Tag Archives: Christmas

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Advent week 3: Christmas rituals

Last week, actual tears came to my eyes while I was writing my blog post, and I don’t feel like going through that emotional wringer again (plus I can’t think of anything profound to say this week), so I’m going to write about something more fun.  But first, I have to tell you about a book I checked out of my church library.  It’s called Simply SenseSational Christmas.  The title, interestingly enough, isn’t the cheesiest thing about the book.  Let’s just say that it savors strongly of the 1990s, when it was published.  But although the hip DIY bloggers of 2016 might sneer at much of this book’s aesthetic, its central points are perhaps more relevant than ever: 1. Christmas is about the time when God was born in a stable, so stop stressing yourself out trying to have the perfect showplace home, and 2. Appealing to all five physical senses is possibly the best way to create a memorable, delightful, and even worshipful experience for yourself and your loved ones at Christmas.  The book goes on to offer simple strategies like scattering a handful of cloves around candles so that they give off a spicy, festive scent when they get warm.  This might not be life-changing stuff–then again, it might.

This book has got me thinking about some of the rituals, most if not all of them involving the physical senses, that I enjoy in my own home each Christmas.  This is the second Christmas I’ve spent in my house.  Before that, I was renting an apartment, and while I enjoyed some Christmas rituals there too, there’s something special about celebrating in one’s very own home.  (I also enjoy a number of Christmas rituals in my parents’ house, where I always spend the actual day of Christmas and usually the week or so before and after it, but those aren’t the subject of this post.)  Here are some of them.

  1. I have a number of Christmas albums in my iTunes library, including some that I’ve been listening to with my family since childhood (The New Young Messiah) and some that I’ve acquired in recent years (Christmas at the Renaissance Fair by Moat Jumper–exactly what it sounds like).  I start listening to these while I’m decorating on December 1, and I usually get through the whole collection about three times during the Christmas season.  I also have some individual Christmasy tracks from other albums that I include in the rotation, such as Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Greensleeves” and John Williams’s “Christmas at Hogwarts” from the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone soundtrack.  I also like to listen to the Nutcracker suite on record #12 of the Festival of Light Classical Music record collection I bought at Goodwill last year for $2.50.
  2. I light candles like a pyromaniac all year, but at Christmas, it really gets out of hand.  I go through tealights like my family goes through toilet paper at a large gathering.  The last year I lived in the apartment, my neighbor made me a lovely set of candleholders created from upside-down stemware decorated to look like Santa Claus, a snowman, and other festive characters.  I also have a balsam-and-cedar scented large Yankee jar candle that almost compensates for the fact that my 1.5 trees (I have a big one in the living room and a little one in my home office) are artificial.  My Pier One Holiday Forest room spray, a gift from a friend last year, also helps.
  3. I love mail.  I check my mailbox obsessively on Saturdays when I’m home to check it, and I actually have a real honest-to-goodness pen pal.  So it’s no surprise that I enjoy sending Christmas cards.  I love writing in them (even if it’s just a simple “Love, Tess”), sticking Christmas seals on the envelopes, and putting a big fat stack of them out in the mailbox.  In turn, when I receive Christmas cards, I hang them with tiny clothespins on twine in the corner of my entryway.  It’s an easy and beautiful decoration, especially when I get cards with gold on the front, which catch the light from my many candles and my tree lights.

I could go on–I haven’t said a word about food–but I think you get the idea.  These rituals are so common as to sound almost banal, but they’re meaningful to me.  I’m sure you have some that are meaningful to you.  Feel free to share in the comments!

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Advent week 2: Scrooge’s worst sin

I wrote down the following thoughts almost a year ago during my devotional reading of Ecclesiastes 4:4-8, focusing specifically on verse 8: “There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother.  There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. ‘For whom am I toiling,’ he asked, ‘and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?’  This too is meaningless–a miserable business!” (New International Version).

