I grew up a bit schizophrenic about this time a year. I always loved Christmas— time off from school, decorations, presents, and family traditions like Mom and Dad racing to be the first to say “Christmas-Eve gift.” But while I loved Christmas, we always made it crystal clear that it wasn’t really a religious holiday. I made sure all my more liturgical friends knew that this wasn’t really Jesus’ birthday. After all, the Bible doesn’t say when he was born or that we should do anything to observe his birth. So while we enjoyed the HOLIDAY, we had to make sure that it wasn’t a HOLY DAY. We didn’t use religious decorations. Our Christmas cards had winter scenes and a generic “Happy Holidays” greetings. In other words, we were politically correct before being politically correct was cool! We were free to join in the greed and the materialism of seasonal shopping and Christmas lists, and we did that with glee. But we could not mention anything about the birth of Jesus. Curious choice, was not it?
Everything about Christmas is traditional— its sacred and secular practices. Special Christmas services, nativity scenes, Chrtistmas trees, giving gifts, sending cards, taking trips— everything that represents this season is a tradition. Each family (and each church) has to decide which holiday traditions they will observe. I’m glad my family didn’t do the figgy pudding thing, but I do wish we would have sung Silent Night and Joy to the World more. People’s thoughts are on the birth of Jesus during this time of the year. Those songs are being sung. (This year a major motion picture on “The Nativity Story” was released during this season). Reminders of God’s coming into the world are all around us. That's story of Jesus coming is my story, and I'm sticking to it! I am thankful that we are at a place now where we can sing the songs, read the texts and use the powerful images of this traditional season to reflect the fact that God was born into our world.
We are doing that this Sunday as a church in a special way. We will have a time of worship as we together sing carols of praise, read the texts of his coming and briefly reflect on the “reason for the season.” After our devotional, we will have something completely different— a “talent show” that will use prepared dramatic readings and special presentation music. All of this will help us to reflect on this season of the year and what it meant for Jesus to come into our world. Thanks to Anna Caroline Causey for putting all this together. Afterwards we will have our church “Christmas party” as we enjoy a “finger food” potluck together. Hey, we don’t need a major holiday to have an excuse to eat together!
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