Christmas huh?

So, I’ve been thinking on this one for a while now.  Hopefully, this doesn’t turn into a rant or lengthy treatise, but I can’t make any promises in that regard.  I’ve been accused of being a Grinch.  A pastor being accused of being a Grinch!  I don’t like Christmas music (with all do respect to Mike).  I’m not much for decorating for Christmas.  I don’t like having to go to stores and being confronted by robotic santas singing “Let is Snow” in a creepy digitized fashion.  Like I said, people have accused me of being a Grinch.  This has never really sat well with me becuase I know that I love God and I love to celebrate the birth of Jesus due to the fact that his birth is absolutely central to my faith and worldview.  I have spent a lot of time over the past few months looking at why I feel the way I do, lunch with Brian helped me think through a few things too, and I think I’ve finally come to at least some kind of understanding now.

First of all, I am not willing to accept the title “Grinch” without it leading to fisticuffs ever again.  I do not hate Christmas.  I have no interest in ruining other people’s happiness.  I do not own a dog, and will not ever own a dog.  And most of all I am not green and furry.  Furry maybe, but certainly not green.  I don’t hate Christmas, but what passes as Christmas makes me uneasy – queasy almost.  I refuse to be labled as a Christmas hater just because  listening to “Christmas” music irritates me, I’m not big on decorating, and I’m uneasy about the felt obligation to give “Christmas” cards to people I barely know because “that’s the way things work”.  None of those things are Christmas to me, they are just “Christmas”.

Some people say that they are sick of the consumerization of Christmas.  Some Christians get up in arms when they are greeted with “happy holidays” instead of “merry christmas”.  Just last week I listened to Bill O’Reilly lament the despicable S-P’s for (these two cliches make me groan gutterally) “trying to take Christ out of Christmas” because “Jesus is the reason for the season”.  I used to fit into this camp too, until recently.  I’ve come the understanding now though that it’s not the rest of the world that’s the problem, it’s me.  They aren’t trying to take Christ out of Christmas – he was never in their “Christmas” to start with.  To them, Jesus isn’t the reason for the season.  Their “Christmas” has nothing to do with Christ, it really is just “happy holidays”.  The real issue is me trying to force my faith and my Christmas into their “happy holidays”.  Why should we be allowed or feel justified to try to shove Christ and Christmas down their throats or into their winter festivals?  I can’t imagine that I’d be too happy either if was forced to perform pagan rituals on Halloween.  I would likely try to come up with some way to get rid of the pagan parts of Halloween and still try to enjoy it somehow . . . oh wait . . . that’s exactly what Christians have done.

I say let the world have it’s happy holidays and winter festivals, I just want Christmas back.  I want Christmas to mean what it’s supposed to mean.  Christmas isn’t about santa, sugar plum fairies, elves, trees, and N’Sync Christmas albums.  It is about God incarnate as a man coming to earth.  God with us.  I think you can even make a case for Christmas involving gift giving (so long as the emphasis is on remembering God’s gift to us in Christ), eating and baking (becuase all human celebrations involve eating together in some way), and family as we draw together to celebrate together.  I’m really convinced though that Christians need to keep Christ in Christmas, though not in “Christmas” as western society thinks of it.  I think I would actually really like it if they took Christ out of that “Christmas” all together to get rid of the confusion that comes with the two completely separate celebrations using the same name.  The CFL eventually got it right (think Roughriders vs Rough Riders, turned to Renegades eventually), and I think it’s time we got this weightier matter dealt with too.  Let the world have it’s happy holidays and don’t begrudge them it, I just want Christmas back.

I could go on a lot more about wisemen and historical inaccuarcies that even Christians have perpetrated on themselves, but no one really wants to read that and I think I’ve said enough as it is.  So, if I don’t see you personally in the next couple weeks have either a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or both even.  Let’s just not get the two mixed up.

P.S. – Now that I’m a dad, I think I do somewhat sickly look forward to my kid being the one to tell all the other kindergarten kids that there is no Santa, and that the real Santa actually died a few hundred years ago.  Does that make me a bad person? 😉

P.P.S. – Is this good enough to keep me in your Google Reader Mike?