Since it’s nearly Christmas, and I love Charles Dickens, verse 8 made me think of Ebenezer Scrooge, toiling alone for no purpose other than acquisition itself, with nobody to inherit his accumulation because he has no significant relationships, having driven everybody away in his single-minded pursuit.  We make Scrooge seem preposterous when we exaggerate his hatred of Christmas and quote his most hyperbolic lines, but there are actually many people in our society who are just like him, and I have to admit that I tend in that direction.  Our motives may be mixed: we are striving for money, yes, but maybe also for promotion and to gain respect, and maybe just because we’re addicted to work.  The lonely toiler in verse 8 actually stops to ask why he’s doing all this, but so many of us don’t.  Solomon diagnoses this behavior perfectly: “This also is vanity and a grave misfortune” (New King James Version).  Scrooge’s main lesson was not about loving Christmas but about loving people and putting them above money and work.  This Christmas season, I could stand to learn this lesson too.

As I revisit these thoughts this year, I would like to remind myself and all of us that there are people who are lonely at Christmas not because they’ve run all their relationships into the ground in an obsession with work, but maybe because they don’t have close family members and friends with whom they feel comfortable celebrating.  Maybe they’ve been rejected by the people who should be most accepting of them, or maybe it just seems like everyone they’ve loved over the long years of their lives has died.  Or maybe it’s just that one significant other who passed away earlier this year and left an unfillable hole in the Christmas celebration, regardless of however many other loved ones are still around.  There are people who are lonely at Christmas because they’ve chosen to devote their lives to overseas missions work or to study in another country.

I know it’s a common trope of Christmas songs and movies to gesture toward the existence of loneliness at Christmas, but these stories too often have neat, easy endings–Santa Claus or Little Cindy Lou Who arrives and solves the problem, cathartically absolving us (the audience) of any need to make a real-life response to what we’ve seen.  This year, I’m taking the simple step of praying for people who I know or suspect are feeling lonely during this season.  I’m also trying to do little things like connecting two people in my department at work who are going to be in the office during the week leading up to Christmas, when most of us won’t be around–maybe they can have lunch together one day.  Perhaps one day I’ll have the opportunity to include someone in my family’s Christmas festivities who has nobody else to celebrate with.  We’re talking about hospitality here, really, and hospitality isn’t just one type of action–it’s a posture of openness toward other people and a sensitivity to God’s leading.

Of course, at the end of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge’s own isolation is driven away by his choice to show hospitality to others.  In the end, it doesn’t matter why someone is lonely–whether it be poverty, death of a loved one, or an unhealthy focus on money and work.  The important thing is that one person chooses to reach out of his or her loneliness into someone else’s.  Will you try doing that this Christmas?

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Advent week 1: a Christmas post roundup

Considering my interest this year in finding practical ways to observe the rhythms of a healthy Christian life (e.g., giving up checking email on Sundays, taking a quarterly three-hour meditation “retreat”), you might think that I have a great plan to celebrate Advent.  I don’t.  I’m just going to do what I always do, which is to break out my Christmas decorations and music on December 1.  (I actually jumped the gun a little this year–I got my Christmas tea towels out yesterday.  And now for the big confession: I’ve been listening to the Celtic Holidays station on Pandora for weeks.)  But I have decided to write a Christmas post every Monday of the four weeks of Advent.  I have no idea what I’m going to write in most of these posts, but I’ll figure it out as I go.  Some of the posts may be better than others, but won’t that be more exciting than those chocolate Advent calendars that reveal the exact same square of bland chocolate every day?  I think so.

I feel a heavy, but probably totally imaginary, weight of expectation on my proverbial shoulders as I prepare to write these posts because I’ve always made a point of writing excellent Christmas posts ever since I began my blog in 2011, a tradition I’ve kept up even during periods when I’ve largely neglected to post  My first Christmas post , written just days after I started the blog, was short but profound.  Since then, I’ve written about topics as widely varying as A Christmas Carol adaptations, the school shooting that occurred in Newtown, CT, near Christmas in 2012 (a post I didn’t want to write but felt compelled to), Danny Kaye’s socks, a Charles Dickens Christmas story that’s NOT A Christmas Carol, and my bird ornaments.

In college, when I couldn’t figure out how to start a paper, I used to take up a page or more on introducing the topic, telling tangentially related anecdotes, and apologizing for what was to come.  By then, I was already well into my required page count!  I guess I haven’t changed much since then; I basically just did the blog version of that exact thing.  This post won’t be an entire waste of your time, however, if you click on the links in the preceding paragraph.  And I promise not to waste your time in my remaining three Advent posts (and my Boxing Day post!  It’s on a Monday this year).  When I next write to you, I’ll have all my bird ornaments up and will have listened to Harry Connick, Jr.’s When My Heart Finds Christmas (another vintage Penelope post topic) at least once.  See you then.

