As we approach the most celebrated holiday in the world, there is one thing of which we can all be certain. None of us can ignore Christmas, and none of us can escape it. It’s in every song and event and circumstance. Christmas is in the traffic, in the malls, in the churches, and on the streets. It’s in the noise of the city and in the quietness of the countryside. It’s in the scurry of the shoppers and in the stillness of the cold winter air.
I must confess that many times I have approached the Christmas season with the attitude of Scrooge. I’ve found myself wishing for all of it to just be over with for another year. To me, shopping is a major ordeal, and I feel that I can never pick the right gift for anybody on my list. And I know my list is flawed and I probably forgot somebody.
Having been brought up in a culture where the Currier and Ives scenes, the Norman Rockwell paintings, and the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope Christmas specials extolled the perfect holiday, I was set up for disappointment every year. I never saw a “white Christmas.” The treetops didn’t glisten, and the children didn’t hear sleigh bells in the snow. Never once has our whole extended family sat on the hearth in matching outfits, smiling with perfect teeth and singing in perfect harmony.
What I do remember are misshapen Christmas trees with lights that didn’t work, songs that were a little off-key, and gifts that were the wrong size. Worse than that, I remember a Christmas that was ruined by alcohol abuse and another one when a family member became angry and “cussed everybody out”. On one Christmas day some good friends decided to get a divorce. And there was the Christmas Eve when our car engine blew up on the way to Grandma’s house. Not to mention the times when somebody got sick, and the Christmases when we just couldn’t get everybody together.
I have come to believe that my experiences are not unique. I suspect that many of the Christmases in your life have been similar to mine- idealized expectations thwarted by stark disappointment, even disillusion. Sadly, there are more suicides during the Christmas season than at any other time of year.
Yet, most of us do keep trying, don’t we? Though the perfect Christmas doesn’t happen, a lot of us have finally become willing to settle for a “pretty good” one. Maybe this year we will get it mostly right, and most of us can come, and we will all mostly get along. Maybe this time the gifts will fit, the lights will shine, nobody will get mad, and the angels will sing. Maybe…
The thought occurs to me that on that first Christmas in Bethlehem there was not an ideal atmosphere. Though I love the song, it was not a silent night; all was not calm, all was not bright. It wasn’t “beginning to look a lot like Christmas”; there was no winter wonderland, not one jingle bell, and no drummer boy. The manger smelled bad. The stable was dark and crowded. The mooing of cattle, the braying of donkeys and the barking of dogs, kind of messed up the carol singing. Instead of reindeer, there were likely rats and snakes slithering on the muddy floor. Even the wise men showed up two years late.
Neither Mary nor her baby had halos over their heads. People rushing by did not know nor care what had happened. This baby came into a dark world that was in “as-is” condition. There was nothing “Christmassy” about it. Then, as now, the ideal Christmas was only a fantasy.
Putting all romanticism and fantasy aside, however, something very real did happen in the City of David that night. All of life and all of history was changed forever as a result of the simple, obscure birth of a little baby born to an unmarried woman. Whoever or whatever you believe him to be, his enormous impact on the entire world cannot be denied.
So, to celebrate this mysterious event, we have come up with a few hundred things! Let’s waste no more time, and let the celebration begin! Let’s have parties, and pageants, and presents for everybody! Bring on the jolly man with the red suit, and the elves, and the red-nosed reindeer! Get the holly and the mistletoe, the eggnog and the cookies! Wrap everything in ribbons and bows, and decorate it all with bright colored lights! Close the schools and the shops, get family and friends together from far and near! Decorate a tree, decorate your house and your lawn, even decorate your kids and yourselves, and sing songs about it all! Laugh and dance and dream once again that YOU are a child, because all things have been made new again!
Fantasy? Yes, but fantasy created in honor of, and in celebration of, an awesome reality. And even if it never comes together just right, that’s okay. How can we NOT celebrate?
Merry Christmas to all!
