We're in the final days of Advent and little kids are thinking about Santa Claus and Christmas gifts.

And Joy and I have been parents now for what, 22, 23 years. We've done it many times.

And one of the questions that a lot of parents have is, what about Santa Claus?

Do we talk about Santa Claus?

How do we make Christmas about Jesus Christ?

And then you have this giant marketing apparatus

around Santa Claus with the red outfit and the white beard.

And my recommendation would be to focus on the origin story

of Santa Claus, which is St. Nicholas. Pretty much everybody knows,

Santa Claus is St. Nicholas, but if we can distill things and bring it back to St. Nicholas,

it's beneficial for the children and for us. Why? St. Nicholas lived in the late 200s, in 300s. He was born to a very wealthy Christian family.

He went on to be a priest and a bishop. And the story about the gifts actually goes back to a very

sad story about human trafficking.

Now, you want to tell your kids the story, but you might want to make it PG.

But during that time period, poor families who did not have any status in society,

often their daughters would not be eligible for marriage or would not be desired for marriage.

And back then, there wasn't the option of, well, just go to college and get your BA in journalism

or go become a barista. Most of the time, these young girls would find a life in prostitution,

in sex trafficking. And in the original story of St. Nicholas, there is a man who's lost his wife,

he's a widower, and he has three girls, and he's very poor.

And it comes to St. Nicholas' attention as a pastor in that town

that these young girls are in danger of becoming prostitutes as they come of age. So Nicholas,

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