Merry Christmas

This is a picture of our Christmas tree. I have mini-lights on the tree and I also have real tree candles I bought in Germany. Here, in North America, we have become somewhat overly obsessed with eternal life - not in the religious sense but in the sense of thinking that if we just eat the right things, soak our kids' clothes with fire retardant chemicals and take the right vitamins, and never have real candles on a real Christmas tree, that somehow we will escape the Angel of Death.

Now personally, I don't see what the point is in living without risk. I've never sky-dived or climbed Everest but I get it. I do keep an eye on the tree when I have the tree candles burning and the mini-lights are for the times when the candles are not burning. There's nothing like a real tree with real candles and a real popcorn chain and a real cranberry chain with real gingerbread men. I didn't take the time to make the popcorn chain or the cranberry chain this year and the gingerbread men disappeared from the decorating plans a couple of years ago, when the dogs decided they would make a great late night lunch. That was a happy dog Christmas, let me tell you. All the shattered glass ornaments that filled the spaces between the gingerbread men notwithstanding, I didn't begrudge them their celebration overly much.

Over the years I have collected a lot of bird tree decorations - mostly white birds, like doves, although I have all kinds of birds hanging from the tree. Even so it is not a theme tree, in the sense that theme tree decorators would understand it. But in the last few years, it has been more and more my desire to put things on the tree that are meaningful to me in a spiritual way. The dove of course is associated with the Holy Ghost. In addition to that, given that birds occupy a space between the heavens and the earth, in many cultures they are given a spiritual significance as messengers between heaven and earth. So that's how I got into birds.

I got into roses this year. In Protestant theology Mary, the Mother of Jesus does not hold the place that Catholics assign to her, however, roses and the scent of roses are associated with her presence. So that's how I got into roses (and other flowers).

Some ornaments I collected from Germany, from the time when I lived there. Germans go a fantastic job with Christmas and their Christkindlmarkt (Christ Child Market). I don't think you have seen elaborate gingerbread until you have been to one of those markets. They define elaborate and Germans, having invented the Christmas tree via Martin Luther, have many well-known makers of fine Christmas decorations. For example, hand carved wooden figures - I have a small pipe-smoking Santa, the pipe-smoking emanating from a cone of incense at the base.

I also have a pyramid thingie made in Germany - three separate tiers - the first of which consists of black-robed carollers, the second of which contain the shepherds and their sheep, and the third which consists of Joseph and Mary and the Wise Men. Candles are lit at the base and the heat makes them all twirl around until they look dizzy enough to puke.

And then I have all kinds of ornaments, whatever I've picked up here and there over the years, things that caught my eye. The top of the tree is of course, a majestic looking angel. Not one of those twinkly ones that you plug into the main lights. Lights doing a version of Jingle Bell Rock and cavorting around and winking on and off make me crazy. I like lights that just are lights. If I disco, I'll look in some retro type store and put on the Bee Gees.

Now I don't know if some Christians have a problem with the Christmas tree or if they see it as secular or pagan in nature. To me it means much as it did to Martin Luther, who did take a pagan custom but saw it in a new light - the light of Christ's love. Particularly for those of us who see little light now in the darkest days of the year, who look outside the window and see nothing alive or green - the evergreen becomes a wonder - a reminder that dark nights of the soul pass, that the dead-looking trees outside are only sleeping. That leaves will burst forth again, and grass spring up, and the birds come back to cheer us with their praises to the Creator. That the dog days of summer will come again, that branches will hang heavy with fruit.

The Christmas tree is a parable to me, of Christ's eternalness, and of the promise that the night will pass, the summer will come, we will yet have life again.

Matthew 4:16: The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

Layla

Angels!

Woot! They can make angels for the tree... that's a great idea. :)

As for resolutions, I agree that we should do things every day (and am working on my spiritual resolutions to live in the moment more, to be more grateful for daily things, etc) but the New Year just naturally happens to be a good time to start things, one of several that occur naturally throughout the year.

Let's see... spiritual questions...

What do you think God's will for your life is?

Advent calendars and Birthday cake

I like the concept of lighting candles, one each day before Christmas, to "count down". I'd probably not do the "one each Sunday" simply because I don't decorate for Christmas until mid-month (a rebel to the core, that's me).

While Advent has never been part of my Christmas celebration, I have gotten a new advent calendar almost every year of my life... my birthday is December 1! I've had the kind with pictures, the kind with chocolate, and have three or four in my Christmas decor that are filled with ornaments either for the tree or for the calendar itself. I've never particularly associated it with the religious aspect of anticipating the coming of the King, it's always been a "countdown to Christmas".

