How to Put Christ into Your Christmas - Revisit 2009

[amileegirl]

If Christians wish to make their holiday celebration more holy and less secular it is not that difficult to do. Here are some suggestions:

First, do not engage in the secular holiday trappings. It is a choice you must make for yourself. Instead, plan your holiday around your church and home and family.

 

Celebrate advent season by hanging evergreens in your home during the beginning of advent which begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve. Of course, if you are orthadox then you would, instead of doing Advent, start Lenten season on November 24 and begin 15 days of prayer, and reflection and some fasting. While hanging evergreens is not strictly a Christian tradition, it is a custom that was adopted by Christians to represent everlasting life and ressurection. Your may find that your Church might begin decorating around this time.

Here is a nice Invocation from a Methodist Church that you could easily adapt for your house:

Dear Lord, we are here in this house of worship to celebrate the Advent of Your Son, our Lord. This is a joyous occasion, O God, because our lives have been enlightened by the coming of Jesus. And so, with the lighting of candles and the singing of carols we praise You, O Lord. With the placing of wreaths, the decorating of trees, and the ringing of bells, we honor Your unspeakable love for us. Open our hearts that we may joyfully welcome Your Son; open our eyes that we may see the beauty of His coming; open our ears that we may hear anew the angel's song; and open our lips that we may tell others of His glory and His peace. Amen.

Next, purchase (or make) an advent wreath. The Advent Wreath has symbolic meaning and is based, in part, upon passages like this one: When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. ~ John 8:12

The evergreen of the wreath represents the everlasting life of Christ, the circle a life without end, and the candles symbolise Christ as the light of the world. You'll need to purchase three purple candles, and one each of a pink/rose and white candle. The purple candles represent hope, peace, and joy, the pink/rose candle is love, and the white candle is lit last on Christmas Day and represents the special light that has been born into the world in the form of Jesus. Each week of advent a candle should be lit.

A little poem can be said during the lighting: Advent, Advent the little light burns. First one, then two, then three, then four. Then the Christ Child at the door.

Your local church might perform the lighting ceremony every Sunday (or Saturday) during advent season so you may want to look into it if you'd like to attend.

Make or Buy and Advent Calendar. This is symply another way of counting down the Lenten or Advent season days until Christmas Eve. It is a physical calendar that can be made in any way that you wish and be as elaborate or as simple as you like. The most simple are flat with "doors" cut into the cardboard that opens upon each new day as the season passes. You can not only put the countdown days but also select special bible verses or a page in the bible to read. As each day a new "door" is opened it is an easy way to teach and engage children. They also sell (or you can make) ones that stand up and have actual doors to open with a rolled up paper inside to read each day or tradition to learn or perhaps even a tiny ornament "gift" to place on a tree. The possibilities are endless.

Donate a Wreath to your Church. Churches always welcome donations and they might really enjoy having a nice wreath donated to hang.

Place white candles in your windows. They sell very nice electric or battery operated plastic candlesticks since using a real candle is a fire hazard of course! It is a tradition which represents letting Jesus into the home or to find a place where the Christ child would be welcomed if he were to be wandering looking for a place to stay. Much like following the story of the nativity where it was said that there was no room for Joseph and Mary and they were not welcomed, putting a candle in your window shows that you would welcome them if they were wandering looking for shelter. It was once customary for Christians to invite all who knocked on their door inside for hospitality because one would never know in what form the love of Christ would come in.

Ring Bells. Revive this old tradition in your home. Bells represent joy and were used in religous services to announce news. Since for Christians the coming of Christ was spectacular news bells were rung just before midnight and through midnight on Christmas Eve to announce to the world and the powers of darkness that the Savior was born. In your home you can, as a family, either go to midnight mass or ring in the Savior with your own bells just before midnight and ring them until just past midnight.

Sing Christmas Carols. You can avoid singing any carols that are too secular. You might consider checking into the schedule of your local church to see if there will be any special choir performances or if your fellow church goers would like to form a Carolers group and go to the homes of known church members to sing.

Bring a Gift to your church or local shelter. To bring a giving spirit to the holdiay celebrations, rather than giving a large number of gifts to each other, limit the number of family exchanges to something special and then instead see if you could donate food, gifts, or clothing to a needy family that is part of your church or a local shelter. There are many "adopt a family" programs that run during the holidays to help those families that can not afford food, clothing, or toys. You think about also giving an extra generous monetary donation to your church or favorite charity, volunteering your time in a soup kitchen or your church,

Tell the Story of St. Nicholas as seen through a Christian perspective. Relay the story of a real person who showed extraordinary generosity to the poor in the form of gifts or monetary help so selflessly. This can tie in with trying to give back to the community when bringing gifts to the local shelter and showing how to live Christ-like through action.

Decorate your Christmas tree with religous symbols. Yes, the tree was a originally a pagan tradition but no one owns the right to use a tree. They symbolism is very simple: evergreen trees symbolize everlasting life and even the resurrection. Since Christ is everlasting it is no surprise that early Christians readily adopted evergreens. You can make this almost universal symbol very personal and very Christian-like by how you choose to decorate. You have a wealth of tree trimming possibilities available. Avoid anything too secular like comical Santas or TV themed characters. Luckily there are a wide variety of crosses, angels, miniature bibles, baby jesuses, and stars for use. By the way, It is okay to go with the recent secular trend of hanging the tree upside down as that is how Christians used to do it to show that the tree wasn't just a decoration but had important significance. You can, if you prefer, not have a tree at all if it seems too Pagan or secular to you and you can still have a very joyous and holy Christmas without one.

Decorate with Poinsettias instead of artificial decorations. While not a particularly old tradition, poinsettias are used quite often to decorate churches. After all, the red leaves look like stars (it is the part that everyone thinks is the flower) perhaps as a reminder of the star of the East, and the blood perhaps to remember the infants orderd slain by Herod or the shed blood of Christ. Whatever the symbolism you find in the plant has for you, it isn't recommended if you have pets since it is poisonous.

Go royal with colors.   Though the natural and common colors of the season are red and green, if you want to make your decorations less commercial or natural feeling, you could change your holiday colors to blue and purple which are the colors of royalty.   Those would be appropriate colors for representing Jesus if you so choose.

 

There you have it. All the things you can do to make your personal Christmas more holy and not have anything to do with any other non-Christian tradition or secular trappings. Yes, you do have to contend with certain symbols not being soley Christian (not even the Cross is soley Christian), but you can choose not to do any of that sort of thing (like tree trimming) if that is a personal concern of yours. If you were really intent on keeping away from any an all pagan influences then you may want to consider going the way of some denominations and not celebrate Christmas at all since it was a declared holiday for convenience to get everyone on the same page, and was not actually based upon Jesus's actual birth date which is unknown. You could choose, instead turn your attention to the spring time or summer when Christ would have most likely have actually been born. Jehovah's Witnesses, for instance, do not celebrate Christmas at all in any way.

No matter what you decide, there is no need to have a call in schools or business to put Christ back into your Christmas. That responsibility is for you alone and need not involve anyone else, and certainly no need to write journals on how non-christians are ruining your holiday by doing their own thing.

Read this:    Twas_the_Month_Before_Christmas
And this: The_History_of_Santa_Claus_Joulupukki_to_St_Nicolas_to_Christkindlein_to_Rudolph

This message is brought to you by your friendly neighborhood atheist.   Happy Holidays!

 

[anklebitr]

Dec. 19, 2009 at 1:32 AM

I love it!!!!!!   Happy Holidays everyone!!

[logansmomma2007]

Dec. 20, 2009 at 8:25 PM

Great journal :-)