The way we celebrate the holidays.

Just that thought, alone, probably jogged your brain into countless memories of Christmas past.  Everybody has them.  Ready or not, the Christmas mode rolls around the day after thanksgiving.  It feels a little forced.  Dust off the ornaments in the basement.  Pull out the lights.  Balsam. Berries.  Red and Green.  The sights and smells of Christmas pop out everywhere, as this is one holiday just about everybody celebrates.

Not to mention cookies, Christmas carols, and, of course, malls.  And did I mention reindeer, Santa, remembering small children, and family times by the fire?

The pull of Christmas, whatever memories it inspires in you, is undeniable.  The draw of the celebration is different than the motion of the rest of our year.

I believe the energy during December, when Christmas is celebrated, draws us backward in time and inward in experience.

Our love of tradition can be so compelling.  It is difficult to explain why looking backward, into the past, and repeating old customs, keeps us coming back for more. Perhaps because our love of familiar things is so strong.

The question is, when we do this, what are we seeking?  The well-known strains of carols from ages past can still move us so deeply.  (I try to understand why, as part of my brain is not even engaged when I sing songs that have been sung and sung again so many times that the singing is completely without conscious thought!)

Even as I resist the impulse to simply coast through the familiar strains or traditions that I am so used to, I am in the minority.  And even I can still find myself getting caught up in the feeling that is Christmas.

The pull of Christmas, however inadequately it can be explained, is hard to resist.

For Christians, the central idea behind Christmas is the birth of a savior – the light of the world. But even before I knew this or believed this, Christmas was still an emotional time, an intense time of expectation built up in my mind and heart by the family I came from and the traditions we so exactingly carried out.  Every year.  The same stockings hung out for Santa, the same presents under the tree, the church service the night before ending in candlelight, the Handel’s Messiah, dinner on the best dishes.  My intense effort to create or buy presents for everyone I would see on Christmas Day.

Everyone has an idea of what Christmas should be.  Ways handed down from my forefathers…sung by clever poets…acted on the stage…painted on the canvas. Unlike other holidays on the calendar that can be forgotten or dismissed, Christmas is not one of them.

When I look at my own assumptions – I don’t even know where these beliefs came from.  To me, Christmas Day was supposed to be a perfect day, full of perfect joy. I could express the love I felt for someone in the gift I gave them on December 25th…whether or not I ignored them the rest of the year.  I was loved because of the presents I received. And a tree was the ultimate expression of  comfort and happiness in the home.  Beginning with the initial letdown that Santa was not real, the rest of my assumptions never panned out, either, yet I clung to them tenaciously. Next year, Christmas would be all that, and more, if I could just do it better.

One Christmas long ago (or the day before), I was walking down a street called Broadway in Astoria, NY with a friend from college, and we met a woman, half-intoxicated, who asked us for money.  Knowing that the right thing to do with an alcoholic is not to give money, I invited her for a meal at the diner across the street.  In her half-coherent state, she told us she had gone to the church, and they had offered her a Christmas tree.  A Christmas tree!  It seemed absurd at the time, but I could also see the logic of the people at the church.  Because I know there were years when I was blinded by the promises of christmas. When we are blinded by the “spiritofChristmas”, a tree seems like an appropriate object to give a half-drunk, homeless woman.  Her real needs take a back seat to the cultural desire that she have a symbol of Christmas to set up (or in her case, tote around).  Ahh.   We have done our part and given her some happiness.

False or true, absurd or not, don’t we all do this? There are deep themes embedded in the heart, not easily shaken as year after year passes by, and December after December goes by. We continue to think the right thing to do is to sing a carol, light a candle, or wrap a gift – just get into the spirit (for if you don’t, grinch or scrooge come to mind).

I wonder why my temptation during the Christmas season is to look for the things to fill my spirit in all the traditions, instead of letting the light who came into the world, fill me.

Perhaps we can find Christ in the midst of our traditions.  I know Christians look for Him there. But He is sometimes hard to find underneath the layers – lights, trees, shows, carols, presents, wrapping paper, family get-togethers. And when we do find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, the sweet lullabies of angels accompanying his every waking cry, he seems somehow part of a story, a myth that doesn’t really touch our lives.

But I wonder, where does Christ really reside –this December?  Should I be looking for Christ’s place in a Christmas present…a manger scene…or a symbolic wreath – or in me?  Will I try to assuage myself with traditions to get through the cold winter, or let His light really warm my heart?

Maybe it is time to expect little from Christmas, and to expect everything from Christ.

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new ” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Revelation 21:5

Shifting focus to where true hope has already been born and lives. Christ is not hard to find.  He is Lord and will light up the Christmas season, as He does the whole year through.