Growing up, Christmas was delightful at our house. Mom decorated the fireplace mantel with a Christmas village nestled in pillows of cotton to imitate snow. The window’s were sprayed white to look like Jack Frost had worked magic on each pane, while inside lights framed the portal and large glitter encrusted plastic snowflakes dangled from the top of the window frame. In the corner stood a huge pine dad brought in from the forest and set up in it’s red and green metal tree stand. Tinsel, lights, ornaments and mountains of gifts graced the majestic tree and it’s fragrance fill the house with a delicious smell. Lights were strung on the outside of the house which shone brilliantly on the snow-covered ground. Through this child’s eyes, Christmas was a magical time.
Changes took place after we moved to a different city and state. As we settled into the rhythm of this new place, my father was given a place of honor as an elder presiding over our in-home church meeting on Sunday mornings. The very first Christmas following this change, the house was decorated just as it had been in the past. But those overseeing the church had other ideas. They took my parents aside and advised them this kind of decorations were too distracting and took away from the spirit of the meeting.
Mom and dad acquiesced, not wanting to lose this privilege. I can’t blame them for that choice. That was the last year Christmas was secularly beautiful, traditional and whimsical in our house. I was just 7 years old. From there on we had a 18” plastic tree that we tried to make pretty, but it stayed closeted until after the last Sunday meeting before Christmas. No more lights, Christmas village, painted windows or glittery plastic snowflakes. There was the aroma of yummy foods but the delicious piney scent and the whimsey of our past Christmases was missing.
In the church I and my family attended all through my youth until I was 40, there were beliefs, if not church doctrines about Christmas. We were told, “we don’t know the day of the birth of Christ so we can’t endorse this day the rest of the world has chosen” and “we celebrate Christ’s birth everyday not just one day a year” and “Christmas is a holiday created by pagans”. Still there were varying degrees of Christmas traditions among the congregants. Some still went all out as we once had and others that wouldn’t even think of treating the day any different then any other day of the year. There were also “closet” celebrations such as ours. But the one thing always understood in any of those Christmas celebrations, was this, “We were not celebrating the Birth of Christ!”
As an adult, I have tried recreating Christmas but something has always seemed amiss. Because of memories of our family home when I was young, I fixated on creating what I had as a child through lights, decorations and gifts, instead of asking myself the critical question… “What is Christmas all about?” to eventually “Why not celebrate the birth of Christ?”.
Having a revolutionary period of my spiritual beliefs over the past few years, I had to build solid understanding of my own. It is all too easy to adopt the convictions of others and never really come to a personal faith. However possessionless faith means we are never truly satisfied in that deep place of our soul. We are crippled, always leaning on others for support, having questions we can’t or don’t take the time to find answers to.
It has taken a few years to sort through all my thoughts but here they are in a nutshell:
Most people, Christian and non-Christian’s alike, understand December 25th is not the day of Christ’s birth. However, long-ago, influential people put into motion a chain of events, converting the pagan winter celebrations to simply be about the birth of our Lord. We have passed down these traditions through the generations
Being made in Gods image, I look at the tendency’s we as a collective people on earth gravitate towards. There we see a little picture of some of the nature of God. We are a tradition-loving people. We read of traditions throughout all the ages. In our traditions, we see events and people being honored. I believe God loves tradition also.
So in this most favorite holiday of mine, I have begun viewing it as a Holy day and enter into celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior. It has taken on a deeper and intimate meaning as I consider all the events leading up to Jesus’ advent. I stand in awe of the majesty of God recreated in this baby, this gift of life. The Wise Men, the shepherds, even the angels celebrated Jesus’ birth. While I celebrate the life of Christ everyday, during this holiday season, with all of its traditions, I cannot exclude Christ from any of it. I want to lay a wreath of honor at His throne.
Like the sunrise gloriously announcing a new day, so the birth of our Lord proclaims the awesome salvation for our soul. For Christmas without Christ is like the sunrise without a sun.
Because of my attendance in the same church/meetings, Christmas with all its trimmings was wrested from our household when I was 11. The next year, not having a tree, we set our few presents on the fireplace hearth, attempting to ‘arrange’ them to display their festive wrapping. Alas, in my child’s heart it was a sad Christmas with many to follow. Even into adulthood, my heart would ache with fond memories of the Christmases of my childhood that I was no longer able to recreate. (My husband, also, was an elder….)
Well into adulthood, my beliefs changed dramatically and I left the church. Although I do not celebrate the religious aspect of the holidays, I am once again able to throw myself into the warmth & jolly-ness of the season and I do it without abandon! So…here’s to a merry, merry Christmas!
I, too, understood the magical feeling associated with Christmas until I was 17 and it was ripped away as a result of the church. Like you, I have wanted to re-create the magic of the holiday and the joy of celebrating Jesus even more intensely but a lot of “baggage” remains.
I could relate completely with your telling of your childhood experience re: the holiday season. It is really hard to understand as a child and I still do not understand doing things because someone else thinks it is a good idea. If one prefers to refrain from the trappings of the holiday, fine, but making that decision 1) because someone told you to and 2) making the decision for the entire family, is incomprehensible. I am glad that you have expanded your understanding of how you want to celebrate and why you choose to do it. And so have I.
I think many people live life this way, especially when they care more about the opinions of others. The Bible talks of not causing my brother to offend, it was talking of a particular form of pagan worship. There is nothing pagan in celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior. Tho we rejoice in his life everyday, is it wrong to emphasize his birth, use it to draw those that might be standing far off wondering who this Christ is?
Christmas is so much a part of our culture, it seems odd to people that you wouldn’t celebrate it. The culture seems to have lost the reason behind the holiday and has made it so secular but we who rejoice in the birth of our Lord and Savior can do things differently, reverently showing a world Christ, the King of our lives is the reason for every man, woman, boy and girls celebration of his birth, life and death and finally his resurrection!