the process of becoming not me

This is the story of my journey from who I was, to who I am, to who I am becoming. It is the story of how God is weaving together my life, heart, and circumstances to make me something different altogether.

It is the process of becoming not me...



Friday, December 17, 2010

my Christmas evolution

The other day I was asked by a close friend of mine what happened to make me “dislike” traditional, American approaches to Christmas. I explained it to her briefly but felt like I should expose my Christmas evolution that seems to dismay so many…NO, I am not a scrooge!


As a child, I LOVED everything about Christmas. Now, I wasn’t one of those ridiculously naïve kids who believed in Santa Claus long after it is developmentally appropriate. I was 3 years old when Angie Plaster, an older girl from down the street, broke the harsh news to me. It didn’t “scar” me or ruin Christmas for me. Actually, I matter of factly broke the news to my parents that same year that I knew the “truth” about Santa Claus. I think it was a relief for them too. No longer did they have to come up with elaborate stories about how Santa had “lost” the pattern to the doll (Baby Vicky) that I wanted because she was sold out. Now, they could just say, “Sorry honey, she’s sold out.” No longer did they have to labor all night long in near silence assembling our gifts. Now they could just send us away and tell us to stay out of places. No, Santa wasn’t a disappointment for any of us. In fact, he was barely even ever a part of Christmas for me.

After all, Santa didn’t really affect the more important aspect of Christmas, which was GIFTS. Now there are 2 approaches to gift receiving – quantity and quality. I took the quantity approach, where as my brother took the quality approach. I wanted 50 $1 gifts. For me, it was the more the merrier. My brother was a high ticket item kind of kid and didn’t care if he only got 1 gift as long as he got the one he wanted. Not much changed as we got older. I do, however, remember when my gift giving evolution began. I was in late middle school and had saved all my money from babysitting, birthdays, etc to buy my mom a new set of dishes because she was still using the dishes they received 25 years ago, which were UGLY and brown. I went and picked out a set just for her and spent it all. That’s when I caught the giving bug that would infect me from that point on. Christmas was beginning to go from mass consumption to a challenge to GIVE abundantly…it had only just begun

As a child, the tree was something I ADORED! Decorating the tree was a family event complete with 45’s playing old Christmas music on my parent’s furniture sized record player. We made an event of it and the tree was something of great sentiment. I admit that it wasn’t much to look at in those early years but it was ours and was full of memories. We would sit at night with all the house lights turned out and watch the lights of the tree blink to music while we sipped hot cocoa. It was warm and sweet and perfect. We moved to Temple when I was in 3rd grade and I was given the privilege of choosing the live tree that we would put in our living room. I took this duty VERY seriously and always picked the most ridiculously large tree that would still fit in our house. Given the fact that our living room had vaulted ceilings, it could be quite large. So large, in fact, that my dad would have to anchor it to the wall. When Danny and I got married, I forced him to suffer allergies through 2 years of live Christmas trees. The first one I picked out for our tiny apartment had to be placed against the wall (and anchored) because it was too big. After 2 years though, I had compassion on him and we purchased an artificial tree. About this time, my parents also purchased and artificial tree…and they began decorating it like a “mall” tree. It had no personality. This is where I think the decorating evolution first began…But Danny and I continued to put up and decorate our little artificial tree for the next several years. When we lived in the country, we would put our tree in the bay window. I loved it when Danny would beat me home and the only thing I could see as I drove up the driveway was the brilliant white lights of the tree. Then we moved to Salado. There wasn’t a great place for the tree but we put it up anyways and put lights out front because we were “expected” too. Decorating went from delight to duty and lost its place. The decorating evolution continued… A Christmas came where we were not going to be home. Why would I put up a tree and lights if we weren’t even going to be around? So, we didn’t decorate. It was the most relaxing Christmas I had ever experienced. There was no assembly (and even better) no clean up! Post Christmas was celebratory instead of stressful. Why would I ever go back to stress? I wouldn’t

About that same time, we watched a documentary about the lost boys of Sudan who had been brought to the US. Although Christians, they were absolutely confused by many of our Christmas celebrations and traditions. One of them said, “I do not understand the trees and Santas. In Sudan, Christmas is just about Jesus. Please tell me, what does this tree and this Santa have to do with Jesus?” And it hit me like a ton of bricks! He wasn’t being sarcastic, critical or rude. He genuinely wanted to know…and so did I.

