The truth about Christmas**

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!