 

 

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Charles Dickens on Christmas (no, not THAT story)

Good evening, readers, whom I have been sadly neglecting this year.  And merry Christmas.  I am probably losing some of you due to the fact that every time I have posted recently, my post has been about Charles Dickens.  It’s just that I love him, and you know how it is when you’re in love.  I actually bought a Charles Dickens finger puppet/refrigerator magnet the other day.  Yes, I did.

I promise that after this post, I’ll take a break from Charles Dickens.  But I want to quote him in this, my annual Christmas post.  (For previous years’ posts, click the “holidays” category in the menu on the left.  There’s an Easter post and a Thanksgiving post in there, but other than that, they’re all about Christmas.  Most years I’ve written more than one annual Christmas post.)  Every year, whether I write something funny or something profound, or a little of each, my goal is to get you to think about Jesus.  Christmas is his day, after all, even beyond the sense in which every day is his day.

Last night I read a few stories from a massive volume entitled The Selected Illustrated Works of Charles Dickens, purchased in the same transaction as the puppet/magnet.  I came across a piece I’d never read before, “The Seven Travellers,” composed of three short stories.  The piece ends with a description of the narrator’s walk home on a cold, quiet Christmas morning, during which everything reminds him of Jesus.  As soon as I read these few paragraphs, I knew I’d be letting Charles write my annual Christmas post for me.  Please enjoy this excerpt, and may the Founder of Christmas bless you richly.  [Note: A couple of the biblical references are a little obscure–a good reason to read, or re-read, the gospels!]

When I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to diverge from the main road, I bade farewell to my last remaining Poor Traveller, and pursued my way alone.  And now the mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as I went on through the bracing air, seeing the hoarfrost sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all nature shared in the joy of the great Birthday.

Going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground and among the brown leaves enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I felt surrounded.  As the whitened stems environed me, I thought how the Founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless and heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree.  By Cobham Hall, I came to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly buried, “in the sure and certain hope” which Christmas time inspired.  What children could I see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who had loved them!  No garden that I passed was out of unison with the day, for I remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and that “she supposing him to be the gardener,” had said, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”  In time, the distant river with the ships came full in view, and with it pictures of the poor fishermen, mending their nets, who arose and followed him–of the teaching of the people from a ship pushed off a little way from shore, by reason of the multitude–of a majestic figure walking on the water, in the loneliness of night.  My very shadow on the ground was eloquent of Christmas; for did not the people lay their sick where the mere shadows of the men who had heard and seen him might fall as they passed along?

Thus Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I had come to Blackheath, and had walked down the long vista of gnarled old trees in Greenwich Park, and was being steam-rattled through the mists now closing in once more, towards the lights of London.  Brightly they shone, but not so brightly as my own fire, and the bright faces around it, when we came together to celebrate the day.

 

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About yesterday, and about Christmas

Yesterday after I heard about the elementary school shooting (a phrase that should never have entered the language) in Newtown, Connecticut, I tweeted a link to Dylan Thomas’s poem “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London,” which is about the inadequacy and, often, the inappropriateness of words in the face of death, especially the death of a child.  I hope that in the following comments I will not violate the spirit of his poem or dishonor the victims, that I will not “murder / the mankind of [their] going with a grave truth” (14-15).

One of the most striking things about this event is how close it happened to Christmas.  A friend of mine mentioned last night that the children’s parents had probably already bought their presents.  This certainly makes what happened all the more horrible, but we shouldn’t be shocked that someone could do something like this during the holiday season.  Sometimes we (that is, Western civilization in general) think that people magically become more charitable or at least more “decent” at Christmastime.  Charles Dickens, in A Christmas Carol, played a large role in creating this misconception.  In the story, it is the spirit (literally) of Christmas itself that brings about an unforeseen, quick, and complete transformation in Scrooge.  Though I love A Christmas Carol, I think Dickens is wrong–which is not something I say very often, so this is important.

