There are only a couple of days left in Advent. Check it out:

Covering two things I love: Christmas and Narnia, Laura Miller writes an interesting op-ed, published in the New York Times this week, called “It’s a Narnia Christmas.” Calling Christmas essentially a “Victorian fabrication,” she links the much-beloved Narnia books, by C.S. Lewis, to Christmas. The connection is not a difficult one to make, given Father Christmas’s appearance (among other things) in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first-published of the Chronicles of Narnia books.

I appreciate the way she appreciates Narnia and find it interesting to consider Christmas as a conglomeration of various traditions from over the years. Given C.S. Lewis’s appreciation for the ways in which the literature he studied did similiar things, that does make some sense, and seems apparent given the various literary and mythical traditions he pulls into his Narnia novels.

Of course, as a Christian, I necessarily see Christmas as primarily a time to remember how God came to the earth like even the least of us, to show us how much he loves us. When I read the Chronicles of Narnia, I similarly cannot help but find the often beautiful ideas of a creator who would give his life for even the worst of us children. I look forward to giving my children Narnia one day, soon!

So anybody else noticed that the last few halftime shows at the Super Bowl (i.e., each one since 2004’s MTV-produced “wardrobe malfunction”) have featured more elderly performers? Tonight’s halftime show was, of course, Tom Petty (and the Heartbreakers). Don’t get me wrong – I love me some Free Fallin’ – but I did notice that Tom Petty looks like a much older version of Conner (sorry…I couldn’t resist). Here are the last few halftime performers:

• 2005 – Paul McCartney
• 2006 – Rolling Stones
• 2007 – Prince
• 2008 – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

I suppose the assumption is that more mature male artists lessen the possibility of the unplanned showing of body parts, which leads to big FCC fines. I was a bit worried last year with Prince maybe showing some cleavage, but I also assume that nobody will be inviting Michael Jackson to visit the Super Bowl anytime soon.

Want to track Santa? See how NORAD tracks Santa:
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/how.htm

Of course, this leads to the question, “Should you tell your kids about Santa?” My beautiful wife and I have been talking about this sometimes controversial topic and do want to tell our kids about Santa, in the sense that there is a Santa. We also want to frame that with the story of how Santa was Saint Nicholas.

My cousin and her husband told their eldest son that Santa “wasn’t real” when he was around Kindergarden and he went to school and told all the other kids. We’d like to avoid that. We’d also like to avoid feeling like we’re “lying” to our kid! After all, the reason we have Christmas is not Santa Claus, but is Christ, and certainly want that to be the main focus of Christmas-time in our house. We also don’t want our kid feeling left out because we didn’t tell her the myth of Santa.

I’d love to hear some of what others do with their kids or think is a good idea regarding Santa .