Some of my earliest memories are of Christmas and the weeks leading up to it. The month of night-by-night burning Advent candles during family devotions, the holiday baking and decorating of cookies with my mom and siblings, the sacred feel of Christmas Eve service with candles and carols. Of course, it is all mixed up in my memories with snow, the smell of pine-tree Christmas trees in our living room, and a pile of gifts on Christmas morning.
I was fourteen years old when my understanding of Christmas traditions began to shift. We had just moved to the Philippines, and now suddenly Christmas started in September (all of the “Ber” months). Stores blared Christmas carols, and decorations went up. All gift shopping needed to be done weeks in advance to avoid the sardine-like shopping conditions in malls. Homes displayed intricate festive decorations, including beautiful parol stars made of capiz shells (google it to see for yourself). My mom had remembered to pack our Advent wreath, so we carried on that tradition–as well as baking and decorating cookies.
I remember laughing with my family on Christmas day about how it was so hot that we could play tennis and go swimming–which we did. Snow was far away, and all the Christmas traditions tied up with Northern hemisphere weather began being stripped away from my expectations of the holiday. (We occasionally enjoyed indoor ice skating at Mega Mall, although not during the month of December.)
Fast-forward a few decades, and I am now grown, living with my own family and children in Indonesia. Christmas celebrations in Muslim-majority Indonesia are very different from the Philippines, which is predominantly Catholic. Christmas Day is a national holiday, but for most of my neighbors it is just that–one of the days off during “New Year’s break.”
It is rare to see homes with outside holiday decorations, although sometimes a plastic tree is visible from a window. Restaurants and malls may or may not display any acknowledgement of the holiday. Many Muslims in Indonesia feel uncomfortable even saying, “Merry Christmas” to their Christian neighbors, although some years our closest friends have come to our house to wish us a “happy holiday” and try our cookies. Most Christians attend church on Christmas Day, but for the most part, the Western tradition of gift-giving has not been adopted.
One tradition I have carried on with my family is using the Advent candles as a way to enter into the month before Christmas. Although we always have evening devotions as a family, something about lighting the Advent candles makes the month extra special–even if it takes some creativity to use candles and fans at the same time!
Over the years, the focus of Christmas has moved for me. No longer is it about snow, decorated trees, or gifts. The good news of Christmas is Christ. Christ coming to dwell with humanity–God with us. The season of Advent is a season of waiting, a time of remembering the years leading up to the first coming of Christ. As believers, we also prayerfully wait for Jesus’ second coming.
Advent is also a time of celebrating, of living into the good news that Jesus came to earth as a little baby, with all the vulnerability of a newborn. He came and lived and breathed and nursed and pooped and spit up on his mama’s shoulder. And while it might seem sacrilegious to imagine Jesus doing those things, that is the gist of Christmas–that God chose to become human, in all its messiness!
I love the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson (written in 1972). The story is about how the six Herdman children who come from a rough home end up as the lead characters in their town’s Christmas pageant and how it changes the experience of Christmas for many involved.
I think of this book often as we are teaching children in the slum community where we live and work. There are a few students that I must confess remind me of the Herdman children: they use bad language, cause trouble in class, wear dirty clothes, and are quick to fight with each other and with others. But it is for such as these that Jesus came to earth, not just for the little children memorizing Bible verses in Sunday school!
Having spent more Christmases in an Indonesian slum than probably anywhere else in my life, I now believe that Christmas is nothing like the Hallmark cards or Netflix holiday specials. I imagine Jesus being born in a shack like my neighbors live in. I see sheep on the field near our house, their coats dirtied black from picking through trash, and I remember how God chose humble shepherds to be the first witnesses to the miracle of Immanuel’s birth. As I journey with pregnant mamas in a weekly prenatal class, I wonder how it was for Mary, far from family and from her home.
I love the way Andrew Peterson portrays Mary in his Christmas song, “Labor of Love.”
It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David’s town
And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother’s hand to hold
It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
This year, wherever you are in the world, I pray that you will be held in the good news of Immanuel, God with us. Perhaps you are separated from loved ones by vast oceans. Perhaps you are missing the colder weather and comforting smell of homemade cookies.
As you reflect on how your understanding of Christmas has shifted over the years, I pray that you would have grace with yourself– to discern which traditions to let go of, and which are meaningful enough to figure out how to hold onto. And may you allow God to shift and grow your understanding of Christ’s birth. May you live into the good news of Jesus coming and be encouraged to share that story with others.
And as we seek to follow our Savior, may we, too, live lives that are labors of love.
