Thursday, November 30, 2006

CHRISTMAS - to celebrate or not?

How's this for a hot topic? I come from a long line of "mega Christmas celebrators" (don't I mom?). I realize that some Christians have chosen not to celebrate Christmas. That is their conviction and I honor that conviction. Our family has gone back and forth and settled on a Christmas celebration that we believe is God-honoring and pleasing. I believe the key is to pray about this, as you pray about anything else in your life, and then follow His leading. In our home we realized that we were in danger of loosing the joy of Christmas - the meaning and reason of Christmas. We were a busy Pastor's family (and you can't imagine the busy ness of this time of year), we had lots of children and we were giving lots and lots of gifts....but somewhere we were loosing the meaning. We could not SKIP Christmas....because 1. it is in our HEARTS to celebrate Christ and 2. as pastors/chaplains that is impractical. We made drastic changes. We cut our giving budget to $50 per child. We explained that we were celebrating JESUS and not the child - on their birthday we spend a bit more because then we are celebrating them on that day! (Some of you know that a couple of my children are getting more than a $50 gift this year - but that is their entire Christmas and birthday for the year. LOL - They'll be fine with it). We began to celebrate ADVENT (new to me). We began to search for all the ways we could use the season as object lessons for our children and to point them to Christ.


A few random thoughts:

1. We CELEBRATE CHRIST around here year round.....and I must say I enjoy that the rest of the world seems to get on board for these brief four weeks.

2. American Christmas' have gotten WAY overly commercialized to the point that in many homes Christ is totally lost (regardless of what we say).

3. Our Christmas celebrations should be God-pleasing and in keeping with His character. It is not God's will for us to go into debt, be consumed with greed or lust, be grumpy because we can't have what someone else has... It IS God's will for us to be thankful with what we have - be that a little or a lot. It is also His will that we be content!

4. When God wanted His people to remember something he told them to CELEBRATE - have a FEAST, PARTY....and I believe we can do the same today in a God-honoring way.

5. We must be ON GUARD against "over consumption" or over something during this time of the year.

6. I'm often asked about the whole pagan question....and really a complete answer is far more in-depth than I will attempt at this point. One simple observation...yes....as the church spread it often incorporated practices of the "pagan cultures" around it into the church celebrations....HOWEVER.....I think we miss that the church WAS practicing Christmas in order to incorporate a pagan practice. In other words, celebrating Christ is not the issue. It is possible to throw out the pagan practices and get back to a more "traditional" Christmas.

7. I realize others have other convictions and as I said earlier I HONOR those convictions - I ask only that they honor my convictions as well. In real life, I have four friends who do not celebrate Christmas. I do not try to convince them they should celebrate my way. They should follow where God leads THEM. Really they DO celebrate Christ - just not the American Christmas version....I choose to celebrate Christ year round AND through the American Christmas traditions.

8. Several have told me lately, when discussing what I do at Christmas, that they wish I'd share more....now I think what I do is pretty basic....but since I do keep hearing this.... I did decide to say a few things now. I plan to go ahead and share now and again what we do and why we do it as we go about our Christmas. Some of the things I share are things I gleaned over the years from online friends at SHS, or ideas shared by local friends, and some are ideas that God simply implanted in our hearts. Now - I don't consider anything we do to be ESSENTIAL to anyone else. I don't consider anything I share to be WOW - NEW - but hey....we are all looking for ways to make spiritual truths and Christ real to our children and Christmas is FULL of opportunities....if God can use a pumpkin in a child's life...think what he can do with something pretty that smells nice....

7 comments:

Diann said...

AMEN!!!

Diann

Renee said...

Right there with you DeEtta. We have focused Christmas on Christ.
Our Christmas morning starts with going to church (not opening gifts). After Mass then they can open gifts - three per child (under $100 each) from mom/dad. And the stocking is from Santa (yes we do Santa, he brings a small gift, candy and toothbrush). We also celebrate St Nicholas day on Dec 6th. The night before the kids put their shoes outside their bedroom door and St NIck leaves them the gold wrapped chocolate coins and a new ornament for the Christmas tree.
We do not decorate for Christmas right after THanksgiving. This weekend we will take out the Advent wreath and the Jesse tree... then the last Sunday of Advent (possibly one week early this year since the 24th is a bit late even for me) we put up the tree and other decorations... we will then leave the house decorated until after the first week of January

Romany said...

I think it's great to share different family approaches to Christmas.

Thanks for sharing yours.

Dorothy

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

Renee - I'm just a die hard. Several have told me that November is to early...but if I'm going to redeocrate a house I want it to stay that way as long as possible. LOL

Oh good, Dorothy, you picked up on my point. LOL Really, all, I'm simply sharing what we are doing and I honor all the various ways others celebrate Christ during this season and throughout the year. I have dear friends who don't celebrate the holiday of Christmas...but they are lovers of Christ.

Renee said...

I can understand wanting the decorations as long as possible. I'm such a creature of habit that Christmas decorations actually cause me more stress than joy (in my own house, I can enjoy someone else's because it's not a change to my house) because of the change and all the work involved.... I had to laugh because it was hinted that my home be on the Tour of Homes (since I am one of only two five bedroom units) and I very definitely said no becuase that would be WAY WAY TOO stressful..... I'll leave that to the decorating types... I"d be happy (for my own home) to have the tree and a nativity scene... but I do more becuase the chidlren enjoy it

Renee said...

DeEtta,
I found this at a Homeschool CArnival (online) and it sounded like something that your family would do so I am posting the link so you can check out apossible future family project for Advent:

http://maryellenb.typepad.com/o_night_divine/2006/11/advent_cubes.html

Stephanie said...

I love reading about family traditions and celebrations. We've been trying to slowly make changes in our home over the last few years as well. I've learned not to try too many changes too quickly. Celebrating Advent has been such a blessing to us over the last few years. Keep posting about it. I love reading it!