I am home! Freedom from schoolwork has come (for a while, at least!), and I have been enjoying it, despite my nervous anticipation for our final grades. Although, I must say I did enjoy studying these past few days.
After my family ate dinner tonight in honor of advent we read a chapter from this book about the "fascinating" traditions of Christmas, and the history behind some of the usual "Christmas cheer," which I do find interesting. This book, or maybe this particular chapter was very long and boring. It was not written in a very fascinating way at all. How disappointing.
Despite its bland approach to the subject of the history of how Christmas decorations came about, a detail about decorations caught my ear and made me chew on it.
We often talk or think about how materialistic the winter holiday season has become - with millions of gifts to buy, cards to write, lights to put up, Christmas albums to listen to, it seems as though our country has lost itself to the illusion that all of this hustle and bustle is completely necessary for the "Christmas spirit" to come alive. We reflect on how people go crazy and stress out with family dinner preparations, get disappointed when we don't get the gift we want or when plans come undone and we think about how sad it all is...that we invest so much into a month of craziness only for it to pass and wait for the next year to come around.
We don't feel satisfied. We decide if our Christmas was a good one if nothing bad happened, if things went as planned or better than we expected. We say our Christmas was bad if some sort of drama broke out, if we stressed out, or if an unexpected tragedy or unplanned event occurred beyond our radar.
It's then that we question what the point of Christmas is, and how we've become so wrapped up in the material, visual celebration of it all. What struck me from the history that was read to me tonight was that we brought it upon ourselves. We put the blame on the businesses, scoff when advertisements for big sales come on, and complain when we feel the need to shop during the busiest time of year. But it is still that hole in our God-shaped hearts that we have created this season of materialism and displays. Generations of people have believed for so long that we needed more gifts and more displays that we had to demand businesses for more variety of tree ornaments, Christmas lights, cards, and the next Tickle-me-Elmo or Furby to try and satisfy this thirst for more.
Are we so broken a people that we find ourselves celebrating the "true meaning of Christmas" as family gatherings, lots of food, and gifts under the tree? Celebrating Christmas can't mean the celebration of family, good food, or gifts because not everyone has them. What everyone can be offered and what everyone can have is the gift of humble hope. Christ wasn't born after the Christmas lights were put up, or the wise men came with their gifts. Celebration came before He was born: the prophets, with Mary. Celebration came when He was born: with the shepherds, the angels, the mended family of two. And celebration came after He was born: the wise men, the gifts brought to Him. It didn't mean there wasn't trouble among them: the scandal of Joseph and Mary's relationship, Mary being with child though she was a virgin, the difficulty of finding a place to give birth, the threat of death when Herod commanded every child to be killed, etc.
But let us celebrate before, during, and after this season, amidst the threat of sour circumstances - not the hanging of decorations, the exchange of gifts, or swirl of "Christmas cheer," but why we do all of it in the first place. Maybe we need to re-think our purposes and shift our thoughts to the one who should be the center of our lives, rather than the excuse of our stress and blunder.
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