A Disciple’s Survival Guide to Christmas

DAILY BYTE

It’s December, and the holiday season is upon us! For many people (though not all), the next month or so is a time to relax and unwind, and hopefully take things a little more leisurely.

And in the midst of it all, of course, there’s Christmas, with all of its festivities. And then there’s New Year, with all of its fanfare. There’s food and family, parties and presents, singing and celebrating. No wonder we call this the Festive Season.

All of which can be very good. It’s important to feast and to celebrate. To reconnect with family. To lighten up and laugh a little more. To spoil our loved ones, and maybe even be spoiled in return. This is part of the gift of this season.

But we all know that there’s more to this time of year than just carefree fun and games. For even the festive season delivers its fair share of stress and strain.

For instance, there are the expectations and responsibilities of family that can often be quite demanding. Les Dawson, the British comedian, once said: ‘My mother-in-law’s been coming around to our house for Christmas for the past 17 years. This year we’re thinking of letting her in!’

Certainly, family dynamics at Christmastime are often complicated, to say the least. Particularly if there’s been a divorce, or some other kind of estrangement, or if there are underlying tensions between certain family members. For some, their annual family get-together at Christmas feels a bit like taking a stroll through a minefield. Maybe you’ve experienced your fair share of emotional shrapnel flying around your family at Christmas.

For others, the struggle of this season lies in family being far away. Or missing loved ones who have died, the grief of which is felt more sharply at this time. Many experience the constant ache of loneliness that is only heightened at Christmastime.

Then there’s the carefully planned, cleverly co-ordinated and meticulously executed assault of a consumerist culture that somehow convinces us to spend money we don’t really have to buy things we don’t really need.

Which is why so many people return to their jobs in January singing, “I owe, I owe, so it’s off to work I go.”

But there’s an even darker side to this season. The number of suicide attempts at this time of year is higher than at any other. Domestic violence will increase this month, as will the number of abandoned pets, teenage pregnancies, the incidence of drunk driving, and the number of road deaths.

What does this say to us as a society? Is all this shadowy stuff of this season just an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of people going on holiday and letting their hair down? Or is something deeper happening, something damaging that touches us on the level of our collective soul?

Whatever you might think about that, I’m sure you will agree that as individuals we can handle the holidays and Christmas and New Year in ways that either good for us or bad for us.

And so the simple question I want to pose at the start of this week’s devotions is this, ‘WHAT KIND OF FESTIVE SEASON DO YOU WANT TO HAVE THIS YEAR?’ I’d like to suggest that the answer to that question is not merely a matter of chance, depending on how obnoxious Uncle Herbert gets at Christmas lunch or whether you find a decent parking place at the Mall. There are choices that we can personally make that will determine the kind of festive season we will experience.

This week, the invitation is for you to become a little more mindful of the choices you will be making this Christmas, in the hope that your experience of this festive season will be more in keeping with what God intends for you.

PRAY AS YOU GO

O God, as Christmas draws near we know how easy it is to get caught up in so many non-essential and often superficial things. Help us to see more deeply into this season, and to recognise your presence at the very heart of it all. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING

Luke 2:15

“Let’s go to Bethlehem and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.”