Christmas Traditions: Bright Lights & Momma’s Derby Pie
Christmas is about Christ
The Monday after Thanksgiving break, I walked early into the faculty lounge at a former school hoping for the 40+ cups of coffee in the holy steel urn to be ready to cheer my sleepy, back-to-work-after-a-vacation soul. The coffee was delicious; surprisingly, a handwritten sign above the pot inspired my attitude for months afterwards: “Let the feasting begin!” The typical coffee and donut ritual of an average break room in late November became one of the daily components to my celebrating my Savior’s birth throughout that Advent season.
Yes, even a holiday snack celebration in a faculty workroom is evidence of what is going on around us. We head to Christmas tree farms to cut down our own trees. We eat our share of pumpkin pie, drink boiled custard, and listen to Christmas music around the clock. We attend community tree lighting ceremonies, school productions, and living manger scenes. We drive around in our seven to twelve seaters looking at lights while dressed in pajamas and drinking hot cocoa. Everywhere, our culture illuminates that the feasting of Christmastide has begun.
As it should.
We could look crassly down our noses at all this celebration as consumerism and materialism: “Bah. Humbug. That’s not Christmas!” Yet, we could look at all these holiday exclamations and declare as the psalmist did, “The earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness” (Psalm 24:1). Thus, we could say, “Our King has come! Hallelujah! Unleash the advent wreaths and calendars, evergreen trees, ornaments, boiled custard! Parade in the streets!” Ring those bells, you jolly old elves, and declare, ‘Merry Christmas!’”
In theological terms, we say we are celebrating the Incarnation of our King: Our God became a man. We spend time daily reflecting on the immense significance of Jesus’ coming in the flesh. The second person of the Trinity came “tasting our sadness” and making much ado about the ordinary. He talked of figs, grapes, vines, money, seeds, houses, bushels, baskets, bread, wine, leaven, salt, water, sheep, goats, feasts, and suppers. He boated, fished, walked, rode a donkey, cried, and prayed. His miracles even emphasized these aspects of humanity. He was incarnate as a real man and yet He remained our infinite God. The incarnation should soak our homes, classrooms, city streets, and shopping malls like the rum saturates grandma’s Christmas chocolate rum balls. We should be intoxicated with Immanuel.
And mostly this exhortation is for the adults because children are naturally buoyant with wonder all year long. G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “[God] has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” Thus, our children more often exude the spirit of wonder that the Incarnation embodies. I know you know what I mean, but here is a personal example.
One unforgettable evening long ago driving home in October, my [then] three year old, Jake, exclaimed: “Mommy and Daddy! Look! It’s Christmas!” I was startled at my child’s exclamation. I looked around to see what Jake saw. Just off the Germantown highway in Cordova, TN, I saw why Jake burst into that joyful proclamation. In his searching for just the right word that night to describe the seasonal amusement park at the Agri-center, Jake described the scene as “Christmas.” He was surely commenting about the bright and colorful lights of the Ferris wheel, but he was relating these sights via his Christmas experience. His worldview of celebration was defined by our family celebrations of Christ’s birth. We had formed in my son the assumption that all bright, colorful, extraordinary scenes were to celebrate Christ’s birth!
Perhaps the powerful lesson here for parents is that the consistent doing of your holiday traditions communicates a more powerful lesson than the ever-consistent verbal reminding them of this simple truth: “Christmas is about Christ.” Go ahead, I double-dog dare you to model with boldness for your children a proper gratitude for Christ’s incarnation and his redemption of this world by enjoying an extra slice of momma’s especially-crafted-for-the-holiday Derby pie.
