CHRISTMAS 2019: ITS MEANING FOR US

We wish our readers Happy Holidays. Thanks for being with us this year. Today, we offer thoughts on the season.

                  

Woodson:  Let’s Take the Pain Out of Christmas

Christmas is too commercial and, in many ways, painful. Commercializing Christmas has too often drowned out the story of Jesus.

                  

As a farm kid with few possessions, a belief in Santa Claus allowed me to engage in an

expectation fantasy. Hours were spent leading up to Christmas imagining what I would find under the Christmas tree. Invariably, I received a cap gun with holster, socks, and an assortment of fruits, nuts, and candies. Christmas after Christmas, I imagined myself receiving something really big, perhaps a pedal-driven car or a pony. 

On the Christmas after I turned eight, I received my assortment of fruits, nuts, and candy, but no toy. Someone told me Santa Claus was a fantasy, and my

parents had decided to no longer indulge this costly fantasy. I approached an older brother, hoping to be consoled but he responded, “Dang, man, you still believing that Santa Claus business?” I was crushed. That painful memory stays with me. Hope and I vowed never to lie to our children about a Santa Claus. But we would give gifts. Even that decision left us with the complication of having to decide who to give gifts to, which remains stressful for me. I don’t enjoy buying Christmas gifts. I think I’m contributing to the commercialization of Christmas and perverting the Christian faith. 

There have been times when Hope and I had to charge these expenses to our credit cards when short on cash. So, we spent money we didn’t have on things we didn’t need. 

            

Christmas should be a time to reflect solely on

Jesus’s birth and life and how his life informs our own. I feel like I am fighting a losing battle between Christianity, deceit, and commercialism. A great meal and great conversation on Christmas, without the gifts, would make Christmas what I’d like it to be.

Rob:  Let’s Stay Together

Debating the meaning of Christmas became a political flashpoint a few years ago. Conservatives, who see only a religious meaning

for Christmas, argued secularists were scrubbing Christmas from the public sphere or making it just about commerce. Some saw a “War on Christmas.” The

issue hasn’t flared up much this year as impeachment and the 2020 campaign consumed space in public discourse. So, in an atmosphere not brimming with angst over what the holiday means, I took a step back when contemplating its meaning for me.

I could focus on religion. I practice progressive

Signs of Religions

Christianity, so celebrating the birth of Jesus matters. However, I regard that practice as a year-round activity rooted in understanding and following the teachings of Jesus, not the miracles supposedly attendant to his birth and death. I respect the religious aspect of Christmas, but that’s not my focus.

In our family, and for me, Christmas means togetherness. I live in the same town with only one

of my children; the other four reside near or far, but in each case “away.” Since my wife’s death nine years ago, we’ve rotated where we gather. I now find the process of convening, of making whatever trip I must make so we are together, a valuable part of the exercise.

Christmas, therefore, means celebrating the fact we remain a family despite losing Ida, despite the trials and tribulations of children growing up, and despite my own struggles as I age and experience transitions. As the song says, Christmas is “the most wonderful time of the year” because, for us, it’s when we’re together. At this stage, that’s what Christmas means for me.

                                 

                         Andy Williams' The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

                    

Henry: Christmas Everlasting
My memory pulls forth concentric spheres. The

inside, closed, perhaps restricted and protected sphere streams images of two brothers and their parents experiencing incredible joy and happiness waiting for the morning.  There were friends, church, family, gifts, food, speeches, and prayer for all, especially the “less fortunate.”  Acceptance and faith without doubt prevailed - for doubt springs from examination.

As those memories expand, the next sphere reveals a recognition of sadness and an awareness that all is not as well as it once seemed at an earlier time.  The protective shielding of the first sphere is no longer present. Poverty, fear, doubt, hopelessness, despair, hunger, and anger are present, invading the space between the first and second spheres.

As the first and second spheres merge, a third

sphere forms, enveloping all and expanding at light speed, speaking to my mind, soul, and spirit. Hope inspired by love required by my spiritual belief in redemption, forgiveness, and universal acceptance extinguishes all doubt for the moment and takes me to the innocence of the first sphere. Here, however, a more informed faith supporting hope pervades my world becoming our world. This last all-encompassing sphere contains all but has no limits. 

We are forgiven. “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” Luke 1:37

Joy-PLEASE