The letter to Ann Landers from "Johnny's Mom and Dad" begged her to plead with the parents of young children: "If you have decided your youngster is old enough to be told there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, and no Tooth Fairy, will you please instruct the child NOT to tell his playmates."



Johnny's Mom and Dad were heartsick because some wise second-grader in Johnny's class had told Johnny there was no Santa Claus. Johnny was so disillusioned that he cried. Johnny's classmate had robbed him of his "dream-world joys."



It is hard to imagine these were Christian parents. How could Santa Claus be so important to them that they were heartbroken when their child's dream world was shattered?



It was not a dream world into which Mary's child was born. That world was as real as the rude manger that became His first crib. The guilt He came to bear, and the sorrow He came to banish were as real as sinful flesh and blood are real. That world was as real as the Son of God's bleeding and dying for it.



Nor are the joys that even the littlest child has found in the Babe of Bethlehem only dream-world joys, to be stripped away from it by a harsh world of reality. Those holy childhood joys in the little Lord Jesus are as real as the Word of the God of our salvation is real, and they abide as surely as that Word abides.



Years do not remove this joy, no matter that a mocking, heartless world is bent on destroying it. We know that this joy endures because each happy Christmas we share it with the children who sing the praises of their new-born King. Christian parents who have warmed their children's hearts with the true joy of Christmas need shed no tears for shattered Santa Claus fantasies.