November-December 1997
Christmas: Blessing or a Burden?
It's that time again. Time to put together an endless shopping list, bake nonstop, decorate with poinsettias and sign a million and one cards. And maybe, just maybe, if you have enough time and energy, think about a baby in a manger.
Christmas is a time of excitement tinged with anxiety. Stress heaped over celebration. Yes, there's a joyful camaraderie in the air as we exchange "Merry Christmases," but there are also so many cookies to make. Lights to hang. Tinsel to throw. Busy shoppers to contend with.
Money to pull out of thin air. Sometimes the baby in the manger gets stampeded by a runaway to-do list.
Sometimes I think of all the busy people running about Bethlehem on the night of Jesus' birth -- cooking their meals, putting their children to bed, lighting a warm fire to challenge the evening chill.
Indignantly I think: If I had been there, I would have invited Mary and Joseph into my home! I would have cooked them a good meal, given Mary a comfortable place to deliver her child and stood by to witness thedelivery of the world.
All of this I claim I would have done to be a part of the Savior's birth. But then I think about how busy things can get in lifeespecially at Christmastime. The thought of setting an extra place at the table is enough to drive me crazy. Much less changing the sheets in the spare bedroom for a couple of strangers.
Would I have had "enough room at the inn" for a traveling pregnant woman when I don't even have the energy for my in-laws? Or would Joseph and Mary have stood outside, gazing wistfully into my candlelit dining room before trodding slowly to the barn to deliver the baby who came to deliver me?
Christ's birth rocked the world. But only the shepherds and some barnyard animals were there to welcome him. Where will we be? Slaving over the stove and fighting over parking spots, or singing songs of glory to God and offering good will to men?
The articles in this PT report deal with the question: Is Christmas a blessing or a burden? I guess it depends on Who you invite to the party.
-- The Editors
Putting on Christmasby Launa Herrmann This year, I'm not ready to "put on" Christmas, I mutter. A starch-suited Santa waves from the department store window. Artificial pine boughs dangle with drums, glassy snowflakes and brassy sleigh bells. Beneath glitter and garland, dolls with lacquered lips nestle beside precisely placed presents. Sequined sweaters and plastic smiles of a mannequin family shimmer in the twinkle of tree lights. So poised and proper. Polished and perfect. It is three days until Christmas. My tree is still untrimmed, my home undecorated and the cookies unbaked. The only ornament dangling at my house is my to-do list: Send those cards and packages. Starch that tablecloth. Snap those photos. And don't forget to smile. Christmas preparations choke me like an executioner's noose. I am strangling on expectations and traditions. Is there anybody out there who actually lives the picture-perfect Christmas? I wonder, remembering my childhood cheeks sticking to the cold glass of department store windows in downtown Los Angeles. Holding my mother's hand, I stood on tiptoes then, watching the animation and squealing with delight until my breath fogged the view. Sometimes I think I'm still standing there awaiting the magic. Like a child, eager for the lid to pop up on a jack-in-the-box, I long to experience the wonder of make-believe. This year, once again I am trying to put on Christmas from these dimestore daydreams. I realize the automatic door is opening, so I step inside. The crunch of shopping bags and the clop of shoes mingle with the clink of strollers. Over the clatter of registers and chatter of customers, I chase down each item on my shopping list, then scurry toward my car and home. After dinner I settle into my chair in the family room. My mind sorts through the mail, but my heart sees past life's mirage. Sandwiched between the reds and rusts of holiday greeting cards are the greens and golds of friends' handwritten notes and typed newsletters. Their simple words peel back life's tinsel.
