No Church on Christmas

So you may have heard the flap about how some churches are choosing to not hold services on December 25 this year. What do you think about that?

Interestingly, for my whole life I have known of churches not having Sunday night or Wednesday night services because of holidays, and I don't recall anybody having a problem with that. But take away a Sunday morning service and ----woo hoo!---watch out! That's so baaaad.......

I go to a small baby church (a little over a year old, and under 100 people usually) and at the start of the church it was decided that we only meet 51 Sundays per year. The idea is that the last Sunday of the year is a day off. It's a day off for all the people that work every week. They can take time to travel to see family or whatever and not feel bad that they are not "on duty." It's simply a way to say thank you. (Similarly, we also take the summers off from certain things that we offer, in order to not burn out our workers, and to give them a school-year length of time to commit to a job, rather than feeling that there is no good ending point if they need to make a change.)

Also, our church has a focus on the parents being the main unit for spiritual growth and responsibility in each family, and the church acts as a support for that. So, to not offer a Sunday service doesn't mean we're left without anything spiritual for that week. It means that each family is still responsible for their own thing, but the support team is having one week off.

So, anyhow, in the case of this year, our week off falls on Christmas. Our church didn't make a decision based on trendiness or social pressure. It's just a coincidence.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this whole uproar:

One the one hand:

If Christmas is really all about focusing on Jesus and not about gifts and all of that, then it seems like a very incompatible position to say that we are not going to have church because we do not want to interrupt anybody's nice morning at home sitting around the tree opening their presents.

On the other hand:

Maybe we need to be sensitive to the fact that people who work at the church would like to be able to have a day off on a holiday like Christmas.
(If I was a church worker and had church on Christmas day, I'd do Christmas at my house a day early. Simple!)

If our church offered a Sunday service on Christmas this year, I think that we probably would attend. Not because I'd feel guilty if I didn't go. And not because I like to think of December 25th as Jesus' actual birthday (which I do not). But because we love our church and we get so much from what we learn and do there every week. We'd go because our kids are learning how to give back and help by taking down chairs and stage stuff after the service. We go because we would enjoy seeing our friends there and taking little gifts and cards to let people know how much we appreciate their part in our church and our life. Instead, we did all that today and told everybody we'd see them in the new year. Good 'nuff!

On the other hand, maybe we don't really believe what we say we believe about Christmas, but don't have the guts to admit it.

Last year I wrote about my feelings about Christmas, and my opinion hasn't changed. Here's a reprint from 2004:

I'm feeling a little bit bah-humbug-y myself. I was thinking so gleefully of how I was not running the pre-Christmas rat race since I had to have all of my stuff done by the 16th, just happy as a clam to Have It All Over With. More than one person shared my sentiment. And then it occurred to me that I don't even think of Christmas as a religious holiday. I mean, I acknowledge it as such. I'm a Christian and so I believe in Jesus' birth and so on. But, Christmas is just so far removed from that for me. It's a family holiday, and I think that I was brought up to think of it that way. In my husband's family they always went to Christmas Eve service at church. Mine always went to my Grandparent's house to have dinner and exchange gifts with our extended family. My childhood Christmas Eves are some of my best memories and I have no inclination to go to a church service instead. It just seems wrong to me. Seems like it doesn't fit with my internal sense of what the holiday is for.

As a child and teenager it seemed to me that although everybody at church said the stuff about Jesus is the Reason for the Season, that it was kind of a lame cover up for what it really was: Stuff Fest 1985!! or whenever. In other words, to my way of thinking, there is almost no connection between Christ's birth and what we Americans do for Christmas. Yes, Christ was born, I am glad, but it was not in December, and us getting all frazzled for a month and spending tons of money buying each other things and stuffing ourselves full of unhealthy treats has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Some people would feel bad about this, but I'm not sure that I do. To me it seems that Christmas is a runaway train and nothing I am going to do is going to stop it. So, fine. I can choose to embrace it as a family holiday in which we make strides to spend time with those we love, and give them gifts as tokens of our esteem.

As for Jesus' birth, those of us who believe in Him can choose to be thankful and aware of what His coming to earth means to us all year long.

It seems that some people feel guilty if we don't keep "enough" Christ in our Christmas, yet I can't recall anything in the Bible that would compell us to celebrate His birth in a specific way. Maybe this is just because we celebrate so many less important things, that we feel kind of guilty and think that we need to have a big Yay Jesus blowout once a year. Don't send me all the links to the origins of Christmas. I've heard it all before. I don't see any reason to be down on Christmas per se, I am just trying to come to grips with my feeling that it is family-oriented rather than Jesus-oriented in my life.

What do you folks think? Does Christmas have a deep spiritual significance to you? If yes, what makes it so? Anybody feeling something like I do, thinking that it almost makes more sense to separate the holiday and the Christ? I'd love to get some feedback.

I have found myself thinking about last year's post several times this December, plus thinking about how big an issue even saying "Merry Christmas" verses "Happy Holidays" has gotten. This is stuff I just can't muster up any fire for.

To me, Happy Holidays acknowledges that there is more than one holiday going on right around now. For me, the ones I celebrate are Christmas and New Year. I find nothing offensive about someone saying "Happy Holidays!" Some people seem to just love getting their knickers in a twist about it though. I suppose that they don't want anybody to consider Channukah or Kwanza or whatever. Well, you know what? I don't feel threatened by any of those things. If somebody I meet is celebrating their birthday I say "Happy Birthday!" to them. And if they are celebrating Channukah or Kwanza, hey--I hope they have a nice time of it. Why not wish they a happy holiday? Be happy! Happiness all around! And if they wish me happiness as I celebrate my holidays, I appreciate that! Thanks, neighbor!

It seems to me that all of these end-of-the-year holidays are primarily about family and friends, so why do we feel like we have to pretend it's something else? Frankly, it's hard for me to imagine that God or Jesus appreciates any of the stuff we do at this time of year. How on earth can a tree in our living room, lights on our houses, and spending money on STUFF and eating what we have no need for possibly be helpful to God? Puh-leeze! It's a party for YOU and your family and friends, and that's the truth of it. Know what?--that's ok! You're allowed to have a party! You're allowed to decorate! You can eat, drink, and be merry, and shower the people you love with love (thank you, James Taylor). You can (and should!) even be thankful to God for blessing you with the people in your life, and for the provision that allows you to guy gifts and extra special food! You can do it all without guilt, and not do some big Jesusfication about it. Heck--we do this kind of thing for New Year's Eve, Superbowl Sunday, Halloween, birthdays, and the 4th of July, all without guilt or felt need to pretend it's all for Jesus.

It seems to me that the Christmas season is evolving into one step farther away from the religious holiday it supposedly should be. Now it's a political thing as well. It's amazing how much people can stink things up, isn't it?

I've been working on this post for a pretty long time, and don't feel like I'm doing a great job of expressing myself very well. I feel rusty on the thoughtful blogging, probably because I've done so little of it these days. If you enjoy doing up your christmas-as-Jesus'-birth, and truly feel that's what it's all about, I think that's just fine. I know that a lot of people find a lot of spiritual meaning in the Christmas season. Any season that you can grow spiritually is a good one, I guess. I'm just offering some food for thought.