And so my Christmas evolution went into high gear. The evolution that had begun out of convenience had now been moved into conviction. I wanted Christmas to become something that focused my mind and stirred my heart for Jesus…and I wanted that for my family as well. I wanted others to look at the way we approached Christmas and say, “Christmas IS just about Jesus.” Oh sure, we say things like Keep CHRIST in CHRISTmas or He’s the reason for the season, but then we celebrate just like everyone else. Why are we consumed with how the culture approaches Christmas when we don’t even analyze our own approach as believers? After all, ANYONE can decorate and put up a Christmas tree. ANYONE can gather and eat a big meal with family. ANYONE can buy presents no one really wants/needs. ANYONE can teach their kid about Santa Claus. In the end, what do those things really have to do with Jesus and how do those things really point a lost world to Christ? So our mouths give lip service to Jesus but our lives (and hearts) are far from Him. Seems like I’ve heard that in scripture before!

As my own personal Christmas evolution gained momentum, I stumbled upon a thing called the Advent Conspiracy…and I realized that maybe, just maybe, God was trying to speak to the collective church and force His followers to answer some personally and culturally challenging questions. So as Danny and I challenged ourselves personally, we began to challenge the students in our student ministry as well. Here are some of the questions that we began to “chew” on:

• Does the way we celebrate Christmas truly bring honor to Jesus?

• If we’re celebrating Jesus’ birthday, what would He want as a birthday present?

• If Christmas is all about Christ leaving His comfort and glory in order to touch the suffering of the world, wouldn’t He want us to do the same thing?

These are questions we are still “chewing” on as a family and figuring out how we can live them out in front of our precious son, family, friends, neighbors and strangers. Unfortunately, we find church to be one of the most difficult places to do this. The distractions there abound and manifest themselves in different ways – elaborate Christmas parties, white elephant gifts, trees/garlands/lights that overshadow the nativity, wasted money, general “busyness” and the non-stop questioning by believers of what Santa will bring our son. Our response is, “Nothing. We don’t do Santa.” (Our 2 year old likes to say, “Fake like Santa Claus!”) And to this we get gasps of disbelief and disgust in the one place that should be a refuge for focusing on Jesus.

Needless to say, it’s frustrating but we are resolved none the less.

So where am I in this Christmas evolutionary process?

I’m “in process.” As a parent, I work hard at reinforcing to Matthew that Christmas is all about Jesus, but this is VERY hard when everything around us points to other stuff. I work hard about explaining that many of the other things are just distractions, but it’s hard because these distractions are more entertaining and appealing than the simple nativity. (By the way – it is REALLY hard to explain to a 2 year old why we put up lights, trees, santas, etc. Maybe that’s an indication that it really doesn’t make sense!) I work really hard at teaching Matthew that Christmas is about giving, but it’s hard when he gets gifts (even from us) as well. I work hard at providing MANY opportunities for Matthew to be generous and focus on others, but it’s hard when he’s 2. I work hard to balance my “gifts” to others by also giving to a compassion cause in their honor, but it’s hard to do this when they dismiss the gift altogether.

But hard is good because it means it’s worthwhile. In many, I have begun to see God begin a Christmas evolution in their hearts and minds. I don’t expect everyone’s evolution to look like mine, but can you imagine what would happen if followers of Christ really, actually, wholeheartedly made Jesus the focus of Christmas? It would be a revolution indeed!

GIVE MORE SPEND LESS WORSHIP FULLY LOVE ALL

If you are a follower of Christ, I challenge you to answer these questions:

• Does the way we celebrate Christmas truly bring honor to Jesus?

• If we’re celebrating Jesus’ birthday, what would He want as a birthday present?

• If Christmas is all about Christ leaving His comfort and glory in order to touch the suffering of the world, wouldn’t He want us to do the same thing?