I remember our little plastic Christmas tree, no taller than me as a child, looking increasingly scrawny as it lost another branch or two each year. The tinsel was never replaced either, and slowly the bushy sparkle turned tatty, as blu-tac pulled away the strands and the fishing wire showed through. We had a single honeycomb-tissue Santa, who was folded away with a paperclip each year until we extracted him, slightly embarrassed of himself, and expanded his red paper belly. In a reach for some unknown heritage, we also made clove-oranges, pressing the little spikes into the peel till my thumbs were sore, and tying them with a red ribbon. But Mum always insisted on a prominent Nativity scene, each year re-building a little cave out of brown paper or a cardboard box. In it she set the wooden figurines, carefully released from their bubble wrap, and topped it with two ceramic angels, the right one glued back together after it broke in a non-satanic fall.
Each Christmas Eve we put one of Dad’s socks (we wanted the biggest options) at the end of our beds for ‘Santa’ to fill, though I had known that myth’s true identity ever since my brother told me to ‘wait up and see, it’s just Dad!’. The gift giver was irrelevant to me, I craved that bulging bundle of little pencils and bubble blowers, insisting on ‘stockings!’ until at last, in my early teens, Dad grew tired of waiting for us to fall asleep. I woke to no stocking, and after frantically patting around in my bedding, tiptoed into my sleeping parents’ room to see them on their dresser. We let the charade go after that.
Alongside those memories are those of Christmas church services, late at night, with a single candle handed out to each congregant. The twist of paper or plastic cup around the candle base didn’t quite keep all the hot wax from landing on my fingers, and the pews felt uncomfortable and cold, but there was a sacred moment when the flame was passed from person to person, candle to candle, and then we stepped out into the cold winter air with a bright little blaze, reminding us to take our Hope home with us. These were memories we made at home or with our little faith community, but to our neighbours in this non- Christian country (and as yet untouched by secular Santa) it was just another day.
When I moved to Australia, I was determined to give myself over completely to the joy of a communal Christmas. For nearly a decade I insisted on buying a real Christmas tree – even after finding a dead redback in one of them! I still play Michael Bublé, put up store-bought stockings with my housemates, decorate the house with a vengeance and even make the Christmas cake I reviled as a child. From early December until early January (but no longer – my mother told me I could either put the tree up at the start of Advent or keep it up till the 12 days of Christmas were over, but not both), my home feels different.
Last year (having succumbed to the ease of a plastic tree again), I had friends over for one of my new traditions, a ‘tree-trimming’ party. Each friend is invited to bring a decoration, and we eat gingerbread and mince pies and drink mulled wine or hot chai at odds with the summer evening. One friend, a Turkish Muslim lass in Australia for study, asked about the Nativity, and I was excited for her chance to hear the Gospel. We told her the story; she listened with interest then pointed to one of the Santa decorations on the tree.
“What about Santa? Where does he come from?”
Confronted with such tendrils of secular syncretism, it can be tempting to strip Christmas back completely. Should I be throwing my plastic tree out the window, and resigning Michael Bublé to his fate in an op-shop CD shelf somewhere? Is this a cleanse-the-temple moment? Am I blocking the route to the Holy of Holies with pigeons for sale? Am I cluttering the path to Jesus with baubles and tinsel?
Sometimes, I fear the answer is ‘Yes’.
If the amorphous ‘spirit of Christmas’ could mean anything, then it means nothing. Cinnamon candles, ‘seasonal’ foods, chocolate Advent calendars, mistle-kisses and tinny carols and the ever-earlier sale of cheap décor in our supermarkets … I might find them great fun, but perhaps it is all just a capitalist scheme?
And yet… I don’t want to throw the Christ-infant out with the cinnamon-scented bathwater.
The so-called magic of Christmas, as glorified in each new round of delightfully pulpy Netflix Christmas movies, is appealing for a reason. It speaks to the wonder and mystery of childhood, and our urge to rediscover that excitement as adults. And that yearning, for innocence and wonder, curiosity and awe and excitement, is a God-given desire:
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” - Matthew 18:4.
It is good and right to treat Christmas as special!
From the first moment that YHWH breathed life into the nostrils of Adam, He has invited mankind to join Him in His creative acts. To name animals, to tend a garden, to raise a family, all invite a creative awe and curiosity. Made in the image of God, the Holy Spirit creates and so do we: In Creation, we see the first act of a Creative God (Genesis 1:1), and it was Good – God delights in the act and product of creation (Genesis 1:31)! He invites Adam’s involvement with naming – this creativity is an act of co- creation with God (Genesis 2:19). Jacob weaves Joseph’s robe (Genesis 37:3), Moses sings (Exodus 15:1-18), Miriam dances and leads the women in music and dancing (Exodus 15:20-22). Later, Exodus: God specifically chooses Bezalel and gives Him creative gifts required to do God’s work (Exodus 31). David, the man after God’s own heart, a king who shamelessly danced and sang and wrote (1 Samuel 16:22, 2 Samuel 6:14, Psalm 3, 4, 6 and more). The Psalms were largely written for corporate worship, to imbue God’s people with a knowledge of His character and their identity. Then came Solomon, the king whose great wisdom also permitted him to build a place of worship for God (1 Kings 5-6). The book of Job, a different genre to its companion texts, is a poetic tale which explores the knowledge of God and man. In grief, the people of God returned to music with Lamentations; in love, they turned to Song of Songs. Isaiah the prophet uses oracles in a poetic style.
