Every year at this time, I cannot help thinking of a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses I studied the Bible with a few years ago. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas, believing that the Bible does not sanction it, and that its origins are unclean. It is true that Christmas was created to coincide with the Pagan winter solstice in the hopes of converting pagans by reframing their winter solstice into a Christian holiday. Scholars believe Jesus was actually born in Springtime. But I couldn’t imagine giving up the beautiful tradition of packing into a warm church, hearing the Christmas story from Luke, and singing Christmas carols. As far as we know, Jesus and his disciples did not celebrate his birthday because in his day, birthday celebrations were a Pagan practice, but I don’t see anything wrong with celebrating the birth of Jesus in our day when done in the right spirit. What we are celebrating is not Jesus’s birthday in the shallow, worldly sense. We are celebrating the fact that God became fully human, and dwelled among us to rescue us,.Advent, the season of waiting in eager anticipation of Christmas is symbolic of our waiting for Jesus to come again and redeem us, and all of Creation once and for all. Christmas itself foreshadows the joy we will ultimately experience when Christ dwells among us again. One of my favorite Christmas songs states it simply and beautifully. Every December 25, we celebrate that “man will live forever more because of Christmas day.” And yet, I envied how when Christmas came around the two years I studied with them, Jehovah’s Witnesses remained calm, even-keel, content and joyful while everyone else I interacted with seemed stressed. Somehow, I don’t think this is what Jesus had in mind, and many Christian commentators agreed, lamenting the commercialization of Christmas. In recent years, we haven’t eschewed gifts altogether, but we have simplified our gifts. For extended family, we have been sending token gifts, like a gift box of spices, or candy, gifts that express our love and appreciation, but are consumable and thus won’t clutter their lives with needless stuff. For the immediate family, my parents give practical and always appreciated things like fuzzy socks, cozy pajamas, even restaurant gift cards. And for my siblings who live far away, my mom always mails a box of homemade Christmas cookies. Yet something still troubled me about the way we celebrate Christmas, and I couldn’t put my finger on it, until this year.
My very first Christmas was a “blue Christmas.” I don’t remember it of course, but I would have been nine months old, and I was recovering from the first of what would be three surgeries to treat a brain tumor. Mom said I spent my first Thanksgiving in the hospital. She remembers watching the Macey’s Day Parade at my bedside. By Christmas, I was able to come home, but I spiked a fever my first Christmas day. By the time I was old enough to have memories, the brain tumor was in the rearview mirror, only requiring occasional MRI scans to make sure it had not returned. I was a typical American child who loved Christmas. I whole-heartedly believed in Santa, passionately sang and danced along to Christmas carols, and enjoyed helping Mom decorate a real Christmas tree and make all the Christmas cookies. There was some petty family drama among the adults which I would learn about when I was older, but as a child, I was completely oblivious to this. The first “blue Christmas” I can remember was Christmas of 2001 when I was in sixth grade. It was the first Christmas following 9/11. That year, we also lost my paternal grandpa, and just a couple days before Christmas, a close family friend passed away unexpectedly. The adults tried to be cheerful, but I could tell they were just going through the motions. That was also the last Christmas I sort of believed in Santa Claus. I suspected he wasn’t real for a couple years, but I loved the magical feeling this belief added to Christmas, and I think since I was the baby of the family, my parents and older siblings wanted this innocence to last too. But that Christmas, I sensed it was time to grow up, so I made my parents officially tell me the truth. And once you cross the borders of Toyland, “you can ne’er return again.” Though some of the magic was lost, there was still the joy of Christmas carols, helping Mom decorate and bake the cookies, and on Christmas Day, the family dinner and board game.
Christmas of 2020 was definitely a “blue Christmas.” We were blessed that no one we knew died from Covid-19, but we grieved for the families who were shattered senselessly by this pandemic and Trump’s mismanagement of it. I was also sad because there were no choir concerts that year. Church was open, though capacity was limited. People had to register in advance if they wanted to attend in-person, so we chose to livestream. None of my siblings were able to come home, and Dad dropped off some of our Christmas dinner at Grandma’s assisted living facility. And yet, I noticed I still felt an internal sense of Christmas peace and joy. That was the first year it occurred to me that Dr. Seuss was right. Nothing could prevent Christmas from coming. Like a grinch, the pandemic took away many of the trappings of Christmas, but nothing can stop Christmas from coming, because Christ already came, and he will return again. That is what Christmas is really all about, and even when gathering in church to sing about this truth was not allowed, it occurred to me I could still sing about this truth on my own.
