Christmas thoughts

Today is the first of December and the first Sunday of Advent so I thought it would be a good time to write down a few thoughts about Christmas. I love Christmas (why would I be writing a blog about it if I didn't?) but I don't like everything that we've made Christmas to be about or involve.

The other day I saw some photos of Christmas markets in Europe and it reminded me of the Christmas I spent over there and the Christmas markets I went to. I really enjoyed the ones I went to and part of me wishes we had them here but it wouldn't be the same. Walking around a Christmas market in daylight at 8pm in t-shirt, shorts and jandals, and eating an ice cream just isn't the same as walking around a Christmas market in the dark at 4pm with coat, hat, scarf, gloves and boots, and sipping mulled wine.

I loved having a white Christmas that year. There was something special about it, like that was how Christmas should be. But that's not right. We have been indoctrinated by books and movies and advertising into thinking that Christmas is always supposed to be cold, dark and snowy. Santa is almost always wearing a big fluffy suit that would cause heat stroke here and there are so many snowflake and snowman decorations around. I'm not saying we should get rid of all of this or that schools should only sing Christmas on the beach and not Frosty the Snowman, it's just something to think about. 

One thing I think we do need to do something about is the culture of consumerism around Christmas. Watching a news item about black Friday in America (massive pre-Christmas sales, ridiculous crowds, violence - you get the picture) almost had me in tears over completely society seems to have lost the plot. How can people become so aggressive and possessive over material goods that they will fight whoever gets in their way when the thing they want is on sale? Imagine what would happen if all the money people spend on presents for each other, decorations and fancy food this Christmas was spent on things in the Tearfund (www.giftforlife.co.nz), World Vision (www.worldvision.org.nz) or Oxfam (www.oxfamunwrapped.org.nz) gift catalogues, support for typhoon victims, or support for any local or international charity.

The first Christmas was very different. The lead up involved a journey on a donkey while heavily pregnant with a husband who wasn't the baby's father to be counted in the census and a stay in a stable. Christmas involved giving birth away from home and family with only a husband and animals for company. It was no ordinary birth and no ordinary baby - it was the least of births and the greatest of babies. The visitors were not family and friends but a pile of shepherds they didn't know followed by a visit by three wise men to a poor and scandalous family. 

 

It doesn't matter what Christmas traditions you follow - winter or summer, it's the reason for the traditions that is important. We are remembering the birth of Jesus. Do your Christmas traditions reflect that? Do mine? What does a Christmas where every part of it is about remembering and celebrating Jesus birth and all that that meant look like?