I might actually have TIME to spend working on the "feeling" of Christmas this year, so any ideas you have are most welcome. My son is old enough to really get and enjoy the season, and my daughter is always up for anything sparkly (they have both been commenting on the tinsel garland decorating the apartments near his school).

Jesus' birthday cake: Yes, people do it so their kids get that it's a birthday. I would like to go to someone's house who does that and see how they work it. I can't imagine having a cake on top of all the cookies and candy. In fact, the one year I made a birthday cake for my grandmother (whose bday was the day after Christmas) it was sugar overkill. (She appreciated it though, she was 70something at that point and it was her first bday cake). I would rather just stick to the "we give gifts because God gave us Jesus", which is what I grew up with too.

Onward... do you do New Year's Resolutions? Do you have a spiritual resolution?

Adventkranz

This post isn't going to be about anything very serious. it is going to be about Advent - the first three Sundays before Christmas, with Christmas Day counting as the fourth advent. That is how I am used to celebrating Advent but some people have 5 candles on their wreath, with the fifth candle counting for Christmas Day.

This Sunday we will light the first Advent candle on the wreath I made. Advent wreaths are a Germanic custom that I thought might interest you in your efforts to incorporate more of the 'reason for the season' into your Christmas.

One candle is lit on the first Advent, the third Sunday before Christmas, and two candles are lit when we are two Sundays before Christmas, and so on until on Christmas Day you have four lit candles. It is a way of providing a religious countdown to Christmas, and I think it helps to get in the mood for Christmas, instead of there being a huge rush of things and then, bang! Christmas is here and then it's gone before you know it.

I made my advent wreath with one of those metal wreath things you can buy at craft stores, with candle holders already in place. From the greenhouse, I bought some fir - at least I think it is fir - evergreens with needles that look more like grass than the more usual pine. I don't like needles to shed all over the place and neither fir nor balsam sheds. After cutting and wiring the branches to the wreath form, with a glue gun I glued dried pink flowers to the wreath, along with some realistic looking butterflies and birds.

You can decorate the wreath in any way you like. In Germany they are often very elaborate. I prefer a more natural look.

I put white candles in the wreath because that was what I had on hand.

Advent calendars were and still are also very popular among some Mennonite groups although today they are mostly made for children. Here you can buy them in almost any store. I don't know how it is in your area. They are calendars with religiously themed pictures that have little windows in them and in the bought versions, a small piece of chocolate behind each window.

Some Advent calendars now have activities to do for each of the 25 days before Christmas instead of chocolate and there are also 'advent' calendars that have nothing to do with the advent of Christ but focus on Frosty the Snowman and other secular Christmas creatures.

But the way I remember them from growing up was that there was no candy - there was a calendar with little windows for each day of the month, and you pulled them off to reveal a picture of some of the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. It helped to point us in the direction of what we are celebrating as well as provide a direction for our childish excitement to focus, as each day we pulled off a window, we were that much closer to Christmas Day.

There are instructions online how to make your own Advent calendar. Perhaps this too would be something you would want to incorporate into your Christmas? They are easily enough made with cardboard and craft paper and there are many instructions online. There are even Advent calendars online.

I also decorated the chandelier over the dining room table with fir and balsam and picks of real-looking grapes and such.

You know, I only realised within the last week what people are thinking when they do the birthday cake for Jesus thing in an effort to supplant Santa. Duh! I never understood it before but I think what they are thinking is that usually the birthday child gets gifts and so they want to remind their children that it is Jesus' birthday and not their own in spite of the presents most people receive on Christmas Day. I think they are thinking that children will get the wrong idea from presents due to the fact that they are associating gift-giving with themselves, instead of the birthday child, Jesus. Am I right? Did I finally understand correctly?

The reason I didn't understand before was because the way I understood the gift-giving was not about a birthday for anyone so much as that because God gave the most precious thing He had to us, we, in a small remembrance of that gift, give gifts to each other. So in my interpretation there never was a supplanting of Jesus by Santa, or a misunderstanding of birthdays.

I don't think the birthday thing would have made sense to me because there is nothing that we can give God or His Son but our hearts, our souls and our minds. Therefore there is no need for a birthday present.

Layla

Christmas

I see Christmas and the celebration of it a little differently. My parents tried to make Christmas, the secular part, special. I know it was a lot of work, and I know it more now that I am older and am the one trying to make Christmas special for everyone, and trying to accommodate every one's notion of what is special. So it is hard for the woman who is busy with all this stuff to feel any sort of peace and goodwill to men.

Since it is simply a fact that I am going to be the one doing so much, and it is simply a fact that I feel like an abused servant at Christmas time, I try to turn that into a good thing. I try to mentally put it in a place where I am doing this for Christ, who was our servant.