This year turned out to be another “blue Christmas.” There was not a death in the family but our world was shaken. When Mom declared that Christmas had been ruined, and we might consider celebrating Christmas differently next year, and when Dad told me on the evening of Christmas Eve “we will try to have a good Christmas for you,” I figured out what had been bothering me about Christmas for years. I believe we could still celebrate Christmas in its truest sense, and maintain the same inner calm, contentment and genuine joy that I observed in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The problem is that while the church may preach right theology the rest of the year about finding our joy in Christ alone, even Christians succumb to the patterns of this world at Christmas time and pursue a fake, Hallmark channel kind of joy.Instead of being a time of heavenly peace, it is a time of excessand unreasonable expectations. The interior and exterior of the house must be decorated to the hilt. Thoughtful gifts must be given to everyone you know, and their brother. Cookies must be baked, and in the case of our family, boxed up and mailed early enough to reach my siblings by Christmas. Some years life is hectic and Mom frets that she mailed them too late and they won’t have cookies on Christmas. I try to tell her cookies won’t be appreciated any less if they arrive December 26, and don’t we believe there are twelve days of Christmas anyway? In theory, she agrees with me, but still, a part of her cannot shake the belief that my siblings might be sad if they don’t have cookies on Christmas. Every year since becoming an adult, I have wondered how much of this ritual we actually enjoy, or whether it is just a chore our culture thrusts on us, that we just go along with because we don’t want the neighbors to call us Scrooge. And then on the day itself, we are supposed to gather with family, and put on a happy face even if we are in a season of sadness. When we couldn’t do that this year because of how our world was shaken, Christmas is considered ruined, with talk of doing Christmas differently from now on, maybe taking a vacation or something.
Christmas 2024 wasn’t a “blue Christmas” but it was a quiet Christmas. My brother and his wife hosted a Christmas Eve party the day before, but on Christmas Day, none of my siblings could come home. Grandma was no longer able to drive, so we picked her up and took her to the Christmas Day mass at Saint Dominic’s church. This was the Catholic church where I grew up, but in 2013, Mom and I switched to a nondenominational Protestant church. I don’t regret this move, as my faith has blossomed in a way it never did in the Catholic church which did not encourage studying the Bible for oneself. Yet after years away, I was struck by how beautiful the classical music of this Catholic mass was. As the offering basket was passed around while Vivaldi Gloria was played by a couple violinists, I wondered if perhaps this more mellow music better captures the true spirit of Christmas than the rock band style music of theProtestant Christmas service we attended on December 23. I also appreciated the way the Catholic mass kept the holiness of Christmas better intact. The pastor at our Protestant church always has an appropriate message about the meaning of Christ’s birth, but they also often preface it with a silly video, or the pastor will invite everyone to turn to the person next to them and share their favorite Christmas cookie or something like that. By contrast, the Catholic mass was joyful, but it was a more subdued joy, without the incursion of silly Pagan traditions into the mass. Mass began with Oh Come All Ye Faithful, played joyfully on a big pipe organ, and ended with Joy to the World.Then after mass had ended and we said hello to friends we hadn’t seen in awhile, I noticed that outside, carols rang out beautifully on electronic church bells, bringing to mind that beautiful hymn “God is not dead, nor doth God sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on Earth, goodwill toward men.” It occurred to me then that while there is much to criticize about the Catholic church, this worship style might offer just the peace, calm and subdued joy needed by people going through a “blue Christmas.”
Our regular church does acknowledge that Christmas is a difficult time of year for some people. On December 12, they offered a Blue Christmas service. I did not attend this service, so I cannot comment on it specifically, but I wonder if Christmas would be more spiritually nourishing for American Christians ifchurches didn’t have a special Blue Christmas service, butintegrated some blue into the Christmas service for everyone. The reality is that we live in a fallen and broken world, and this is why Jesus came. At some point, we will all experience a blue season. The powers that rule this world don’t care whether it is December 25, or any other day. This is not to say Christmas isn’t a joyful time. It is joyful in the sense that it reminds us all, especially those of us in a blue season that though we live in a world of darkness, Jesus, the light, shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5). There should be no shame in feeling a little blue on Christmas, so long as we don’t “grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). We should grieve for the Atheists for whom Christmas is ruined if the gifts don’t arrive on time, or the family isn’t getting along, or someone in their family passes away. For them, the superficial Hallmark channel joy is all they can imagine, and it really doesn’t take much to tarnish this worldly joy. We who believe in Christ can abide in a genuine joy that doesn’t depend on the perfection and happy circumstances of the moment, but when churches have a separate Blue service, and give too much attention to the silly Pagan trappings of Christmas in the regular Christmas service, I think this beautiful truth gets lost. This year, we took Grandma to the Catholic church again, and its rituals and classical music were just thepeace, calm and subdued joy I needed this blue Christmas.
