Christmas: what's it to you?

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Shekinah Winter, December 2008

“Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms’ length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to break, like faded cups and saucers.”

A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas has become classic Christmas-time reading. Rich in imagery and detail, it opens for us a tableau of this ancient Christian celebration as experienced by children in Wales, ca. 1950s.

Go back another 110 years to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, ca. 1843, a story called by some “a Victorian morality tale.” Scrooge, Marley, Bob Cratchitt, Tiny Tim and the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future still haunt our yuletide reveries.



At this time of year, the “meaning of Christmas” emerges as a pet topic for some. Their theme hardly needs reiterating: Santa, commercialism, the entertainment industry have usurped the place Christ used to hold; let’s put Christ back in Christmas. And there are, of course, posted articles detailing someone’s take on the origins of Christmas as, for instance, the cultural appropriation by Christians of pagan winter solstice celebrations. Still others are eager to define Christmas as a time of love and sharing and getting back to family and community good will and togetherness.

But Christmas is and always has been a human creation. Not celebrated to any extent until about the 9th Century, it certainly doesn’t have its origin in the New Testament or in the early church. 

It follows that the meaning of it is also man-made; that it is whatever we determine it to be. In my church, it means the acknowledgment again of incarnation, a sort of re-establishing of mindfulness of the divinity and Lordship of Christ by focusing on his birth. (Plus, of course, overeating, decorations, gifts, music, children dressed up as sheep, shepherds, angels, oxen and a doll in not-a-manger-but-a-cradle, additional worship services, singing familiar carols so often that one wishes it would stop, etc.)

Consider this: We are social creatures; we thrive for the most part in the convivial company of other people. We need food, shelter, security, belonging for our well-being, but we also need joyful celebration just as we need Sabbath rest or a good night’s sleep. What a tragedy it would be if we were to continue celebrating around December 25th, but always feeling anxious at the same time that somehow our celebrations are failing to give Christ his due . . . on this His birthday, no less.



There’s something very appealing in the celebration of the march of the seasons, even more so than in the reiteration of that which we have long accepted as true, for which we hardly need special days or an annual reminder. The incarnation is always and everywhere. Like air. Like light. But in a cold winter, the knowledge that every day for a time will be longer and brighter than the last one, well that’s occasion for celebrating.



Maybe even dancing. Perhaps celebration is the meaning of Christmas after all. What do you think, Dylan? Charles?

Psalm 150:3-5 New International Version (NIV)

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
praise him with the clash of cymbals,
    praise him with resounding cymbals.


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