The Christmas before last, for once, there were no family gatherings on Christmas Day but we had one the day after Christmas. So I thought this was my chance to have a more relaxed Christmas since usually I am cooking on Christmas Eve for Christmas Day. And when that happens I have no time to go to church.

But on that particular Christmas, for the first time in maybe 3 Christmases, we went to the Christmas programme at the church we like to celebrate it at.

So come Christmas Day, I was playing carols and singing along. I had a goose planned for dinner. I was also mixing up all the stuff to cook and bake to take along to the family gathering the following day.

I mentioned that we have a tradition of picking out poor families and buying presents for them. For years now it has been one particular immigrant family with thirteen children. This isn't anonymous. I wanted that but my husband had other ideas. Since Europeans tends to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, I dropped off the presents a week or so before Christmas so that my presents don't take away from their celebration.

At three in the afternoon, guess who shows up in the middle of my peaceful Christmas? All fifteen people in that family. Guess who was horrified? Me! I couldn't believe that they were ruining my Christmas. They came loaded with versions of their ethnic holiday foods - they knew that weren't going to just have dinner on hand for an extra fifteen people. But honestly, I was so mad, I was shaking.

So I went downstairs to collect myself. I thought of saying, Sorry! We were just leaving for a family gathering.

But I realised, that they were, from their heart, with their company and their food, wanting to reciprocate what I had been doing for many years with Christmas presents. So I swallowed hard, said a quick little prayer and went back upstairs and put my defrosted goose back in the fridge, got out the toys, put their food in the fridge and we celebrated Christmas. And I did all the running around and I had no fun at all. I was doing it so that they would have a wonderful Christmas - which they did. They were so happy with themselves.

I believed in Santa whom we called Saint Nicolas. I don't remember at all when I no longer believed in Santa. I suppose that after hearing enough children tell me there was no Santa, and hearing them laugh at kids who still believed in Santa, I must have got the hint somewhere along the line.

My father would make pretend reindeer tracks outside. The porridge and the milk disappeared somewhere. I thought I heard a reindeer on the roof one Christmas and I was terrified that I wouldn't get any presents because I wasn't asleep. I don't think there was any attempt to make the religious aspects of Christmas special. They were special because they were real. We didn't sit around for weeks on end talking about how God sent His Son. We already knew that. We took that part for granted.

We sang Frosty the Snowman along with Silent Night. So I don't see any difference between my childhood Christmases and the secularization of Christmases that you don't like. Christmas was advertised then too. Toys were always wanted then too. I wrote letters to Santa about all the toys I wanted.

First of all Christ is the reason for the season only for Christians. He is not the reason for the season for everyone. I don't concern myself with how others celebrate Christmas, even if they leave Christ out of it and Frosty in it. I don't have to. No one is forcing me to leave Christ out of it.

I think that the problem began when Christians made a private religious celebration public, by putting up nativities and other religious symbols in public places, they invited the public into 'their' celebration. And then when the non-religious public took to the celebration and made it their own as well with secular elements, then we object. If we had had proper respect in the first place and took our faith seriously, we wouldn't have made a public spectacle out of it and just asked for it to be abused.

Furthermore, we are trying to have it both ways. The early church co-opted existing pagan festivals and built Christian festivals around them. Christians can't say that non-believers 'stole' their holiday when Christianity in fact usurped pagan festivals.

However I don't think that the fact that many Christian festivals coincide or have some pagan elements in them negates Christmas. Paul, when he went to Athens, noticed that the Athenians, in their effort not to ignore any god had put up altars to the unknown god.

Acts 17:23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

You notice how Paul says that he is there to tell them who this unknown god is whom they worship in their self-admitted ignorance. In other words, Paul is taking an existing belief and co-opting it and using it to explain the Jewish-Christian God.

We don't know when Jesus was born, and December 25 only acts as a symbol of that day to us. And the winter time was chosen precisely because of the pagan festivals, that it wouldn't be strange to the people to to celebrate something at that time. Attaching it to Christianity became a means of making Christ known to others during a time when people were jolly and looking for any excuse to celebrate.

You mention that some fundamentalist Christians have taken on Jewish celebrations for being less secular, I suppose. Although if Christians are now usurping Jewish festivals, I guess the Jews are thinking, there goes the neighbourhood. Jewish traditions don't exist in a vacuum either - they too have connections to other celebrations by pagans in the regions where their celebrations began. Instead of thinking of it as though Christmas has let the secular or pagan in, why not think of it as how secular or pagan have let Christ in?