Who celebrates a picture-perfect Christmas? Why only those mindless mannequins, imprisoned inside a myth I have helped to create. No wonder I am not ready to put on Christmas. I stand on tiptoes admiring the decorations instead of adoring the Divine. Often I am listening for the holiday spirit instead of leaning on the Holy Spirit. I get snagged by what is evergreen instead of what is everlasting -- especially in December. Maybe my husband is right: Let's leave all those boxes of decorations on the storage shelf this year! My family will miss the green starched tablecloth about as much as I will miss hand-scrubbing the china. I certainly don't need my candle collection cluttering the kitchen counter. But can I forego the miniature cardboard houses and the manger scene that usually caress the wrinkled knees of cotton batting beneath our family's Christmas tree? I tug the drapes to shut out the darkness and almost hear the chatter of crowds and the clatter of courtyards in homes and inns cascading across the rocky slopes outside Bethlehem. I think about that first Christmas Eve -- people wrapped up in their own agendas, registering for the census, finding lodging, feeding donkeys and tending sheep. Like many of them, I am looking so hard at my to-do list that I overlook heaven in a manger. When I am busy fanning the magic, I have no time to follow a star. The holiday ruckus masquerades as God's greatest gift, and its racket muffles his voice. More than 2,000 years ago in a simple feed trough, God wove the mundane with the miraculous and displayed his majesty. But only a few wise men and several shepherds paused at the stable long enough to observe the rustle of eternity nestled on earthy straw. My thoughts tumble back to those department store mannequins draped with poise, propriety, polish and perfection. I feel the Lord telling me that Christ's birth is not about putting on Christmas but about daring to "put on" him. This is where magic ends and faith begins. Standing in my living room tonight admiring my family's Christmas tree, I must admit it looks beautiful without the usual holiday fluff and flourish. My fingers stroke its needled arms, scattering its fragrance, and I remember the verse from my morning devotions: "[Jesus] went around doing good" (Acts 10:38). He went about making all things good, beautiful -- turning life's tragedies into harmony with the ideal again. His grace frees me from the flaws of past hurts, present failures, future disappointments. His love holds together the frayed fabric of my life: unraveling edges of regret and rejection, snags of sorrow, knots of shame and each rip of pain. Like I am glancing now at that undecorated pine tree huddling in the corner of my living room, Jesus gazes past the artificial. My thoughts stand there without clothes on. And I know that my front door can survive without a wreath this year. The bathroom will manage without reindeer hand towels. Stockings draping the mantle aren't really that important. I want to treasure what is. First, I'll toss out my rumpled Martha Stewart mask. With eyes of faith, I want to look beyond life's glitter and garland to Jesus. I long to reflect his peace. God's Word invites me to replenish my temporal expectations with an eternal purpose (1 Corinthians 15:51-58). So in the next few days, I'll try to embrace what endures. My husband loves unexpected hugs. I'll treat my daughter to lunch and a leisurely chat. Telephone house-bound friends. Tuck an encouraging note into each Christmas card. And I'll pray about that breach with my mother-in-law. The Lord is reminding me that he treasures a heart full of his presence more than a house full of presents. When I put on him, I can bravely step outside my cozy routine and attempt to light candles in the wind. Only God's love flames eternal. Tinsel is temporal. Sequins melt. And mannequins get put away. Launa Herrmann is an author and speaker living in Castro Valley, California. |
Christmas and Xmasby C.S. Lewis Christmas cards in general and the whole vast commercial drive called "Xmas" are one of my pet abominations; I wish they could die away and leave the Christian feast unentangled. Not of course that even secular festivities are, on their own level, an evil; but the labored and organized jolity of this -- the spurious childlikeness -- the half-hearted and sometimes rather profane attempts to keep up some superficial connection with the Nativity -- are disgusting. Three things go by the name of Christmas. One is a religious festival. This is important and obligatory for Christians; but as it can be of no interest to anyone else, I shall naturally say no more about it here. The second (it has complex historical connections with the first, but we needn't go into them) is a popular holiday, an occasion for merrymaking and hospitality. If it were my business to have a "view" on this, I should say that I much approve of merrymaking. But what I approve of much more is everybody minding his own business. I see no reason why I should volunteer views as to how other people should spend their own money in their own leisure among their own friends. It is highly probable that they want my advice on such matters as little as I want theirs. But the third thing called Christmas is unfortunately everyone's business. I mean of course the commercial racket. The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. Neither of these circumstances is in itself a reason for condemning it. I condemn it on the following grounds. 