I'll admit that not too long ago, I had one of the worst cases of "Christmas Cynacism" that a person could get. A whole lot of it had to do with the first congregation that I served at. The senior pastor was very much a "Stick to the Liturgical Book" pastor. Advent was to be celebrated, and Christmas was to be put off until the Liturgical calendar said it was appropriate to celebrate Christmas. (For my non-liturgical readers, Advent is the preparation time before Christmas, four weeks to be exact. It's part of a larger church calendar that is broken down into many "seasons.")
My cynacism also had a lot to do with the fact that Christmas just plum wore me out. I served at a large congregation that had four Christmas Eve/Christmas Day worship services. Our first service kicked off at 2 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. It was followed by a 7 p.m. service geared toward younger families with children. After that we had a traditional midnight candlelight service. When all was said and done, we had a 9:30 a.m. service on Christmas morning. After doing all that, I was wiped out, and that made it extremely difficult to enjoy being with family in the afternoon. All I wanted to do was sleep.
All of these things left a bad taste in my mouth when it came to the Christmas holidays. I hated it when stores began putting out Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. I abhorred hearing Christmas carols during Advent. Stories like the ones I told to begin this blog gave me even further evidence that Christmas was a commercialized bastardization of what it should be, and I felt righteous in my indignation.
But a lot has happened to me in the past four years to change my attitude. Probably the biggest is the addition to my family of three wonderful children. Watching their excitement as Christmas approaches is infectious to say the least. When Christmas decorations started going up after Halloween, the girls excitedly pointed out every lit Christmas tree in Wal-Mart or any other store we were in. Seeing Santa Claus in the mall made them grin and jump for joy. Hoping Santa comes to their house has them plum giddy. Kiera gets every circular from Toys R Us or Wal-Mart and excitely circles the gifts she wants Santa to bring her. When something neat pops up on a commercial on t.v. she asks, "Santa Claus bring me that?"
The kids loved it when I put the Christmas lights on the house, but they adored decorating the tree. They picked out ornaments and hung them all over the tree. Unlike last year when the tree had 50 ornaments within a small space, they took the time to distribute them all over. When they had trouble getting one on or if they thought the ornament was too fragile, they would come to me and say, "Daddy, help me." I'd gladly take the ornament and place it on the tree.
Most of the ornaments on our tree were hand made by Dawna's Granny, and each time my children hung one, I imagined my wife hanging them in a like manner when she was a child. I thought of the times I hung ornaments and my parents helped me. I remembered the magical nature of the season and how it made me soooo excited that Santa would come see me. Priceless memories.
As these memories infected my mind and heart, I got to recapture the wonder of Christmas. Through my children's excitement, I have been re-given a gift that I had allowed to be taken from me. I know it's early, but what the hell: Merry Christmas.
2 comments:
We miss you guys! I love to hear that Christmas has snuck back into your spirit!
I can't believe you already have your tree and lights up! I feel so behind!
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