Christmas does not make us better people.  Christ does.  This is called sanctification, and it takes a long time and can be difficult.  The statistics we hear every year about depression at Christmas, and now yesterday’s shooting, are evidence that the month of December has no special power to transform lives.  Only the one whose birth we celebrate at Christmas can do this.

I’m not trying to be cynical.  If our favorite things about Christmas–the music, the decorations, the gift-giving–prompt those of us who are Christians to act like what we are being transformed into–the image of Christ–so much the better.  And even better if our celebration of Christmas becomes an act of witness-bearing, to give those who do not yet know Christ a glimpse of what the world might look like if all people were restored to what we were created to be, and still have the potential to be: God’s children.  But the music, the decorations, the gifts are only symbols.  Symbols are powerful, but they can’t do what Christ can.

Another mistake we make at Christmas is to forget that Christ has promised a second Advent.  The first time Jesus came, the time we celebrate at Christmas, he didn’t fix everything that was wrong with the world.  Of course, he changed everything; he gave us a way back to God.  But the world is still broken.  Children still die.

This Christmas, I hope you remember that Christ has promised to come again and fulfill the rest of the Messianic prophecies we read at this time of year.  Someday he will come and set the world right.  There won’t be any more elementary school shootings.  There won’t be any death at all.  And “of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7).

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God bless us, every last individual one.

What are your favorite adaptations of A Christmas Carol?  Here are some mini-reviews of ones that I experience every year, plus a few new ones.

1. Mickey’s Christmas Carol. Like many people, I suspect, I was first exposed to Dickens’ story through this brief–very brief–cartoon.  Its briefness makes it good for children with short attention spans, but it means that a number of great scenes (the child Scrooge in the schoolroom, the party at Fred’s, the pilferers offering their wares to Old Joe) have to be left out.  Perhaps even more disappointing, this version doesn’t use much of Dickens’ language other than “Bah humbug” and “God bless us, every one.”  But Alan Young as Scrooge MacDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge is memorable.  And I’ll always have a warm place in my heart for Mickey’s Christmas Carol.

2. The Muppet Christmas Carol. I haven’t seen this year’s The Muppets yet, but I’m interested to see whether Jason Segel and Amy Adams can give as un-ironic and moving a performance alongside a cast of Muppets as Michael Caine does in this movie which ranks easily among my favorite Christmas films.  Even though this movie left me for many years with the impression that Scrooge actually had two partners named Marley in the original version, I credit it with instilling in me an early love for Dickens’ style, since it does retain much of the phraseology of the novella.  When I read A Christmas Carol, I hear Gonzo’s voice.  Who doesn’t?

3. A Christmas Carol presented by the Almost Blasphemy troupe at Blackfriars Playhouse, Staunton, VA.  I went to see this American Shakespeare Center production last weekend.  It was decidedly geared toward the groundlings in the audience (in this case, mostly children), as evidenced in particular by the dance number at Fezziwig’s party (It was “Flashdance.”  Yes.).  A purist would not have enjoyed it, but a purist would not have enjoyed seeing Dickens done with Elizabethan theatrical conditions anyway.  I had fun.  As usual with ASC, the pace was brisk, yet the story felt unabridged.  I thought Marley’s ghost was particularly good.  He came out of a trapdoor in the floor!  (And he was a good actor.)

4. The version I have pieced together from a few of my students’ papers.  In which Marley’s ghost and the Ghost of Christmas Past are the same character.  I told them I would be able to tell if they didn’t read the book.

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All flesh shall see it together

Last night, due to the cancellation of coffee shop gig by a local Celtic family band (more on them later, hopefully), I had the unexpected joy of attending a community choir’s performance of the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah.  I always have something of a beatific experience when hearing Messiah live–I’m usually one of the first to spring to my feet when the Hallelujah chorus begins.  This time, however, I had the additional pleasures of a beautiful setting and good companions.

The performance took place in a lovely old church, the kind that when you go in the front door, you walk directly into the sanctuary.  This architectural feature implies two things: first, the emphasis is on worship, and second, a visitor shouldn’t have to wander around looking for the service.  We sat over to the side, so I had a little trouble seeing the choir, but I had other things to look at, like Christmas trees, banners, and stained glass, as well as other things I enjoy seeing in churches, if only because of the novelty of the old: pews and hymnals.

