Wordful Wednesday

Many folks have been blog­ging and Twit­ter­ing about tak­ing down all of their hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions. One woman wrote that she had the tree down and every­thing stowed away for next year by mid­day on Christ­mas Day! She had dec­o­rated on Thanks­giv­ing and found her­self ready to be done with Christ­mas for this year.

I am still enjoy­ing our Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions. This year, we got the tree and other dec­o­ra­tions up on Decem­ber 4, and put the orna­ments on the tree the fol­low­ing Fri­day. For me, that was early. There have been a num­ber of years when, because of my sched­ule, I did not put the tree up until two or three days before Christ­mas. And a cou­ple when we put up only a tree. But I always leave the tree up through New Year’s Eve.

My atti­tude stems from my par­ents’ tra­di­tion. The tree was always lit for the last time on New Year’s Eve and the next day all of the dec­o­ra­tions were taken down. For me, it has always seemed some­how fit­ting to enjoy the lights from the tree and other adorn­ments while ush­er­ing in the New Year, and then start the year off by remov­ing the “old” the next morn­ing. The house always seems roomier and cleaner after the dec­o­ra­tions are removed, the fur­ni­ture put back in its place, etc. And by New Year’s Day, I’m usu­ally ready to start doing laun­dry and other chores in prepa­ra­tion for return­ing to work.

It wouldn’t be Christ­mas in our house with­out my “girls.” In 1983, my long-time friend Lynette sur­prised me with ceramic like­nesses of my two cats. They are my most prized and pre­cious orna­ments (and that’s really say­ing some­thing because I have a lot of orna­ments), so they are always placed promi­nently at the top front of our tree.

My nativ­ity scene is also on dis­play for the first time in sev­eral years. I hap­pened upon this beau­ti­ful set at Costco at least a dozen years ago and gave sev­eral to friends and rel­a­tives as Christ­mas gifts. I love the expres­sions on the char­ac­ters’ faces, as well as the col­ors used.

My boys are men now — #1Son is 22, and Mat­tieBoo cel­e­brated his 18th birth­day last month. How­ever, tak­ing pho­tos at my house is not any eas­ier than it was when they were lit­tle tod­dlers run­ning around clown­ing for the cam­era. There is one mem­ber of our house­hold who refuses to be ignored when there is a cam­era in her vicin­ity. Miss Sophie — aka Queen Sophia — just pushed her­self between me and the nativ­ity scene and stared at me, say­ing, “Take a pic­ture of me, Mom! You know you want to!”

Christ­mas is always a low-key, mel­low affair at our house. This year, the first for my boys and me in our new house, was no excep­tion. I don’t believe in show­er­ing them with gifts they nei­ther want nor need, but always make sure that they receive things they truly want. I have tried very hard to teach them to be grate­ful for what they receive. Last week, the Lodi News-Sentinel pub­lished the thoughts of two local Lutheran pas­tors on the topic of Advent and I agree whole­heart­edly with the sen­ti­ments shared by one of those ministers:

Chris­tians reflect upon this sea­son of Advent as a time of prepa­ra­tion before we specif­i­cally remem­ber and cel­e­brate the birth of the Babe of Beth­le­hem on Christ­mas day. The word advent comes from the Latin “adven­tus” which sim­ply means “com­ing.” So, as a Chris­t­ian I recall the story, the com­ing, of the Christ child.

This story is one that has been told since the birth of Jesus the Christ, and it is a story of promise, hope, and one of rev­o­lu­tion­ary love for the entire world. But I have to ask, what happened?

What was once a time that we would cel­e­brate the birth of a Sav­ior has some­how turned into a sea­son of stress, long lines wait­ing to get into the store, long lines wait­ing to pay for the items care­fully cho­sen, fight­ing over park­ing spots and never-ending shop­ping lists.

And then, when it’s all over, many peo­ple are left with presents to return, debt that will take months to pay off and a feel­ing of missed pur­pose. Is this what we really want out of Christ­mas? What if Christ­mas became a world-changing event again?

What if we all put Christ back into Christ­mas? After all, it all started with Jesus the Christ, and it all ends with Jesus as well. Is that the con­spir­acy? No, this is the holis­tic approach God had in mind for Christmas.

I hope that when my boys estab­lish their own homes, they remem­ber the mean­ing of Christ­mas, adopt­ing a “holis­tic” approach to the hol­i­day sea­son and serv­ing as grate­ful role mod­els for their own children.

And I hope that you and yours have enjoyed a stress-free, relaxed hol­i­day sea­son from which you will emerge refreshed, reju­ve­nated, and pre­pared for the chal­lenges of 2010.

Click here to see the list of other Word­ful Wednes­day par­tic­i­pants, visit their sites, and read their responses. The list of this week’s Word­less Wednes­day par­tic­i­pants can be found here.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Word­ful Wednes­day, Word­less Wednesday

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