Cutting idols is harder than cutting Santa Claus out of your life

I have been really into christmas this year, movies, crafts, decorating,kids Sunday school. And in the midst of it I saw a mom's blog on Santa Claus and how mom's should deal with it. I maybe read half a paragraph, but in that paragraph it compared Santa Claus to an idol. And in thinking about it. I think Santa Claus is an idol to us. 

Think about it: 

We become "good" for him. We decorate, write and sing song about him (worship) offer him gifts(milk and cookies) and consume our entire lives around him in the month of December. 

Yes, adults don't actually think this fictional man comes around and deliver us gifts. I don't know if Old Testament people really believed in their gods either, but that it was fun and easy to believe in them, even though it wasn't the most logical. 

believing in Santa is fun, so we pretend that we do. Believing in Santa makes things magical so we participate. Santa is always ACTUALLY real in hallmark movies, so as much as we know he is not, I think a huge part of our population wishes he actually was real. 

And why wouldn't we? Santa is all about serving me. He comes and makes me happy, he gives me the gifts I wanted, and makes my wishes come true. 

Now lots of people, both christians and non-christians, would have issues with taking Santa out of christmas. "He is so fun" "don't deprive your kids from a childhood" "there's nothing wrong in believing in Santa" is common talk.

 I think about my Old Testament Israelite friends and how I so quickly judge them on getting back into the habit of worshiping idols. I don't have Baal in my backyard or know anyone who does, it seems so easy to cut it from my life because I don't live with it. 

But what if I had to cut Santa out of my life? I would have to cut myself off of TV, the radio, facebook, the mall, grocery stores, school, probley even church if I was going to seriously remove Santa from my life. I would be hermit with no real-time entertainment and have to highly sensor the old things I had. Think about the social tabooness that would follow me around. How hard it would be for people to be my friend and think I am a normal person. Think if you had to live in that 24/7. 

We can easy see the flaws of Santa, we buy the gifts Santa gives, and just give him the credit. As adults, we often talk about how he is fake, it is widely accepted. But what if everyone believed he was real as much as we believe he was fake? Would that change and effect how we see Santa as real? Would we start to believe he actually does all these things as a 3 year old does? 

In thinking through this make you understand just a tad how those silly idols was actually huge stumbling blocks to get over and why so many times they weren't able to?