1. It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try to "keep" it (in its third, or commercial, aspect) in order to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25th everyone is worn out -- physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merrymaking; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house. 2. Most of it is involuntary. The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It is almost a blackmail. Who has not heard the wail of despair, and indeed of resentment, when, at the last moment, just as everyone hoped that the nuisance was over for one more year, the unwanted gift from Mrs. Busy (whom we hardly remember) flops unwelcomed through the letter-box, and back to the dreadful shops one of us has to go? 3. Things are given as presents which no mortal ever bought for himselfbecause no one was ever fool enough to make their like before. Have we really no better use for materials and for human skill and time than to spend them on all this rubbish? 4. The nuisance. For after all, during the racket we still have all our ordinary and necessary shopping to do, and the racket trebles the labor of it. We are told that the whole dreary business must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I'd sooner give them money for nothing and write it off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance. C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) is hailed as one of the greatest Christian thinkers of the 20th century. |
Shared Blessingsby Lorna Dobson I feel as if I am two-faced when I Christmas shop. One of my faces wears a big smile whenever I purchase what I consider a great "find" -- a gift I know will be received as joyfully as I give it. But my other face wears a frown when I end up buying something I would like to receive because I can't find anything I think the person will truly like. (I've been told that this is a "present," not a gift.) Every year I go through a mental wrestling match with questions like these: How much should I spend on each person? Is it necessary to spend equal amounts on each person, or can the gift speak for itself? Is it OK to give money, or is it too impersonal? If I buy a particular gift, will she like it or give it to Goodwill when I leave? Trying to referee this grueling mental wrestling match leaves me wishing for an alternative to holiday gift giving! In fact, abandoning the whole idea has real appeal to me at times. My husband, Ed, and I often discuss alternatives that will include the whole family, and we continue to seek wisdom in striking a balance. We don't want to be trapped in the attitude expressed in the Festival of Lights song titled "Gotta Buy This, Gotta Buy That." In years past, our family has filled shoe boxes with items for needy children and has invited suffering families to have a Christmas day meal with us, but each attempt leaves me feeling that I could (and should) do more. A family in our church struggled last year with the same issues. Having everything they need -- food every day, clothes for every season, and a warm home -- they consider everything else extra blessings. Sitting around the Thanksgiving table, Steve and Sally (names have been changed) started discussing Christmas. They asked all their children and their spouses to suggest things they could do for other people. Soon all agreed on one idea: They would obtain from a church the name of a family with specific needs and buy for them instead of each other. Each family unit decided how much money they would have spent on family members and agreed to put that amount into a money pool kept by Steve and Sally. In light of the luxury items they would have bought for each other, the needs listed by their chosen family were heart-wrenching: "bottom sheet, winter jacket, pillow, diapers, a pan, a crib for a baby sleeping in a drawer." Not a single toy. Members of Steve and Sally's family divided the money and the gift list and began shopping. They compared prices and spent the money wisely. Soon everyone was caught up in the spirit of Christmas giving. On Christmas day, a few members of the family delivered the gifts along with a basket of nonperishable foods. They also gave a Bible to each family member and age-appropriate toys to the children. After meeting the family and learning more about their needs, Steve and Sally and their family gave other things, particularly household items. They assured the family of their prayers through periodic notes and an occasional call, leaving the door open for future ministry. Later, the family talked about their experience. None of them missed the family gifts; they enjoyed shopping for other people and would gladly do it again. I will not be content this year to indulge myself or others simply for our own pleasures; I will continue to look for ways to make a difference in the lives of people in need of a simple "cup of cold water in Jesus' name." Lorna Dobson is the author of I'm More Than the Pastor's Wife. She and her husband, Ed, attend Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Ed is senior pastor. |
