Keeping Christ in Christmas
Christmas is truly a “wonderful time of the year.” Without Christmas we would have a great hole in our yearly activities. We’d miss having a special time to focus on family, to catch up with friends, to show appreciation to our work colleagues, to attend special events at the children’s schools, to give gifts—not just to family and friends but to organisations that help the poor and needy. There’s also the opportunity to watch “feel good” Christmas movies,many of which focus on family and the love, joy and peace of Christmas. Yes, Christmas is a wonderful time of the year and we should enter in and enjoy it.
BUT, we can do all this and keep Christ out of Christmas. How does your family keep Christ in Christmas? This is a question well worth reflecting on in an age where many children are growing up without knowing anything about Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem. Christmas is not only over commercialised, but there are obvious attempts to take Christ out of Christmas such as speaking of the “Holiday Season” rather than the “Christmas Season” and changing the familiar Christian saying of “Jesus is the reason for the season” to “The season is the reason”—no depths in that saying!
When our children started coming along my husband and I discussed how we were going to celebrate Christmas as a family. My husband had grown up in a loving, non-christian family. He had a life-changing conversion at the age of 20, just a few years before we met, and felt strongly that if we were to celebrate the myths around Santa and, at the same time, to celebrate the true story of Jesus, as our children grew older and realised that Santa is a myth that they no longer believed in, they might see belief in Jesus something to leave behind too. He felt that his family celebrations of Christmas, while memorable, in no way helped him to know anything about Jesus. I came from a strong Christian family and suffered no ill effects from the fact that Santa was part of our Christmas celebrations. Somehow, my parents made sure we knew the difference between the Santa myth and the true story of Jesus. I enjoyed arranging the family nativity scene in its special place, attending our church carols night and the early morning church service on Christmas morning, just as much as l enjoyed attending my Dad’s work Christmas function where Santa gave gifts to us children, or enjoyed the anticipation of leaving a drink for Santa when we put our large Christmas stockings at the end of our beds on Christmas Eve.
I recognise that each family situation is different. Each parent comes from a different family background with different ways of celebrating Christmas. I also recognise that Christmas celebrations with the wider family can be very complicated. But I urge you to pray and think through the way you celebrate Christmas in your family and what place Christ has in it. I’m sure God doesn’t want us to cut ourselves off from the people in our wider family nor those in our community or in our workplace. He want us to shine a light for Jesus as we participate in some of the activities I mentioned in the first paragraph as well as supporting our church’s Christmas activities and projects.
There are so many aspects to cover, so don’t get bogged down over thinking how you celebrate Christmas, just ask God to show you how you can better keep Christ in Christmas this year.
Have a great Christmas!
Grandma Adele