I also got to look at people, one of my favorite activities.  The sanctuary was nearly full, and not just of older people who look like they attend a lot of cultural events; there were numerous children, only a few of whom looked bored, and–how do I say this without sounding like a classical music snob?–well, we parked next to a car with a NASCAR bumper sticker.  I also enjoyed watching the people who sat on either side of me in the pew: the two friends I had come with.  The one on my left had never heard most of the Messiah; the one on my right is an experienced singer who had participated in performances of the oratorio before.  The one on my left pulled out his phone and took a video during the Hallelujah chorus; the one on my right did interpretive hand motions (which I think were at least partly intended to make me laugh one of those awkward silent concert laughs) during at least one of the recitatives.  I have no doubt that they engaged in these activities not because they were bored, but because there is something about Handel’s masterpiece that makes everyone want to be an active part of it.  (I felt the same way.)  At one point, I watched both of them conducting with their hands in their laps.

What struck me perhaps most of all is that this was not a particularly masterful performance of the Messiah.  The choir and orchestra were perhaps too small to really nail some of the more “epic” pieces; the soloists were clearly amateurs.  And we did discuss some questionable interpretive choices in the car afterward.  But something about those old melodies and even older words can redeem even the most mediocre performance and draw everyone in, from a Handel newbie to an often critical seasoned performer (and, somewhere in between, Penelope Clearwater, who sings along with the Messiah CD in her car).  The Messiah is for everyone.  And yes, there’s a double meaning in that sentence.

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An album that ages well

This year Michael Buble (I haven’t figured out yet how to add an accent mark on WordPress–don’t laugh at me!) released his album Christmas.  Because MB is young and about as hip as an old-school crooner can be, and because he doesn’t have a mediocre acting career to rival his discography, he often, unfortunately, overshadows an artist who was making Big Band-style Christmas albums and sounding uncannily like Frank Sinatra long before little Michael came on the scene: Harry Connick, Jr.

Last night I listened, as I do at least once every year, to Harry’s first (and best) Christmas album, When My Heart Finds Christmas.  It has sappy moments, as you might guess from the title.  It has no logical flow–a funky number about Santa Claus is followed by a solemn, haunting piece about Jesus.  But it has fourteen of the greatest Christmas arrangements and originals ever recorded.  Here are a few reasons for its greatness:

1. Harry is never reluctant to let the band be the star.  On sweeping numbers like “O Holy Night” and “What Child Is This,” there are long sections of orchestration during which our crooner doesn’t get to show off his voice.  But Harry is fine with that.  This is a band album, not a solo album.

2. He’s also not afraid to–yes–remind us what Christmas is all about.  “The Blessed Dawn of Christmas Day,” perhaps my favorite track (though it’s hard to pick), actually contains the line “Jesus died for me.”  Most CCM artists don’t even go that far on their Christmas albums!

3. Harry can do funk, not just jazz and classical fare.  “I Pray on Christmas” and “Must Have Been Ol’ Santa Claus” break out of the smooth, Sinatra/Buble-style mold and reveal Connick’s New Orleans roots.

Ok, I’m not a music critic, but trust me: it’s an album worth listening to.

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Christmas paradox

Christmas is the time of year when we can best understand a famous paradox by C. S. Lewis: “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”  Christmas is one of the few times, perhaps the only time in 21st-century America, when mystery and merriment, silence and revelry are both acceptable and normal (although the mystery and silence part is becoming less normal).  It’s fitting, I guess, that the holiday celebrating God’s incarnation is a time when we succeed best at breaking down our constructed barrier between the sacred and the secular.

So this Christmas season I’m going to try not to get annoyed when–for example–a church pageant makes a jarring transition from Santa Claus to the manger, or when I get in the car with my family after the quiet, reverent Christmas Eve candlelight service and the first thing I hear is Bruce Springsteen on the radio hollering about Clarence getting a new saxophone for Christmas.  (editor’s note: I love Bruce Springsteen.  But do you understand what I mean about jarring transitions?)  Our response to the “unspeakable” (2 Cor. 9:15, KJV) truth that God became a baby–speaking of paradox–should indeed be to meditate in silence for a time, but then to turn to rejoicing.  And we don’t need to feel guilty if our rejoicing involves loud singing of carols about Santa Claus.