The New Testament includes many references to poems and Psalms, parables and poetic prose. In 1 Corinthians 14:26 Paul highlights hymns as gifts from God, and in Revelation, John uses creative apocalyptic writing to give hope to a weary church.
God also calls us to remember. In sacrifices and altars, in festivals and celebrations, God tells and reminds His people who and Whose they are. Noah builds an altar immediately after the Ark (Gen 8:20), Abraham sacrifices a ram to God in Genesis 22, and Jacob builds an altar after an angelic vision. God specifically directs His people to celebrate and remember Him in festivals through Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. Esther calls her people to gather in prayer and then in celebration, to remember their God and who He is.
These festivals and practices, these cultural ‘forms’ of spiritual or religious exercises, also tell us where we come from and why we are here. We are called to practice curiosity and wonder. One of the most foundational and frequent reminders, of course, is Sabbath: a day every week to remember that we are made in the image of God, that we are defined not by what we do, or produce, or have, but by whose we are. And yet …
“One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain.The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
He answered,“Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?In the days of Abiathar the high priest,he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat.And he also gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them,“The Sabbath was made for man,not man for the Sabbath.So the Son of Manis Lord even of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27-27
There is an opportunity here, for Christians to reclaim the practices of Advent, as Jesus reclaimed the Sabbath. Because there is one key element that Christmas kitsch - as much as I might delight in it - is missing. Jesus, valuing humans more than practices, refused to allow the Sabbath to be a time of just papering over the brokenness in the world. While the bright celebration of Christmas has translated well into consumerism, it is the remembering, waiting, grieving, and yearning for transformation of Christmas that our world desperately needs. As Rachel weeps for her children and refuses to be comforted, we have permission, a framework, to weep for the brokenness of the world, and to dwell in the question to which the birth of Jesus is the sublime and mind-blowing answer.
Advent, the taking of time to reflect, remember, to taste of sorrow and joy, offers us space to remember who and whose we are, and why Christmas matters. So how do we practice the season of Advent? And where does the creativity and awe - implicit in the traditions God gave the Israelites - fit in? Some churches hold tightly to an annual Advent structure, others disregard it completely, continuing independent sermon series right up till Christmas Day. Some invite families or children to light Advent candles, others avoid the fire hazard of a small child waving a live flame around a wreath! Do we use a chocolate calendar? Light a candle? Set liturgical readings? Red-and-green ‘ugly’ jumpers?
In any situation, Advent offers us the same potential of celebration and risk that any spiritual form or practice does; will it draw us towards Christ or away from Him? Do we use it to remember, or to distract and condemn? Derek Brotherson, author of Contextualisation or Syncretism? The Use of Other-faith Worship Forms in the Bible and in Insider Movements, puts the question this way: does the worship form help or distract from true worship? He is of course examining the use of other-faith forms in a Christian context, but that same question could be applied to a secularised version of Christian tradition. I am not here to paint chocolate calendars, Michael Bublé, or Santa figurines as ungodly forms of Christian traditions. Culturally relevant celebrations – with food, dancing, and wine – were a part of Jesus’ context and could absolutely be a part of ours. As mentioned, I adore Christmas kitsch.
However, as I think back on my Muslim friend, I can see how some of my delight in the ‘Christmas spirit’ can distract or get in the way of her understanding of Jesus. And as I watch the latest ‘Christmas movies’, I can see how an idolisation of happiness can diminish that which brings us happiness in the first place. Even more, I can see they take away from the room Christ makes for grief, for lament, and for comfort and healing. As domestic violence and divorce rates peak at Christmas, it is that grief, lament, comfort and healing which is the most important part of the ‘Christmas Spirit’. But we are human – and the season before Christmas has become increasingly shrill! So, we forget truth, and we need help remembering who and Whose we are. This is where our practices, our religious forms, our aesthetics, come in. Seasonal food or clothes or music tell us there is something special about this time! The God who created creativity invites us to use it to know Him.
The practice of lighting a candle, when it creates pause for reflection and silence, an image of light in the darkness, can be a powerful form. The same can be said for music, art and poetry which helps us to sit in the stasis - the uncomfortable waiting and longing of Christmas. The Centre for Christianity, Culture and the Arts, out of Biola University, puts out a seasonal daily email for Advent and Lent, with a poem, an artwork, and a piece of music to tie into a daily devotion. I find these devotions ground me as a I travel or rush around in the lead up to Christmas.
Several years ago, my mother ordered a children’s book of ‘Jesse Tree’ colouring sheets. Each page had a passage and a symbol to represent a point in the Biblical narrative, one for each day of Advent. A rainbow for Noah, a sheath of wheat for Ruth, a sceptre for Esther… Mum asked me to colour them in, and as a 30-year-old, I loved it! Then we cut them out and laminated them and made them into decorations for our tree. Each day of Advent, we read the passage and hung the relevant ornament. The Christmas we count down towards is the culmination of a long gospel history. It is the longed-for coming (present-continuous) of Hope. And when we take the time to remember that longing and that resolution - in creative practices, in aesthetics, in awe and vulnerability – we teach ourselves and those around us what it means, each day and each year anew.
Miriam Dale is a poet and educator who has been playing with words, rhythm, and the big questions of life for over a decade. From growing up in the Middle East as an MK she now works with Interserve.