generational weight, not because He devalued people’s memories, but because He valued obedience over comfort. The Incarnation—the very event we claim to celebrate—was not shaped by nostalgia. It was shaped by prophecy, holiness, and divine purpose. We dishonor Christ when we cling to traditions more tightly than we cling to His Word.

Nostalgia becomes dangerous when it blinds us to the very One the season is meant to reveal. Family expectations become destructive when they demand participation in practices that compromise conviction. Cultural pressure becomes oppressive when it calls us to celebrate in ways that contradict Scripture, simply because “we’ve always done it this way.” The question we must ask is simple but piercing: Do our traditions lead us into deeper worship or deeper distraction? Sentiment without Scripture leads to sentimentality—the elevation of emotional experience above spiritual truth. And sentimentality, though outwardly gentle, becomes a subtle form of idolatry when it asks us to preserve emotion at the expense of obedience.

This does not mean we must strip our lives of joy or uproot every tradition; it means we must examine them with sober discernment. It means we must be willing to hold precious memories in one hand and the Word of God in the other and let Scripture decide what remains. It means we must stop sanctifying nostalgia and start sanctifying Christ in our hearts. When we allow truth to govern our emotions, our celebration becomes purer, our worship becomes deeper, and our memories become redeemed rather than idolized.

Sentiment has a place—but not the throne. Memory has a role—but not the authority. Tradition can serve—but not rule. When Scripture becomes the center, sentiment finds its proper boundary. And when Christ is restored to His rightful place, Christmas becomes holy again—not because it mirrors our past, but because it reveals our King.

2.4 — Reclaiming Christmas Without Disdain

How to honor others’ memories while refusing to perpetuate untruth.

Reclaiming Christmas begins with conviction, but it must mature into compassion. It is entirely possible to return the season to Christ without scorning those who still prefer cultural Christmas. Yet this is where many believers stumble. When eyes open and truth becomes clear, there is often a temptation to judge what we once participated in, to speak harshly about traditions we ourselves cherished, or to distance ourselves so sharply that our stance becomes a sword rather than a witness. But the call to holiness is never a permission slip for arrogance. Truth must be held with both courage and tenderness—especially when confronting traditions that carry emotional weight for others.

To reclaim Christmas without disdain, we must first understand that people rarely cling to certain traditions because they reject truth. More often, they cling because those traditions hold their memories, their family identity, their sense of belonging, their formative experiences of joy. When someone hears, “We don’t participate in this anymore,” what they often feel is, “What shaped my childhood is being devalued.” If we do not acknowledge that emotional reality, we will provoke unnecessary pain. The goal is not to shame others for where they are, but to honor Christ for where He is leading us.

Humility is essential. We must remember that many of the traditions we now question were ones we once embraced with innocence. We did not awaken to discernment through our own brilliance—it was grace. And the same grace that opened our eyes will open theirs, if the Lord chooses. Our role is not to convert family members to our viewpoint. Our role is to bear witness to truth by walking in it with gentleness, clarity, and unshakable peace. People are more likely to question their assumptions when they encounter a believer who is both steadfast and kind.

Refusing to perpetuate untruth does not require rudeness or disrespect. It simply requires consistency. You do not have to condemn others’ traditions to decline participating in them. You do not have to agree with their practices to affirm their value as people. You do not have to dismantle their memories to walk in your conviction. There is a way to communicate boundaries with honor—by saying, “I value what this meant for you, but God is leading me differently now,” or “I’m grateful for the joy this brought in your life, but I want to celebrate in a way that keeps Christ at the center for me.” These statements hold firm to truth while maintaining love.

Reclaiming Christmas also means resisting the temptation to engage in spiritual superiority. When God reveals truth to us, it is easy to forget that He guided us step by step, patiently dismantling layers of assumption, sentiment, and inherited practice. He did not shame us into revelation; He led us. Likewise, disdain toward others—even internal disdain—contradicts the very nature of the One whose birth we honor. Jesus entered the world with humility, not triumphalism. He did not scorn the darkness; He illuminated it. And if we want to celebrate Him rightly, our posture must reflect His.

Compassion does not weaken conviction; it strengthens it. When others see that your decision springs from reverence rather than rebellion, from devotion rather than disapproval, their defenses lower. They may not understand your stance, but they will respect the spirit in which you hold it. And though they may continue celebrating as they always have, they will remember that your convictions were not fueled by disdain but by love for Christ.

Reclaiming Christmas without disdain means living the truth with a quiet strength that does not need to argue, prove, or perform. It means choosing obedience over approval without becoming cold or combative. It means honoring the humanity of others while refusing to betray the holiness of Christ. And in that balance—humility rooted in truth, compassion anchored in conviction—the witness of the Incarnation shines most clearly. When we celebrate Christmas in this spirit, we do not merely reclaim a season; we reveal a Savior.