The reason that there is less commercialisation in North America among Jews, is because minorities tend not to impose their celebrations on anyone. Jews took their faith a little more seriously than we did. They didn't put on public displays and insist that every street corner had a Hanukkah menorah. And so they remained truer to the spirit of their celebration than we did, although even they, in countries that are predominately Christian, have added elements to their celebration, such as more presents, instead of the traditional gift of money given over the days of Hanukkah.

I really don't see that it is so difficult to keep Christ at the centre of your celebration but I don't think that gifts are things that take away from Christ. We give gifts to each other in remembrance of the gift of Christ to us. We light our Christmas lights in memory of the Light of the World. If there is a connection way back to pagan celebrations, well then, those folks back then, ignorantly worshipped the unknown God, who now, in our Christian celebration of that old celebration, him declare I unto you.

It doesn't strike me as even slightly odd that many Jewish or Christian ideas have roots or similarities in various pagan beliefs. If we all come from the same source, the same beginnings, of course our mythology will all lead back to our common story, and every faith will contain something in it that says, we have forgotten the original story, but this is the altar to the unknown God whom we think we knew once.

And who was gracious enough to allow us Gentiles to participate in the faith that was given in trust to the Jewish people, to hold for the world, long ago.

Layla

I think it's the cult of Santa et al

The parents I hang with make such an effort to make the secular version of Christmas "special" for children (as if it's not special already) that the religious bits get pushed to the side. The still small voice gets drowned out in choruses of "Frosty the Snowman". These are people who are horrified that their seven year olds would find out that Santa's not real!

I'm not sure if folks are trying to relive their childhoods, or just super worried about making everything perfect (I tend to think the latter), but ... well, it's just odd. I had a note from a friend the other day asking me how I kept my kids from thinking that because Santa's not real, maybe Jesus isn't either. That's what I mean by the cult of Santa... how far have we gone when that's a concern?

I'd rather go back to the Christmases you had as a child - or even the ones I had. Maybe I just feel the pressure as "the mom" to make everything happen? It seems like (though Christmas is my favorite part of the year) that the season is so much more about consumerism (buy, package, make things shiny) than it is about even the most slight spirituality. Or even, really, about the family gatherings... it's like we don't take time for each other really. :( And perhaps my feelings about that are colored by my own very rushed holiday efforts, jaunting from my house to my parents' house and then back, trying to accomodate everyone and everyone's version of "special". By the time I've gotten the mandatory bits of Christmas over, it's hard to get myself (and I'm by far the most spiritually oriented in the house) in the mood for contemplation of our Lord.

I see the draw to switching to the Jewish holidays, as some very fundamental Christians do. There's no way I'd get my family on board for that... but there's a draw. What do you feel at this time of year?

Jesus IS the reason for the season

But I don't think that any Christian I've ever met has chanted it for the benefit of non-believers. (Okay, maaaaybe when they make us cranky by taking away the city nativity displays or suchlike).

That quote, and the odds and ends that American Christians get up to (like making a birthday cake on Christmas for Him) to bring more Christ into Christmas, are, I think, for our own benefit. It is terribly difficult to live in this secular, commercial society, and hold on to the religious meaning of Christmas. I don't know what the difference is living in rural (?) Canada without kids vs. living in suburban America with kids... but I know I constantly feel the pressure to do more stuff for the holidays - and it's secular stuff. Bad stuff? No way! But secular.

I think what folks are trying to do is remind themselves (and their kids) that the holiday is not about the gifts, not about snowmen, not about any of that... that it's about our Lord coming to be born.

Thanksgiving is probably the closest thing Americans have to a non-denominational religious holiday. We are encouraged to think about the things we have to be thankful for, to spend time with our families, to consider our nation's past. It's a very special time for most of us, I think. And well it should be! I heartily resent it being almost the "rest day" before turbo-Christmas shopping begins, as well as some of the big stores being open that afternoon. I guess you can't SELL gratitude... :(

Your Christmases as a child sound wonderful! :)

Hugs and hope you're feeling well today.

Now I've scared you off

from YOUR own blog... :( I didn't mean to do it!

At any rate, I think we need some fresh subjects to ponder, having gotten into rather deep water with the salvation and age of accountability etc etc...

It's coming up on Christmas and Thanksgiving in the States... how do you make those holidays more spiritually meaningful, or do you? (I know you had your TG a month ago.. all that pie!)

I've pretty much given up the holidays themselves... they're secular and that's the way it is. Christmas is mostly about the kids and the joy. But Christmas Eve? Now that's my veryvery special spiritual holiday. And I do enjoy it. It's a time to go to church (mine usually has communion) and to come home to a nice calm dinner and spend some time watching the lights on the tree, some special time reading the Christmas story and contemplating the love of our Lord. I try hard to keep it special like that, which can be hard with a town full of family and last minute preparations. But... that's what I do.

How about you?