No matter how tragic the circumstances in our world, or our families, it is impossible for Christmas to be ruined. The savior already came. Even death has already been defeated. But we do need to do Christmas differently from now on so that this truth is remembered. We need to start celebrating the true spirit of Christmas, and stop celebrating Pagan Christmas. Decorations should be simple, maybe just a nativity scene, and the moment decorating is no longer a joy but a chore, we stop decorating.Let’s stop buying gifts just to conform to the patterns of this world, when the people in our lives don’t need any more stuff. Let us bake one or two kinds of Christmas cookies, but not so many that it becomes a chore, and not so many that we are tempted into gluttony. Let us sing with all our hearts the sacred classic carols, and enjoy in moderation the fun wintery ones like Frosty the Snowman, but let us abstain from those that sing of Santa bringing everything you want for Christmas, or songs that romanticize Hallmark channel expectations that are unrealistic in this fallen world. Let us make Christmas Day a peaceful day that starts with church—ideally a church that takes seriously the sacred meaning of Christmas and doesn’t give any attention to the Pagan—and then gathering with family, or neighbors and friends who have no family, for a simple meal, a few Christmascookies and fellowship. If a member of the family cannot cope with a large gathering, let us not pressure them to come. Of course, we should call our loved ones and intervene in love if their blue mood is crossing the line into despair. But if they indicate they just need peace and quiet for Christmas, we should respect this. If they come but need to pour out their hearts because they are sad, let us listen to them and try to comfort them without resenting the damper they put on Christmas. Christ came to redeem this broken world, but until he returns, this brokenness will be with us every day, including December 25, and to pretend otherwise only causes the people feeling bluemore hurt.
I am not against celebration or pleasure. In fact, I agree with Dallas Willard who said, “Celebration is not the whole life or discipline of the faithful, and it requires supplementation and correction by the rest of a balanced practice. But this world is radically unsuited to the heart of the human person, and the suffering and terror of life will not be removed no matter how “spiritual” we become. It is because of this that a healthy faith before God cannot be built and maintained, without heartfelt celebration of his greatness and goodness to us in the midst of our suffering and terror” (The Spirit of the Disciplines, Page 180). But Pagan Christmas violates all these principles. The excessive spending, eating and drinking of Pagan Christmas is an unbalanced way of being that only carries new hardship into the new year. Pagan Christmas all too often becomes a chore rather than a joy, as people feel social pressure to fit in with the neighbors, and are left with no time to contemplate the theological significance of Christmas. And worst of all, Pagan Christmas causes us to lose perspective, declaring Christmas is ruined when real-life cannot live up to Hallmark channel expectations. Celebration is an important part of a balanced Christian life, but Pagan Christmas shoves the calendar in ourfaces and forces people to celebrate while they may still need to weep. December 25 doesn’t have to be the be-all, end-all celebration of the year. I would like to celebrate Christmas in a manner that is sensitive and compassionate toward those for whom Christmas is a time of sadness, or a time when they simply crave peace and quiet, a day free from drama or expectations. As an introvert, I find that I fall into this later group, even when it isn’t a blue Christmas, but all the more when it is. Due to the nature of the event that shook our world, next year will likely be a blue Christmas as well. If others in my family crave a different kind of Christmas in the sense of going to a Christmas Packer Game, or maybe a Christmas cruise, I respect this. I hope they have a wonderful time, and I look forward to hearing all about their trip when they get home. But I hope they will join me in going to church and embracing a day of simplicity, peace and quiet. The effect of a wild Christmas vacation would be no different than the Pagan whirlwind of shopping and decorating the house. It would only provide superficial temporary joy. We took a cruise over Easter when I was in fifth grade. I wasn’t a person with strong faith convictions yet, but even at that age I was unexpectedly struck by how much I longed to be in church, breathing in the wonderful fragrance of incense, singing joyful songs celebrating Christ’s resurrection. The reality is, at least for our family, the unfamiliar environment and the additional logistical challenges of being away from home, means church doesn’t happen. But at Christmas time, especially when we are blue, church is what we need most, to be reminded that Christ shines a light in the darkness, and no matter what we are facing, the darkness cannot overcome it.
Gilbert and Me 