Your Christmas Gift

For Christmas, I promise to not give you a present instead of love. I can't give presents to everyone, but I won't give anyone a gift as a substitute for showing love. I won't try to buy anyone's appreciation by giving a gift wrapped with expectations. Every gift will be an expression of love.

For Christmas, I promise to not assess anyone by the gift they give me (or don't give me). What you give, how you give, to whom you give is your business. You owe me nothing. My kind of Christmas doesn't obligate you to anything whatsoever. Giving you the Gift of Obligation to give me something is no gift at all.

For Christmas, I promise to never say "Merry Christmas" without thinking about the birth of Christ. You don't have to believe what I believe, and I won't foist my beliefs on you. I won't constantly remind you what Christmas means to me. But I will be thinking about it ... I promise. I think it's a wonderful idea that God became man.

For Christmas, I promise to show you respect for whatever holidays you celebrate. That's the beauty of holidays. They are times of special remembrance for important events or values that are personally held by a group of people. Respect is one of the values Christmas brings to my mind, so that's what I want to give you. In fact, I'd like to learn more about your holidays, if you don't mind. I hope your holidays are filled with family, friends, and celebration.

For Christmas, I promise to not let my "bah, humbug" tendencies ruin your day. There's a lot about this time of year that I don't like, but there's so much more about this season that people do like that I promise to keep my inner Scrooge to remain inner.

For Christmas, I promise to not ask you what you got for Christmas. But I to promise to ask if you had a good Christmas (or holiday). By asking you what presents you got, I only reinforce the "getting" aspect. I won't even ask what you gave, because that becomes a backhanded way to do the same thing. What I do care about is if you had a good time with family and friends, or by having alone time. I do care if this time we take our focus off of the grind was meaningful, joyful, restorative, and healing. Did you laugh? Did you celebrate? Were there things to be thankful for? How did things go with that friend after the argument you got into over the summer? Did the grandparents get to see the grandkids? How's your dad's eyesight doing?

For Christmas, I promise to remember that this is a hard time for some. This might be the first Christmas since someone close passed away. Christmas may drudge up horrible memories. Christmas may end up being a lonely time. I get that. I've felt that a few Christmases. I wish I could give you the gift of something other, but what I can do is try to be aware if this ends up being less fun for you.

For Christmas, I promise to look forward to seeing you again. Maybe it'll just be a few days until you get back from Springfield (every state seems to have one). Maybe it will be months from now. Maybe years. But Christmas reminds me of the vast array of people we've met and how much we would love to see you again (including those I need to heal a hurt relationship with). We've moved enough to collect a pile of friends who we may never see again. I still want to, and Christmas makes me want to all the more.

You Can't Fake Thanksgiving

Fourth Thursday of November ... time to be thankful for a while. Maybe an extra long prayer to say thanks while the mashed potatoes are getting cold. And certainly thankful when kickoff finally happens.

Does anyone else feel a little awkward trying to "turn on" an attitude of thanksgiving because of the calendar? To their credit, many folks have taken to "no whining" November, posting things online they are thankful for every day of the month. That, or not shaving. November is funny that way. But still, I have a little personal problem with "it's now time to be thankful."

The guilt trip ready to happen is, "Well, you should be thankful every day." True enough, but that still doesn't stir feelings of thanksgiving deep in my bones. Now I'm thankless and guilty.

Or, "count your many blessings." That's OK, too, and can help us focus more on blessing than on things - health, family, love, safety, purpose, and so on. But if I do this too often, I begin to think that it's all about me. Worse, that if my blessings are less than I think they should be, or heaven forbid, less than my neighbor's, then thankfulness is precisely what does not occur.

By no means am I transforming into Thanksgiving's version of Ebenezer Scrooge. I'm not sour to the holiday, and I do enjoy turning responsibilities aside and spending time with friends and family - especially family members who are particularly good at making pie.

But what about this attitude of thanksgiving thing? It's important enough that Scripture twice gives us the imperative "be thankful":

Col 3:15 And the peace of Christ must rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful.  

Heb 12:27 Now the phrase “yet once more” indicates the removal of what is shaken, namely, things that have been created, in order that the things that are not shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be thankful, through which let us serve God acceptably, with awe and reverence. 

Followers of Christ are commanded to be thankful! But if following Christ is so awesome, do we really need to told to be thankful? Shouldn't we just be so overwhelmed with God's goodness that we're just thankful all the time?

In fact, we do need to be told to be thankful ... because the gravity of fallen humanity draws us away from that attitude. Being thankful is an uphill climb, not because we don't have anything to be thankful for, but because of the tendency of the flesh to wallow in self-absorbed complaining about what we covet but don't have.

How do I obey this command to be thankful, then? It won't happen by weighing the good stuff against the bad stuff. We won't be consistently thankful if we focus on ourselves and what we have.

An attitude of thanksgiving comes from knowing the goodness of God, and that He shares His goodness with us. Not just in material things, but also in His attributes. He is a loving God, and we get to participate in this good thing called "love." He is a relational God, and we get to be in relationship with Him through Christ. He is a forgiving God, and we get to give and receive forgiveness with one another. He is a just God, and we get to participate in bringing justice in this world. And so on. We have a share in the goodness of God, and that actually does keep me thankful.

Be thankful. Not just because you have stuff that poor people in Madeupistan don't have, but because God is perfectly good and allows, even invites, us to share in His good attributes. It would truly be a thankless world if we were not allowed to do so.

Happy Merry Greetings for the Season Holiday Christmas Whatever

And just like that, it's the Christmas season! It's like the season lurks right around the corner, out of sight, and then all of the sudden, jumps out right in front of us and says, "Gotcha!"

A new holiday tradition has emerged over the last few years. Now, part of our Christmas is the fuss over which greetings employees use in the stores. Many stores no longer allow their employees to wish their customers a "Merry Christmas" (or at least not until the customer says it first), but that they should opt for a generic phrase, like "Happy Holidays." And part of our modern tradition has become that others raise a big fuss over the stores and how they avoid using the word "Christmas" anywhere.

Usually, it's not the employees' fault - they are just doing what they were told to do by management. But they are also often the ones who hear the bulk of the complaints. I feel sorry for them - people just trying to earn a  buck caught in the middle of a culture war that they did not initiate.

Personally, I don't intend to demand that anyone else honor the holidays I honor. In fact, I really don't want to put the responsibility of continuing on Christmas tradition in the hands of a retail store. There's so little that retail stores have to do with Christmas, and making secular institutions give lip service to my second favorite holiday is of no value to me. I am, however, saddened that "Merry Christmas" is apparently so offensive and damaging to hear. I would be perfectly happy if stores displayed "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Hanukkah" and "Happy Kwanzaa" - I think there is value in stores showing deference to all their customers, rather than blending everything into a bland "Happy Holidays" meaningless vanilla phrase.

Let me offer an alternative suggestion that I'm going to use this year. Rather than jumping on anyone's case demanding someone else honor what I value (in the true Spirit of Christmas!), when someone says "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings," I intend to ask, "Which holiday are you celebrating this season?" - and to ask with genuine interest in the person and their values. Depending on the situation, perhaps I can then share which holiday I'm celebrating (and perhaps even why it's important to me). Perhaps I can ask additional questions to find out more about the person and what they believe and why that's important to them. Perhaps I can just leave with them knowing that I value them and that I don't blame them for the whole mess of genericizing the holidays.

Use the times to promote the love of Christ - that's a stronger Christmas message than, "I demand that you tell me something you might not even believe."

(If you desire to fight the trend, consider instead a kind letter to the management.)