'Tis the Season ~ Rant

 

'Tis the season...Ah, but what season is it?

Hallowe'en flew by, and we tumbled into Thanksgiving with lots to give thanks for. Now suddenly it's December, the snow covers my little piece of Caledon Cay in Second Life, and my husband in real life is itching to buy the Christmas tree already.

I'll be honest. I don't like the "Christmas"season. I don't like the concept of a Christmas season in the least, and I haven't since I was 14, when I had to put "Christmas" together for my younger brothers and sister at 4am, and then slept through the gift openings, and my family left for my grandmother's without me. I wondered then if Santa also enjoyed a Christmas day, no annoying elves around, quiet house, feet up on the coffee table.

It's one of the moments of my life that got me really reading and studying the Bible. At first, that drove me away from the church, but eventually my studies and experiences brought me back to God. But not back to Christmas, or Easter, for that matter.

I hate the dishonesty of the season, when Hallmark and Disney clones seem to have the monopoly of the meaning of Christmas. I blame folks who don't read Dickens in context. Scrooge had it right in this: celebrating Christmas as the birth of Jesus is humbug. Jesus wasn't born in December; there weren't 3 kings at the nativity; and whatever the wise men were, they didn't show up at the stable. If you think I'm wrong, read your Bible again. I won't even mention all the pagan rituals the Christian world has blithely appropriated and retrofitted into half-baked theologies. The frenzy that drives people to financial straits--or even a bullet in the chest--just to get the kid the perfect toy doesn't "magnify the Lord." Every time I see a Bob Cratchit on the screen simpering, "But it's Christmas, sir!" I want to smack him.

Now, I love all the celebrations of the winter season. I love playing in Santa parades, I enjoy decorating the house, and I love throwing a Christmas party. I really enjoy editing the Christmas cantata for my church. But (in my best John Cleese voice) "Don't go calling it Christmas."

What the world considers Christmas--what the Grinch learned, for example--is plain humanity. Treating one another with love, even more than simple decency. Treasuring the people in our lives. Dr. Seuss said it best: "Christmas Day is in our grasp as long as we have hands to clasp." People get that whole thing backwards. It's not that Christmas is Christmas as long as we have the people we love; it's that, so long as we have people in our lives, we are living Christmas every day: God with us.

So call me crazy, but don't tell me Jesus is the reason for the season. The season was already there. There's no monopoly on it; songs about snow on Christmas make very little sense to much of the world, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a need for sleigh bells in most places. Chocolate? Cookies? Pumpkin pie? Gingerbread? Pretty sure they're wonderful, and pretty sure they're not biblical, but there you are. They ARE part of the season (no pun intended). 

Humanity's basic social nature-- the need for company and desire for comfort-- is the reason for the season, even if it's just the return of the lengthening hours of sunlight. 

As a Christian, I treasure the coming of Jesus as a human every day of my life, just as I look forward to joining God after my death, so I try to make what everyone calls Christmas part of everyday living, as much as I do Easter. That's my definition of "the TRUE meaning of Christmas." 

I love David Meece's theology on Christmas in his song "We Are the Reason." 

 

If you're going to call it Christmas, make it more than a season; make it a way of life.