Segullah is an LDS literary magazine. They have an online blog and one of the articles for this month is Christmas service: Bitter? Sweet? Or Some of Both? The author talks of personal bitterness from being the recipient of service and then discusses how her view has changed through the years to one of gratitude. There uses some good quotes from general authorities about the motives of service.
Another article in the Segullah archive is I Believe in Santa. But I Didn't Used To about a young mother who decided it was a good thing for her small children to believe in Santa. She sees it as a first step of faith that could be transferred into faith in our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
The only thing I disagree with about that is that teaching your children belief in Christ is one thing, and belief in Santa is another. Christ is real. Santa is not. When your children discover Santa is not real, will their trust in what you have taught them diminish? I prefer the idea of teaching them that Santa was invented to represent the Spirit of Christmas, which is a giving spirit, and that IS real, it was exemplified by our Savior Jesus Christ. I also like the idea of getting the children involved in the anonymity of gift giving.
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