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Regarding Christmas

December, 2007

Merry Christmas!

This well-known, and nowadays surprisingly controversial, greeting is about December 25. About making merry, opening gifts, and enjoying our family and friends, and that is as it should be. December 25th is a welcome bright spot in the darkest part of our year. Something fun and exciting to which we can look forward.

So Merry Christmas to you!

But actually, I prefer a different greeting at this time of year. As a Christian, I not only enjoy the fun and excitement of December 25th, I also honor, celebrate, and keep the holiness of December 24: Christmas Eve. The night on which we, as Christians, generally worship in honor of the birth of Christ.

It's unfortunate, really, that we use the same term--Christmas--for both celebrations. Plenty of people don't know anything about the birth of Christ and its meaning for Christmas. Lots of Christians get confused about how to keep Christmas and make merry, too. In fact, some Christians--some entire churches even--completely renounce the holiday. And there are various reasons: pagan origins, uncertainty of the birth date of Christ, etc. etc. etc.

I can't say that I have all the answers. Our family strives, each year, to find a balance between the holiness of Christmas Eve and the excitement of Christmas Day. Between preparing and waiting for the coming of the Christ child in our remembrance, and preparing and waiting for the coming of gift-opening.

I stumbled upon the Christmas greeting controversy quite innocently a few years ago. I had begun, all on my own, to use the more politically correct phrase, "Happy Holidays" in an effort to encompass the entire span of time from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day.

I got chewed out. Yep, I heard about it, via email, from a fellow Christian who had felt the sting of her non-believing friends' pointed use of this phrase in wishing her well for the holiday.

I took it upon myself to learn more about the fuss, then I stopped using the phrase, "Happy Holidays", because I didn't want to indicate that I believed Christ should be taken out of Christmas. Problem was, the phrase, "Merry Christmas" no longer said what I wanted it to say about the holiday that was both holy day and holly day.

So I began using the phrase, "Blessed Christmas" in an effort to indicate something more sacred than secular. To tell people in a soft and quiet way that I was wishing for them something more than merriment and acquisition. To share with them the hope I have in my Savior.

I'm not exactly sure the message gets through. I imagine the people who get it are the people who already "get it" and that all the others may be just as numbed to the use of the word "blessed" as they are to the use of the word "Christmas".

So I don't know. I guess I'll keep thinking about how best to share my faith at Christmas-time, quietly and calmly, in a world that seems to have gone a little crazy, once again, about its vocabulary.

Blessed Christmas to you.

---

Chantal L. DeYoe
Products For A Good Life

I am a Christian and a homeschooling, homesteading mom who endeavors to continue moving along the path toward becoming a full-time writer.
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