Today was Christmas Tree decoration day for the family. The oldest daughter had been with the family for Thanksgiving break, and was needing to get back to campus, friends, and homework. Before she left, we wanted to share with her that oldest of family rituals, the decorating of the Christmas tree. Like most family events, this one has a unique flavor to it: Christmas music on the CD player, a large bin containing four decades worth of accumulated heirloom tree ornaments, and a festive, goofy mood possessed by all.
One thing, one predominate thing, was different this year: the family had a new member with us. We have been sharing our life this fall with a group of students from overseas, one young lady from Japan, in particular. It was a joy and pleasure to have her with us for the tree decorating today. As we understood that the Christmas experience was not familiar to many Japanese, we began trying to explain things: what we did, why we did it, where the Christmas tree tradition emerged (Germany in the 1600’s, by the way, which our kids did not even know) what different ornaments mean to us, etc.
When we began to try to explain the star at the top of the tree, it became difficult to convey our mixed paradigm message. The Christmas tree is fun, family tradition, American tradition, a place to put presents, etc, oh, and by the way, we top it off with the star that symbolizes Jesus birth. The message was hard to convey, likely lost in translation, both cultural and contextual.
My daughter was trying to convey sound bites to her friend in order to explain the story of Christ’s birth and the tie in with Christmas, my wife was doing the same, and I was (surprise, surprise) tooling around on my iPhone looking for a picture like the one shown above. We had been getting blank looks that conveyed “I don’t understand”, until I showed the young lady the picture. Suddenly, her eyes lit up in recognition, and she said “I know this story”. Just as suddenly, though neither of us understood at the time, my wife and I both had the same sinking feeling. An hour or so after our friend left with our daughter to go back to campus, my wife and I sat down to discuss the moment. We know this story, as well. We are supposed to be living this story, much less doing a good job telling it. And yet, we could not both help but feeling that the story was reduced to a trite slice of the American commercialized Christmas ritual. And that did not feel good.
As Christians, specifically as worshipers in a particular southern restoration movement, we spend a lot of time at Christmas (and Easter) telling ourselves and others that we celebrate the story of Jesus, his birth, his life, and his death and resurrection every week, and every day. “We don’t need a special day or two a year to celebrate the story of Jesus”. Huh. Huh? The feeling hit me today. We’ve known our young friend from Japan for three months or so now, and while we have seen her at church, have prayed with her over a meal, and know our daughter has had some conversations about Christianity with her, it took a moment with a Christmas tree decoration to bring up “This Story”.
So, there you have it. I’ll never quite get over the feeling of “is this all there is to it”, or “is this what we have reduced Christmas to”, and I suspect my wife won’t either. I found her later today researching on the internet about pagan traditions and viewpoints regarding Christmas Trees and what the prophet Jeremiah might (or might not) have had to say on the subject.
Needless to say, the Binghams find Christmas to be about joy, love, family, sharing, reminiscing, giving, and yes, even tradition. I don’t think we will be getting rid of our Christmas Tree traditions any time soon, but I suspect we will do an even more intentional job of living and incorporating “This Story” into our every day lives, especially in the month of December. 🙂