Banning Christby John Leo Can an event marked by about 90 percent of Americans become unmentionable? Sure. School bus drivers in Fayette County, Ky., were warned not to say Merry Christmas to any of the children. Presumably, they would say, "Happy holidays," "Merry solstice," "Hail to winter" or something of the sort. In Pittsburgh, they could have said, "Happy Sparkle Season," the city's weird euphemism for Christmastime. A high school dean in West Orange, N.J., reprimanded a student for singing "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" on school property. The student probably could have avoided criticism more easily by singing a song about overthrowing the government. The nervous principal of Loudoun High School in Virginia told student editors to keep the newspaper as secular as possible and "to be careful that they don't associate the upcoming holiday with any particular religion." No, I guess not. You wouldn't want people to go around thinking that a Christian holy day is somehow associated with the Christian religion. Why all these neurotic mental gymnastics? Christmas is the second most important feast on the Christian calendar (after Easter) and possibly now the second most important feast (after Thanksgiving) on the American civil, secular calendar. Though increasingly regarded as vaguely unmentionable, it is also a national public holiday like Independence Day and Memorial Day. Instead of acknowledging all this (along with the religious significance of Hanuka and Ramadan), our schools and other public institutions make their grim annual effort to pretend that Christmas isn't occurring. Frosty Violation The evasiveness seems to grow worse each year. Some schools allow only instrumental versions of traditional carols -- no words. Others allow carols at school concerts as long as they are mixed in with, and presumably disinfected by, songs about Frosty and Rudolph. But schools in Scarsdale, N.Y., forbade "Jingle Bells" and "Frosty." (Is Frosty a serious violation of church-state separation?) They also banned candy canes from schools. The only remotely possible explanation for this is that the canes dimly recall the shepherd's staff in Christian symbolism. Trees are acceptable in some schools if they are sanitized as "the giving trees," "mitten trees" or multicultural "unity trees." Jittery about criticism, a few other schools banned wreaths and poinsettias. One Nebraska school went so far as to invent a seasonal, Santa-like traveler from outer space known as Leon (Noel spelled backwards), which proves that Christmas can be discussed in schools if it is French, backwards and involves nonreligious space travel. Many schools now ban Santa Claus, guilty by association with Christianity because he is remotely based on a fourth-century saint. Not to worry. Santa is about as relevant to the religious feast of Christmas as Bugs Bunny is to Easter. But we are dealing here with an obsession, not rational school policy. In some cases, schools have more or less consciously swept away discussion of living traditions (Christianity, Judaism) while conjuring up silly new seasonal liturgies out of unity trees, Leon the space traveler and the various trappings of a vague new pagan nature cult. This avoidance of religion makes no social sense. Nobody wants the government to become the propaganda arm of Christianity or any other religion. But children should be taught about one another's religious traditions and what those traditions mean. The Supreme Court has let stand a lower court ruling that schools may recognize religious holidays "if the purpose is to provide secular instruction about religious traditions rather than to promote the particular religion involved." Part of that teaching may occasionally involve posting pictures and symbols of various religions, and it certainly can involve the songs and music of different faiths. No court has ever held that singing carols in school or at school concerts is unconstitutional. Schools do more damage than good when they address only the secular elements of religious holidays. This trivializes religion, withholding important learning, while blinking the message that religion is dangerous and divisive. Public schools don't exist to promote religion, but they don't exist to marginalize it either, or to promote secularism as a dominant religion. "Public schools have lurched light-years to the left on this; it's time to level the playing field," says Kevin Hasson of the Becket Fund, which litigates many church-state issues on the non-ACLU side. Part of the problem with religion and the schools is that school officials are so sensitive to pressure that they cave in to almost any protest or any threat to sue. The usual result is that policy is geared to a veto by the most sensitive person in the community, whose feelings are hurt when any religion is brought up or given any attention. Too bad. Religion is an important social force. Marginalizing it or banning neutral instruction about it from the schools is not a neutral act. Merry C-------s. Happy H----a. John Leo is a contributing editor for U.S.News & World Report. This article is reprinted from the Dec. 30, 1996/Jan. 6, 1997, issue of USN&WR. |