Christmas

It’s hard to believe that Christmas is only a couple of days away. Somehow it seems to have snuck up on me this year. Thankfully I had my shopping sorted pretty early on. For once I remembered to send my sponsored children Christmas cards back in October so they’ll hopefully get there in time for Christmas. There’s only a couple of cards I’ve forgotten to actually post. Oh, and my wages. I still need to deposit them so they clear in time for 2013…!

At this time of year, I’ll read lots of posts about why I should not give presents to my friends and give to charity instead or fights about ‘Merry Christmas’ vs ‘Happy Holidays’ in the USA. The usual stuff about the commercialisation of a religious celebration.

Last year, I had a lot of my online friends take part in a “Christmas Blog Party”, and Hannah’s post on why she doesn’t celebrate Christmas got a lot of reads and caused a wee bit of controversy and discussion! I was also really interested to read another online friend, Sarah’s post on how they don’t do ‘Santa’ but they do ‘Saint Nicholas’. And I remember reading Rebecca’s guest post last year and being so angry that someone would tell her she couldn’t join in with Christmas if she wasn’t a Christian.

I didn’t grow up in a religious family. So a lot of the cultures that I’ve found in churches – some of their values and beliefs I have found strange, weird, appalling, interesting or eye-opening. I’ve been a Christian for almost 11 years now, and I’m still discovering new facets to these cultures. At times I get exasperated by the people that grew up on ‘Planet Christian’ that don’t really understand what it’s like to come into their alien culture. Especially in this new contemporary Christian culture that has grown. All about being ‘in love’ with Jesus and being ‘missional’.

Sometimes I end up avoiding church this time of year because it’s all too much guilt tripping and so many activities it makes you run down and burned out.

I guess I like to keep it simple. I like to avoid the shops once they’re busy. I like to just chill out. I like to remember the coming of Jesus as a wee baby in the candlelight of singing traditional carols as Midnight closes in. I get reminded of the reality of what Mary & Joseph must have gone through as I answer calls at work. I hate wrapping them, but I love giving presents to my friends that are always blessing me throughout the year. It’s something that when you don’t have a lot of money you really love being able to do once a year (and I never go beyond my means – I don’t have any credit cards). I love making warm mulled juices and baking treats for people to enjoy and feel Christmassy. And I’m not going to lie – I have so much fun with the whole Santa thing (let’s be honest, at 28 years old I was playing with My Little Pony in the backset of my friends car with their daughter a few weeks ago – my imagination is still intact thank you very much!) My favourite Christmas movie still remains ‘Santa Claus: the movie’ – maybe because there is a little bit more of that ‘Saint Nicholas’ story feeling to it. Over Christmas, I like to have time on my own to reflect and just ‘be’. Come Hogmanay, I’ll go back to my extravert self and want to be with lots of people again.

The truth is that Christmas is such a mixture of things. Lights and decorations brighten the darkest time of year in the Northern hemisphere. Santa brings the child back in so many grown ups. Saint Nicholas brings the fun of gift giving. Nativities give children the power to tell a story of a child that was going to grow up and save the world despite all the obstacles in his way.

I hope that if you are celebrating Christmas in some way this year, you enjoy it. I hope you know that even if you’ve never been to church before you are so welcome to go there and join in with how they are celebrating and remembering (if they don’t make you feel welcome, God’s gonna be more mad at them than you). And I hope you know there is no ‘one way’ to celebrate, and it doesn’t have to  be complicated.

Have a very merry Christmas!