Island Impressions by Fr. Tom Purdy
Celebrating Christmastime
Christmas is coming. Or is it here already? Every store has been decorated for more than a month. Christmas isn’t just a day; it’s a season, although there is a bit of confusion about when the season falls. Retailers would have us believe it starts the moment the Halloween displays go down. Sorry, Thanksgiving, we’re just not that into you. Don’t get us wrong, we love your turkey and pumpkin pie, but Christmas is shinier and has presents. The 18th Century carol proclaims twelve days of Christmas. One cable channel has an annual 25 days of Christmas, which starts on December 1. So what’s the deal? When the heck is Christmas? Is it really and truly a free for all? Is Christmas going to become like modern election seasons that never seem to end?
So here’s the reality: Christmas is a season, and it’s twelve days long. It begins on Christmas Day, December 25, and ends on January 6. It comes from the Christian roots of our modern Christmas holiday, a season of joy that starts with the birth of Jesus on Christmas Eve night and continues the festivities until the Epiphany on January 6th, the day Christians celebrate the arrival of the Magi to honor and worship Jesus. Never mind what countless Christmas pageants and greeting cards have suggested, the wise men weren’t even there in time to see Jesus first steps let alone twelve days after his birth, but that’s another story. And no, you don’t have to find geese-a-laying in order to celebrate Christmas properly.
The point is that the Christmas season is twelve days beginning with Christmas Day. Sadly we’ve forgotten that. Most trees are down and gone before New Year’s Eve. We do grow tired of them, after all. And here’s where I come to my hope about reclaiming Christmas, or rather reorienting Christmas. Because we “have Christmas” for so long, some people get tired of it and are just ready for it to go. We might even fall into a place of hoping Christmas would just come already so we could be done with it all. You can only attend so many holiday parties and drink so much eggnog. There’s a reason we only serve eggnog once a year.
But like most things in our culture, which cannot control its desires and appetites, we are overdoing it. We get as worn out by our overweight holiday as we do our overweight bodies. Those extra cookies seem like a good idea for the first few. When our wife wants to know how she miscounted by more than a dozen and we’re blaming a totally natural storing of winter fat for the change on the scale, we realize we might have overdone it. It’s terrible when Christmas becomes a burden, or so normalized that it loses its power, its joy, and yes, even its magic.
In the Church, there is a name for the days before Christmas, four weeks worth of days, in fact: Advent. I’m a big proponent of Advent. I’m not a Grinch. I love Christmas – it’s my favorite time of the year, by far. But I think Christmas is losing its soul and I think it’s becoming less a season of joy than a season of endless commitments and obligations. Whether you are a person of faith or not, I think a period of expectant waiting is incredibly powerful. We tend not to wait for anything we want anymore. Yet when we hold off in anticipation we can recapture that feeling we had as kids that always made Christmas morning so special. What?! Deny ourselves in the season of indulgence? Yes. Sort of.
I do think that the preparations for Christmas should be joyful. How could they not be? People are just nicer around Christmas, perhaps the best side effect of the season. We are more generous when we reflect on the Christmas spirit – a spirit that really has more to do with giving gifts than receiving them. It’s our response to the greatest gift we’ve received, the light of the world, that little baby in the manger surrounded by shepherds and livestock. I hope that we embrace that part of the season with great gusto.
My main recommendation is to simply go easy. Pace yourself. Go carefully. Go with intention. Spread love. Embody gratitude. Share freely. Put up the decorations and the lights. Remember the reason we have a Christmas season at all. Keep the Christmas celebration, that Christmas morning feeling, going as long as you can. Christmas isn’t over once it arrives; it’s just getting started. Let your celebrations at least match your preparations. Maybe consider leaving the tree up until January 6, just for me. Whatever you do, don’t take Christmas for granted. It only comes once a year.
