What Are the Meanings of Christmas?
And why do we need a meaning, anyway?
Christmas, in its modern incarnation, is a strange holiday: like a 12-car pileup of secular traditions. It’s not enough to have Santa, you need an Elf on the Shelf and all his accessories, I mean, friends. It’s not enough to rewatch How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you need a dozen new Christmas specials, all themed to your favorite IP (does anyone really need Lego Star Wars Holiday Special?) And certainly, the world does not have enough pop singers crooning classic Christmas carols, we need a few (hundred) more.
I know, I know, that’s the devil’s bargain of capitalism, get ready to have your emotions manipulated in a variety of ways that all end up with you spending more money. (I, too, cried at that commercial of the grandpa learning to do makeup, I’M ONLY HUMAN!) But Lego Star Wars Holiday Special and its ilk also feel emblematic of a deeper problem—we want the spiritual warm fuzzies of Christmas sans the religious baggage. But what is Christmas for those who are going through faith deconstruction or transition? What is Christmas for the atheist? For the agnostic?
I’ve undertaken extensive studies of Christmas media, and the “Meaning of Christmas” seems to be:
a.) Quitting your big city job to fall in love with a small-town potato man
OR
b.) Vague, positive notions like “family” and “togetherness”
OR
c.) Stingy people learning to be generous
But there’s something distinctly unsatisfying about these explanations. It’s hard to explain—why do “gratitude” and “togetherness” feel like perfectly adequate themes for Thanksgiving but ring hollow when it comes to Christmas?
Perhaps it’s the way that Christmas is collectively imagined in our culture—as if love (either romantic or familial) is a panacea, when we all have first-hand knowledge of how disappointing these relationships can be. What does Christmas mean for the recent divorcee who doesn’t have custody on Christmas? What does Christmas mean for those of us who are refugees from our own families?
Or is the answer to be found in the Biblical Christmas story? Christmas Eve service has always been one of my favorites, particularly the finale, when everyone would hold candles and sing Silent Night. Though I do not miss Christmas sermons which allude to the cross—even as we celebrate the birth of this baby, let us not forget that this baby would grow up to BE BRUTALLY MURDERED FOR YOUR SINS. (Penal substitutionary atonement: it’s why we can’t have nice things.)
But what I’m coming to realize is that boiling down stories to a single meaning or tidy moral doesn’t sit right with me. I think we’re given stories to argue and puzzle over together, to figure out all the meanings or truths contained within. So I don’t think there is a single meaning of Christmas, just as there isn’t a single way to interpret the Bible or to be a spiritual person.
I want Christmas to be a meaningful time. Not a Hallmark card, not a blip of generosity that I toss out alongside wads of crumpled wrapping paper. On Christmas, Christians celebrate the radical notion that an infinite and incorporeal god chose to become human. Do I believe this in a literal sense? I’m not sure, but I’m floored by the idea that love means the laying down of power and privilege in order to draw nearer to the beloved.
For me, that will look like sitting on the carpet with my sons, trying to imitate their spaceship noises and understand the intricacies of their imaginary world. It means expanding my definition of who counts as family, along with noticing my privilege and doing my best to give it away. Because, to quote one of my favorite podcast episodes, “Love comes close.”
But that’s just one meaning of Christmas. I want to know:
What meaning(s) are you drawing from this season? If you don’t celebrate Christmas, are their other holidays or rituals what are other holidays or rituals that hold meaning for you?
What is the worst Christmas or holiday special you have seen this year?
Please leave your thoughts, recommendations, and general rants in the comments. And happy everything to you!
The last census here in the UK stated that for the first time since 0 AD, or possibly from when the first census was held, the majority of people don't identify as Christian. I'd be in there. But living here, as I'd guess in the USA and many places, Christmas was part of childhood... part of our culture... embrace it, reject it, snub it or whatever you will. You can't miss the damned thing.
That doesn't mean the popular and worthwhile messages of Christmas count for anything in the real world. The UK is not embracing refugees. It's planning to ship them off to Rwanda, where none of them have any connection, that being the point. Ho ho ho. School children are going cold and hungry, more than ever before, more than in the Depression of the 1930s, so much has our Conservative Brexit-embracing government taken on the ethos of the manger and gifts and love.
The symbolism of Christmas is as enticing as ever. Of course it is. Who doesn't want a chance to revel (wallow?) for a few days in the images of treats and family and childhood, even if it wasn't all that great at the time. As it won't be for a lot of Britons this year. Who doesn't want to eat too much, to see the people who mean something to us, remember those not here any more, to have some sense of a festival of light, of a rebirth in the shortest darkest days of the year? Oh, is that Mithras I'm thinking of... or Saturnalia, or Samhain, or...
But of course those connections would be rejected by many. Yet... a supernatural figure plugging martyrdom, inflicting horrors and terrible punishments while all the time demanding endless praise, that's OK?
I'm all for the festival. I'm not all for anything that reinforces handing over control of our actions and thoughts to an unlikely supernatural figure as a supreme authority. Have a winter festival. Call it what you like. Lose the baggage!
A time for gathering together and giving,sharing,enjoying the company of close folks. It's back to worshiping the sun and how it fades (at least around these parts).The ritual to be observed is GOOD CHEER,even if you're not feeling so hot.Most of those that aired before Thanksgiving and I'll not mention the economic results. BE OF GOOD CHEER!