We Do It Backwards

I've been reading a lot of posts on Facebook lately about people taking their Christmas decorations down and feeling sad but relieved that "the holidays are over."

Ummm, the holidays aren't over.

The first such post I saw was the day after Christmas. I thought, "Holy cow! Christmas had just started, and this person is ready for it to be gone."

We do it backwards. I've noticed that most people put their Christmas decorations up on that magical day after Thanksgiving or even more wondrous December 1 (or the Sunday nearest it). This is usually before the season of Advent is even started. Stores start putting out their Christmas baubles for sale in August. No wonder by the time Christmas Day arrives, we are suffering severe "holiday fatigue" and are just ready for it to be over. On Christmas Day, though, the true purpose of Christmas and its celebration is only beginning.

As Catholics, and some of the non-Catholic churches, too, we lament the secularization of Christmas: "Make sure to keep the 'Christ' in 'Christmas," and "I'll say 'Merry Christmas', not 'Happy Holidays', thank you very much." As Christians, we bemoan the commercialization of Christmas: "Remember, Jesus is the reason for the season, not presents and Santa Claus." Yet, so many of us participate in this secularization of Christmas by aligning our celebration of the Birth of Jesus with the secular "Holiday Season," and not with our Church's calendar.

You see, for the four weeks prior to Christmas Eve, we are not in "Christmas" yet. As Catholics, and some of the major Christian denominations, we are in the season of Advent. This season is about Joyful Anticipation for the coming of Jesus. I used to get so mad at the monks of Conception Abbey when I was a student there, because they would not let us put up Christmas decorations on campus prior to the winter break. By the time break was over, so was the Christmas season, and we could not decorate for Christmas at all. Now I realize the spiritual maturity of that practice. What the monks were trying to teach us was to align our celebration of the holidays (these "HOLY DAYS") with the Church, instead of with the secular culture.

This is something we've had to compromise in our house. My preference would be that we do not put out any decorations for Christmas until Christmas Eve. Yeah. Right. You try to stop Lesley from putting out Christmas decorations. I've caught her listening to "The Carpenter's for Christmas" in July! She's unstoppable. The compromise that we made early in our relationship is that the Christmas decorations would remain out until the Somnity of the Epiphany. (For my non-Catholic readers, that is when the Catholic Church celebrates the coming of the Magi who reverenced the Christ Child as King [gold], Priest [incense], and Sacrificial Victim [myrrh].) Our Christmas decorations stay up until the Church's Christmas Season is over, usually 2 Sundays after Christmas. If I had my drothers, I would leave them up until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, 3 Sundays after Christmas, but hey, marital comprimise.

I think this is something we need to start taking seriously, if we want to re-evangelize our culture, and make Christmas a Christian holiday again. We need to stop submitting to the secular calendar of the "Holiday Season," and begin aligning our prayer and our activities with the Christian "Christmas Season." There are some simple ways to do this.

1. And this one is good for the whole year round: Integrate the readings of Mass with our personal prayer. I know that many, many Catholics spend time each day with the scriptures. As Catholics (and truly all Christians), our private, personal prayer and communal, ecclesial prayer are supposed to flow from and feed in to each other. One of the simplest ways to do that is to read the scriptures for Mass each day. It takes only a few minutes, and the readings are published in so many different places, "I don't know what the readings are," really is no excuse. There is even an app for it on your smart phone, iMissal. I frame my personal prayer with the scriptures. I read the scriptures for the daily Mass to begin my daily personal prayer. Then I spend time in quiet meditation and then I say a rosary. Then I end my daily, private prayer by listening to God speak in the scriptures for the upcoming Sunday Mass. By the time Sunday comes, I've heard the scriptures for Mass 7 times (Monday through Sunday) already. The way I do this is just one way to do it. Find your own way in your own prayer to spend time each day with the scriptures of the Mass. You will find that your life begins to align naturally with the celebrations of the Church calendar throughout the year.

2. Slow down during Advent. Advent is a time of waiting, anticipation, patience and quiet. Maybe we should all start a practice of not having holiday gatherings until after Christmas Day. Feeling the darkness of Advent by withholding a lot of the lights is an interesting idea. The reason Christmas was assigned to December 25 was not because it is actually Jesus's birthday. By all indications in the scriptures, Jesus was most probably born in the springtime. The earliest Christians evangelized a pagan holiday which celebrated the triumph of light over darkness, when the days started becoming longer. Jesus is the Light of the World, who came into the world to banish darkness. The earliest Christians evangelized the Pagans by "Christianizing" this Roman festival, using it to teach people that Jesus is the Light who has overcome the darkness. Spending Advent in quiet darkness is a good way to give the season of waiting for the Light it's true meaning.

3. Have your holiday get togethers after Christmas. In some of the Orthodox Traditions, gifts aren't given on Christmas at all, but on the Solemnity of the Epiphany. This is to commemorate the gifts of the Magi given to Jesus. Instead of getting together with family and friends the weeks prior to Christmas day to celebrate "Christmas", let's wait until the weekend after Christmas. Let's celebrate gift giving in the Light of the gift of God the Father, Jesus. We might say, "Oh, but who has the time after Christmas?" Why are the days seemingly more condensed after Christmas? Probably because we've already been celebrating for weeks, and are just tired. Putting the celebrations of Christmas off until after Christmas might make the days seem less hectic.

The bottom line is, if we are truly to re-evangelize our culture in an attempt to restore the meaning of Christmas, then we need to think about how we celebrate it. Are we aligning ourselves with the secular calendar, or with the Christian calendar? What are we doing prior to the celebration of the Christian holy days? Is December 25 the beginning of the celebration of the Birth of Jesus that we continue for several weeks, or is it the end of a tiresome, busy, hectic December that we're actually glad to see gone?

In short, while we pay lip service to "the true meaning of Christmas," do we truly celebrate it as Christians?