Christmas is over and I am celebrating. Despite many aspects of this year's Yule Tide going well including the addition of a puppy to our family, the fact is I have been developing a growing dislike of Christmas. Bah humbug.
Spiritually I am just having trouble entering into it. It's so man-made, so commercial I can't seem to salvage the reverence of it. Either it should just be a celebration of all things "Jingle-Bells" and snowy white with hot cocoa and cookies or it should be "O Holy Night". Like someone who can't simultaneously pat their head and rub their tummy, I am struggling to do both.
Maybe it would help if Jesus was really born on December 25 instead of (more likely) in the spring. Or if the gifts laid at his feet really were brought to the stable instead of when he was three years old. Or if we really did know the names of the wise men and drummer boys really did play "par-rum-pa-pum-pum". But he wasn't and they weren't and we don't and he never did. Instead, Christmas has become an excuse to festoon our homes and malls with lights in a dark winter and to spend ourselves into bankruptcy as if to to satisfy our never-ending need for stuff or to prove, via our duty, that love is expressed by a price tag.
Perhaps it wasn't always so. But for me to enter into worship, truth must enter into it too. At least Easter is celebrated according to an accurate calendar of events it commemorates and Passover is a wonderfully symbolic and ancient meal ordained by God to link us to the history-changing events of Christ's resurrection. There is so little to commercialize and to distract us from God's purpose. I love it.
Even Thanksgiving, while man-made, has kept true to its ideal: giving God His due. I can do that and gladly.
Like poor Ebeneezer Scrooge, perhaps I am in need of a spiritual visit to convert a cynical soul to one that can see through the tinsel or, better yet, celebrate it all together. I love snowmen and nights of hot cider and twinkling lights that brighten snowy evenings as we sing songs celebrating good tidings and winter's heart-warming ways. Somehow I just can't pat my Christmas head and rub my Wintermas tummy. There was hope for Ebeneezer, however. Maybe there's still hope for me.
photo by javaturtle
About Me
- Kelli Anderson
- I became a Christ-follower over 25 years ago. Despite countless Bible studies, small groups and books about Christian living it wasn't until 5 years ago that I finally learned how to let God connect with me through scripture. The key for me was in journaling. Thanks to Ruth Graham Lott and her method of journaling that I adapted to my needs, I finally began to find God and his daily direction for my life by looking at his word in context, just a few verses at a time, and talking with Him about what I find there. In asking what they said about Him and what they might ask of me, I have found direction and connection I never had before. It's a journey. It's a process. God won't be done with me until I'm with Him face to face. But now the difference is that I can hardly wait.
Paws for Thought
Dog days of winter
2 comments:
I am right with you on this one! Hear, hear, I say! Send this to some periodical next year before Christmas. There are people who will want to read this. My heart is grateful to have a companion in this. Christmas gets more and more frustrating to me - exactly for the reasons you mention. Am I a scrooge? Probably a bit. But I also think we have let this whole Christmas thing get way out of hand - and what started out as a simple feast and way of expressing our love, has turned into an expensive monster.
This was darling....I'm cogitating on it -especially since for me worship has to have truth too...but....i'm not with you guys totally so i'm thinking why --maybe there is still the magic of Christmas for me, the ability to know that tho Santa isn't real and some things are not quite accurate that there is something fantastical that happened when Jesus came-the white witch is losing her power and allowing us to become childlike in wonder again...maybe I just block those things out that aren't quite correct cuz I love the childlike wonder i see in my grandkids eyes...like in our family play where little Ana went up and kissed baby Jesus when we said the wisemen came to worship Him...How i would have loved to held Jesus and kissed Him, for He came to this evil world for my sins -a cruel world where Satan and Herod wanted to kill Him , true(I don't think the first Christmas was without fears and questions and tears)...yet it had to also be a world of wonder and include the wonder of What in the world is God up to --and the wonder of the greatest gift in the world that just makes me want to celebrate by giving gifts to those I love -Maybe I just have not fully understood this new culture I live in and how it feels to those who've been here the last 25 years, so I come back to it, almost with the wonder of a child. Maybe I'm just a grandma! Maybe I just love giving and receiving gifts and it gives me an excuse...I do know when i practice for the singing/choir it is truly with a heart that wants to worship my King and give honor and praise to Him,and draw others too...so as Paul Harvey says, "...and that's another view of the news" ;0
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