Bah, Humbug! (Well, actually, Merry Christmas!)

Writers and bloggers can sometimes get stereotyped as cynics who wear all black. Yes, tonight I'm wearing all black, and yes, there are times I am cynical. One thing I can get pretty cynical about (even when I'm NOT wearing black) is Christmas. Why Christmas? It's supposed to be a wonderful time. But that sentiment made Andy Williams's version of "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of the Year" just pop into my head, and now I have to break my ban of hearing Christmas music before December 1st and listen to it to get that song out of my head. (Well, Staples does use that song for their back-to-school commercials at the end of August, so this particular song doesn't count for my ban.)

As for being cynical about Christmas, here are my reasons why: First of all, I mentioned my ban about hearing Christmas music before December 1st. That all started about 8 years ago when I was in a Dollar Tree on Halloween, and I heard Christmas carols playing over their in-store music system. Seriously! I was listening to Jingle Bells when I was buying candy with witches, ghosts and goblins on it to give to the trick-or-treaters coming to my door that night, so visions of sugar plums were certainly not dancing through my head. Besides, seeing so many Christmas decorations out in stores by the middle of September seems so wrong to me, especially when the kids have just started school. 

That leads me to my next reason of why I often get cynical about Christmas: retail! I've worked in plenty of drugstores, department stores, and grocery stores to pay my way through college, and even to pay my student loans after I graduated from college. Two years after I graduated from Kutztown University, I was working at a CVS pharmacy in Allentown in the store photo lab. During an unusually busy day in the store about two and  half weeks before Christmas, my manager was getting quite frustrated with the long lines, customer complaints, and photo orders piling up on the counter with both of us working at lightning speed trying to get them all done. Frankly, so was I, and all I wanted to do was go home and unwind. When she'd had enough of the commotion, my manager leaned over to me and muttered, "I hate Christmas." All I could say, was, "My sentiments exactly." And to this day, I refuse to go anywhere near the malls until after January 1st. 

But the year I worked at CVS was also the year that Christmas-- and my entire life-- changed forever. That was the year my grandmother died on New Year's Eve. Grandma Weiss was my last living grandparent, since Pop-pop Weiss had passed away a few years before she did and my maternal grandparents (whom I called Mammy and Pappy), had also died a few years before Grandma did. Grandma had fallen and broken her hip just before Christmas, which meant we had to find something else to do on Christmas besides go to her house for dinner. Fortunately, a friend of ours stepped up to the plate and invited us over for dinner on Christmas Day and on New Year's Day, and we are forever grateful for her hospitality. I miss my grandparents and spending the holidays with them, but I am grateful that I've had the chance to enjoy my holiday celebrations with my parents, brothers, and cousins. The youngest of my first cousins were born after our grandparents had died, but we still tell them stories of what we remember about them. 

That being said, I am happy that I can enjoy a lot of good things about Christmas. In reality, I guess what I'm really cynical about is the commercialism that surrounds Christmas. Need I say that Better Homes and Gardens magazine, The Food Network, Toys R Us, Old Navy, your friends' holiday photos and Facebook updates, and the crafty ideas on Pinterest really doesn't help much with eliminating the need to have a tree decorated to make Martha Stewart jealous or to cook a meal that would rival what comes out of Mario Batali's kitchen?

Oh, and I live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania...yes, Christmas City USA! Don't get me wrong, I grew up in the Moravian Church and was even a tour guide in high school of the historic 18th century buildings that Bethlehem's early Moravian founders lived and worked in in downtown Bethlehem. I enjoyed giving the Christmas walking tours around Bethlehem and going to view the putz (nativity scene told with handmade figurines arranged on a platform to tell the story of the birth of Jesus) at Central Moravian Church, East Hills Moravian Church, and Edgeboro Moravian Church (all in Bethlehem) and Mountainview Moravian Church in nearby Hellertown, PA. I still love attending the lovefeast on Christmas eve at my home church (East Hills Moravian), and the familiar hymns and beeswax candles with red crepe paper trip make me appreciate remembering the birth of Christ. But sometimes I get tired of the stop and go traffic in downtown Bethlehem because of the tourists or of parking two blocks away from a store on Main Street and wondering if I have enough money to feed that hungry parking meter, let alone having the money to buy a present for someone. And even showing up at church on Christmas eve can become a sensory overload for me, for there are many times I've walked out at the end of the service with a headache from the scent of the candles and hyper from eating the Moravian sugar cake (which I can't have anymore since the recipe used usually isn't gluten-free!). That's when I have to really step back and wonder why I'm even there in the first place. Am I doing it because I want to to recreate what I remember from celebrating Christmas with my family when my grandparents were still alive? Or is there a deeper meaning to all of it now that my grandparents have died and we've created new family traditions? 

For me, I appreciate that there's a deeper meaning to Christmas. It's not about what I'm getting from my wish list or about what time we have to be at Grandma's house for dinner. My family and I have stopped exchanging presents a long time ago, and we now just spend the day eating dinner with just my parents and my two brothers, looking at the Christmas lights and decorations around town, possibly going to a movie, and watching the 24-hour marathon of the movie "A Christmas Story" on television. 

But it's even more than just being with my family on Christmas that provides a deeper meaning. It's a reminder to me that Jesus Christ, my savior, came to this earth as a baby within a family. Nope, he wasn't born in a hospital like many of us were. He was born in a stable...yes, a BARN!! A smelly, hay-filled barn with animals in it and, yes, a feeding trough for his bed. He came, first as a baby, God in human form growing up to identify with my human experience of being born and learning things in school and then going out into the workforce after he graduated. The gospel John says in chapter 1 verse 14, "And the Word (Jesus) became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Jesus, the perfect, sinless God-man, who taught his followers to love God and love each other as the greatest commandments and sign of being a Christian, then died to forgive me of my sin and rose after three days in the grave to give me eternal life in heaven. (read Matthew 22:36-38, Matthew 27:33-28:15, 1 Timothy 1:15 in the New Testament) My gift of eternal life is the best gift I can ever share with you and with my friends and family, simply because it's free when you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, and you don't have to spend any money on it or earn it or even deserve it. 

So while I may be cynical about stores opening on Thanksgiving to bargain hunters looking for great deals on their kids' Christmas gifts, I will be chowing down on the leftovers I brought home from dinner and patiently waiting a few more days before I can tolerate hearing Elvis Presley sing "Blue Christmas". To me the words of a Moravian Christmas hymn called "Jesus, Call Thou Me" express the joy I actually feel when I wake up every day, especially on Christmas day. I'll share the words with you, because they have become my prayer to God to help me remember that I belong to him as his daughter, and that I am grateful for the chance to share that joy with you. It was the hymn that inspired the Moravian settlers during their services on Christmas Eve 1741 to choose the name Bethlehem for the city I love living in, and I am grateful for that legacy of faith that I grew up in and still carry with me today as a Christian, a beloved follower of Jesus Christ. If you have any questions about what it's like to be a Christian, feel free to ask me, too!

Jesus, call Thou me, from the world to Thee;
Speed me ever, stay me never;
Jesus, call Thou me.

Not Jerusalem—lowly Bethlehem
’Twas that gave us Christ to save us;
Not Jerusalem.

Favored Bethlehem! honored is that name;
Thence came Jesus to release us;
Favored Bethlehem! 

Wondrous Child divine! warm this heart of mine;
Keep it burning, for Thee yearning,
Wondrous Child divine!