Don't take my Christmas

No, I am sorry, but you cannot have my Christmas. It is not available for comment or optional changes. Somewhere in the last 40 years of my life my Christmas has been slowly taken away, piece by piece.

I want it back.

My Christmas is a deeply spiritual experience. It is a time to stop and reflect on the stillness and silence of winter nights. To breathe certain scents and listen to particular types of music. It may come wrapped in cold snow or the clear midnight sky of the tropics. It is warm, homey and totally mine. I share it freely with family and friends, but it is not for sale.

It’s not about nostalgia or traditions though both are part of Christmas, but about the stark realization that God wrapped His only Son in flesh and laid him in the arms of a common peasant couple in Bethlehem. And because of that birth, Christmas exists, and I am able to see God face to face in the person of Jesus Christ. The wood of the manger was a shadow of the cross to come; salvation was wrapped in cloth, enveloped in the tender softness of a little child.

I will not be sending Happy Holiday cards, or Seasons Greetings, because they cheapen and diminish the intense wonder of why Christmas was or is ever celebrated. Santa is welcome to enrich the festivities, as long as he too bows at the manger, worships the Child and remembers his roots in St. Nicholas.

Excuse me if the crèche and angels and shepherds and wise men offend you. I am more offended by a general malaise in society that tells me none of these are or should be part of the “holidays.” If you take away the foundation of Christmas, there simply is nothing left to celebrate.

If I took away Hanukkah or Kwanza or Ramadan, I would be severely chastised for not being pluralistically sensitive. Fine, anyone who wants to celebrate those holidays is welcome to do so. In fact, I will celebrate with them, but don’t tell me I cannot celebrate Christmas as I choose.

I will continue to put out my various creches and touch the wooden pieces with warm memories and wonder. I will sing and play carols that speak, not of holidays, Santa and elves, but of the Christ child. I will read the Christmas story again and again from Matthew and Luke, Isaiah and Micah. The words of scripture will echo back into my corporate memory of candlelit services and bells and organ. I will meditate on the drama and glory of it all. I will bask in the blaze of angel brightness. My Christmas will be flagrantly Christian.

I will sit in solitude beside my tree and reflect on the deep green of life, the red of blood shed for my salvation and the pure white light of a soul cleansed from sin.

Don’t even think about taking my Christmas. This is not a once a year celebration. I do not put Christ back into Christmas. I simply recognize that if I deeply love my Lord, He is the foundation of every day of the year. Christmas is not a holiday. It is my life.