Contemplating Christmas

 I strangely feel torn this December. On the one hand, I am bombarded on the internet and in every store and in pictures people post on Facebook with the materialism and secularization that seems to define the modern American Christmas. These images combined with the practicality that we are spending half of December in Oklahoma have led me this year not to decorate quite like I have in years past. I am rethinking the Christmas tree and the stockings and the themes in the holiday music, though definitely not forsaking them completely. It is almost like we are taking a "year off" from the traditional decorations. No tree up, no stockings. We do have a wreath on the door, we put lights on the tree in the front yard, and I moved our nativity figurine from our mantel where it stays year round to the center of our table (and even added a few poinsettias for a seasonal touch).

Shortly after we put lights on this tree, Bram added the word "tree" to his vocabulary 

(I'm sure it wasn't a coincidence, because he loves walking over the the tree to touch the lights).

Though, at this point it does sound more like "twee". 

So as one part of me is choosing this year to downplay some of the aspects of the traditional Christmas (for practical reasons, yes, but also for personal examination), another part of me knows that as a Christian I have the best reason to throw a big party. I want to loudly proclaim to everyone around me the joy of the incarnation of Christ! It truly is "good news of great joy" that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not because of the sentimentality bound up in Baby Jesus or because he would grow up to be a great moral teacher, but because he would one day pay for my sins on the cross. And the fact he would die on the cross is no mere footnote in his life but that is the entire theme and purpose of his life on earth. As stated in my favorite hymn, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, "Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!...Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give them second birth." And consider the following quote from pastor John Donne, author of The Book of Uncommon Prayers:

"The whole of Christ's life was a continual passion; others die martyrs, but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha, where he was crucified, even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as the cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but the evening and the morning of one and the same day. From the creche to the cross is an inseparable line. Christmas only points forward to Good Friday and Easter. It can have no meaning apart from that, where the Son of God displayed his glory by his death." 

-John Donne, "Christmas Day, 1626" in Sermons of John Donne, as quoted by Joseph "Skip" Ryan in Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

So all that to say, I am feeling some internal conflict. I am kind of enjoying a tree-less Christmas but at the same time, I do not want this season to pass me by. I want to greatly celebrate my Lord and Savior, the God-man. But I do not want the tree and the stockings to define the way I must celebrate Christmas, though in future years they may very well be part of our family tradition. That being said, I do not yet know what Christmas traditions I want to start for our little family. Next year when Bram is two, I want to be intentional about celebrating the incarnation in a big way in our house. I just don't know the means I want to celebrate with yet. It's kind of a Christmas Paraphernalia Incubation Period for me. I would like to end this post saying, "I am probably over thinking this", but yet, as this is over-and-above-everything-else a spiritual and Christian holiday, I can't say that. I want to take "every thought captive to Christ", and at the same time I realize that celebrating the incarnation of Christ is more about my heart attitude toward God in this season than whether we have a tree or not.

In what way have you chosen to celebrate this season with your family? As a mom, I'm realizing more and more that I have the opportunity to establish the way we do holidays around here. That is a big responsibility! How have you moms directed your family's celebration of Christmas?