Rethinking Christmas
Last year, I didn’t set up our Christmas tree or any decorations. I strung one single string of coloured lights on our banister, which has stayed there for the entire year. Oh, sure I bought my husband and close friends a couple of small somethings, but by and large, I didn’t ‘do Christmas.’
There were a few reasons for that.
First, I usually set up the tree by myself or maybe with a friend if I can wrangle one to help me. It takes hours to string the lights on the tree and hang all the ornaments. And then you have to sweep up all the fake pine needles that made a huge mess on the floor (yes, I’m a fake-tree kind of girl). It takes an entire afternoon, and when a girl doesn’t have many of those hanging around for the taking, it’s not too enticing to spend all of it setting up a Christmas tree only to spend just as long taking it down in a month.
Then there’s also the sickened, disgusted twisty feeling in my stomach every time I see garish Christmas displays in every store, the dozens of flyers proclaiming Christmas goodies and sales, the mob of harried parents desperately trying to please their children come Christmas morning, the nightmare of every crammed-full parking lot, and the lengthy lines at the grocery store as we pile on our turkeys, boxes of stuffing, and eggnog.
I’m tired of commercial Christmas.
Quite honestly, it turns nice people into stressed-out, snappish, greedy monsters.
I’m weary of this whirlwind that arrives every year in which I am required to participate enthusiastically. Because if I don’t, well, you know there is a Christmas character who hates Christmas and nobody wants to be like him.
I’ve spent some Christmases trying to find a balance; I meditate on Advent Scripture passages or devotionals in an attempt to maintain my focus on the ‘true meaning’ of Christmas while also trying to decorate, bake, buy and wrap presents, and attend yet another banquet or Christmas work party.
Which is why last year, I decided not to do the Christmas tree thing.
It was nice.
There’s a problem, though. Christmas is happening again and I don’t know what to do about it.
Just this week, I finished writing a sermon on how “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6:10). Interestingly, the passage directly before Paul’s tirade against the love of money discusses the role of slaves and masters within the church—the lowest social class and the highest social class both present and worshipping together in the early church.
It struck me that both classes tend to love money; the poor desire the security, freedom, and meeting of basic needs that money can provide, while the rich also desire security, freedom, and, beyond basic needs, the privileges that wealth can afford.
When Paul tells the Ephesian church that “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6), he speaks to both classes—rich and poor. He identifies the motivation underlying the pursuit of wealth: discontentment.
We may be discontent for all sorts of reasons: envy and comparison, greed, self-sufficiency and entitlement, pride, or a scarcity mentality. Just to name a few.
Paul says elsewhere,
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Phil. 4:11-13)
Those of us who have been in church for a long time might recognize those words: I can do all things through him who gives me strength. We put it on coffee mugs and T-shirts, never realizing that the ‘thing’ that he gives us strength for is contentment. It doesn’t mean striving for more or doing miraculous things in Jesus’ name.
Paul has learned the secret of being content, and it is found in resting in Jesus’ strength, whatever the circumstances.
Back to Christmas.
The disparity between those who have much and those who have little is astonishingly clear at Christmastime. There is a reason why many charities are primarily operational around the Christmas season (e.g. the Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child, CBM’s Hopeful Gifts for Change, and the Food Bank Christmas Hamper).
My church has been in a deficit going into the Christmas season for the past couple of years, and yet somehow ends up in the black by the time January rolls around. The most generous time of year is Christmas.
It’s as if the rich realize their wealth at Christmastime. Or at least, they realize the disparity between their wealth and the poverty of the person living in that part of town.
By they, I mean me.
That’s why commercial Christmas has become very difficult. How am I supposed to lavish my family and friends with gifts they don’t need when the person ten minutes away doesn’t have mittens, a warm winter jacket, or food to eat?
How can I set up the lights and a jolly nativity scene and ignore the reality of the first Christmas—a poor refugee family in search of a room for the night was denied, therefore requiring the woman to give birth in a barn?
Is there anything wrong with the lights and the tree? No, I’m not going to lay down that law. Far too many of my hometown made judgments on things like that when I was growing up. There is something inherently beautiful about lights and gift-giving in the dead of winter when the days are the darkest.
And so, I’m still in a conundrum. You’ll have realized that I haven’t solved it yet.
I suppose my conclusion is this: The more I realize the depth of what Immanuel—God with us—means, the less I support commercial Christmas.
What does that look like in practice? I’m not sure yet.
I’m torn between the rituals and traditions of merry, jolly, happy Christmas with bright lights, crinkly wrapping paper, and more goodies than I know what to do with and the reality of Christmas where Jesus became God With Us as a wrinkly, slimy baby in a smelly, cold barn.
I know there are several charities with whom I can participate in giving what I have to those who need it more, for example,
The Angel Tree program
Interfaith Food Bank
Streets Alive (the local street mission in Lethbridge)
CBM Hopeful Gifts for Change
However, I want to rethink the traditions of commercial Christmas altogether. The answer, I don’t think, is simply to give to a charity and then say, “I’ve done my part! Now back to the turkey.”
How can we rethink our Christmas traditions together? Do you have alternate Christmas traditions from the commercialized version that is pushed on us each year? If so, I’d love to hear them! Drop a comment below. I’d love to chat.