It was Christmas morning many years ago. I was a little boy, and times were good in Birmingham. The steel mills were going strong, so “Santa” had been able to afford to bring to my brother Jeff and to me quite a few nice toys, including a brand new tricycle! After we had opened our gifts, the living room was full of new toys and boxes and clothes and wrapping paper. I was elated over all the great stuff that we got. It was a joyful time for the family. I guess that I was about six.
Suddenly (and I remember this well) I turned to see my father and mother smiling and enjoying this time with us, and it occurred to me that Santa Claus had not brought them anything! I wondered to my dad, “How can you be so happy when you didn’t get any presents?” And he said something that just blew me away. “I’m just happy to see YOU get the things you wanted. I didn’t want anything, I just wanted for you and Jeff to have what y’all got. That’s what makes me happy!”
I remember thinking that it was the craziest thing I had ever heard anybody say. We didn’t use these words back then, but now I can say “it just didn’t compute!” How could he possibly be happy when my brother and I got all the presents, and he got nothing? How totally weird!
Fast-forward more than thirty years to the bitterly cold Christmas eve of 1983. My wife and I, along with our little girl and our little boy, were living in Atlanta and were headed to Birmingham to get together with family. My dad had just died just two weeks before. My mother and all my younger brothers and their families were all waiting for us in Alabama. It had already turned dark when we started out on the trip from Atlanta, and the temperature had dropped to five degrees. I was driving one of the worst automobiles to ever come out of Detroit - a 1978 Oldsmobile DIESEL sedan! As we travelled that night, the infamous motor on this infamous car started freezing up even as we drove.
Fifty miles west of Atlanta, several miles from the nearest freeway exit, there in the cold dark night, the diesel engine blew up. A loud “boom”, a huge cloud of smoke, and I knew it would never run again. Standing there in the dark, I stuck my thumb out as the cars and trucks flew by. I looked over at my family. They were shivvering in the cold, crying aloud, trying not to panic. Suddenly I realized that they would not last long out here in five-degree weather. “Dear God, I am scared and I don’t know what to do!” I turned on the headlights of my destroyed car, and called for my wife and children to stand with me beside the highway, with the lights shining on us.
I knew that the battery would soon die in the Oldsmobile, but until it did, we had a little time for all of us to be seen huddling together, hoping to wave somebody down. I prayed for it to be a kind person, knowing that we were at the mercy of whoever might be coming down the highway on this extremely cold night in this remote area. Of course we had no other choice but to stand there and wait.
Almost immediately, two cars pulled over. I soon realized that the two drivers were husband and wife, and they had their children with them and were headed home with one car following the other! Some of us got in his car and the rest of us got in hers. The heater on the car felt so good and warm. Equally warming was the song on the radio, “Christmas in Dixie”, by the country group “Alabama”. As the song finished, they began to express their joy of Christmas, and the great privilege that God had given them to be able to find somebody they could help on the night before Christmas! These people whom we had never met before were so thrilled to have the opportunity to do something special for someone! They took us to their home nearby, and gave us food and started a fire in the fireplace.They had a party to go to, but they left us in their nice house, and my family watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” on their television.
When the family got back from their party they let us spend the night in their house. While we were sleeping they arranged for my family’s transportation to Birmingham and for the towing of my car that had been left by the side of the road.
Early the next morning, on Christmas day, we headed on in to join my family in Birmingham. Of course we tried to express our gratitude and thanks to this wonderful family who had no doubt actually saved not only our Christmas, but our lives! But they kept saying, “No, no! We want to thank YOU for letting us help you! Thank you for being there- YOU have made this the best Christmas we ever had!” Of course their attitude just “blew me away!”
Many years have passed since then. Many Christmas celebrations have come and gone. I still don’t understand all the amazing things that happened on that very first Christmas, when a special baby was born that many of us believe was truly the Son of God. But I am beginning to understand what my daddy meant on that Christmas when I was just a little boy, and what that wonderful couple in West Georgia meant back in 1983. It isn’t so hard to compute any more. I think I get it now.
Merry Christmas, everyone!