They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother. Falling to their knees, they honored him. Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Matthew 2:11 (CEB)
As a child, I loved Christmastime. After Thanksgiving, I would break out my Elvis Christmas albums and play them almost non-stop. That’s even what we listened to when we decorated the Christmas tree – something that I loved to stare at as the multi-colored lights flashed, almost like dancing as each string blinked at a different speed. Mom would gradually wrap presents that would slowly grow in number under the tree, and I loved to shake and feel the boxes, trying to figure out what was inside. Oh, and Mom would make various kinds of Christmas treats, my favorite being her chocolate, coconut bon-bons (until I was diagnosed with a chocolate allergy). It was the most wonderful time of the year. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have woken up to a white Christmas (it did happen one year).
As I aged, though, my love for the season ebbed and flowed – mostly ebbed. In fact, my last “special Christmas” was my second year of college and the year the plant Dad worked at closed. We were instructed to only give gifts that were handmade or came from a garage sale. We got some really interesting and thoughtful gifts that year, believe it or not. Looking back, though, most of the “ebbing” had to do with, “it just didn’t feel the same.”
Through the years, my love of the season waned even more, though, and it was more than just a lack of feeling. It had become, “What’s the point?” Yet, I could not come up with a reason as to why, exactly, I felt that way.
Then, during Advent of 2011, I led a discussion group of Mike Slaughter’s
Christmas Is Not Your Birthday. That little book completely changed the way we celebrate Christmas.
I realized why I was asking, “What’s the point?” when it came to Christmas. I was tired of the societal pressure to get everybody gifts – gifts that they may or may not want or need. I was frustrated with having to return gifts that were duplicates or that didn’t fit or that I didn’t really want to begin with. I realized, as the title of the book indicates, Christmas is not my birthday or even my loved ones’ birthdays. It’s Jesus’ birthday, and I wasn’t giving gifts to Jesus or to the least of these but to people who already had enough. In Jesus, God had done a new thing, but I had been buying into the ages old commercialization of anything, in this instance, Christmas.
So, that year, Sandra and I made a change. We started giving gifts in each other’s names to organizations that inspire us, but we only give each other a few things that fit in stockings. Micah doesn’t get as extravagant a Christmas as he might have gotten had that book not turned our understanding of Christmas upside down, but that’s all he knows.
And now, Christmas has meaning again. I wouldn’t say it’s my most wonderful time of the year, but it has meaning, even if it doesn’t feel the same as when I was a little boy.
