What Christmas Is All About

After watching the movie,The Man Who Invented Christmas, I was reminded that until relatively recently Christmas was a “minor holiday,” and that many, if not most, of the current trappings and expressions now attached to it were classical or modern inventions. Most Christians have long had a sense that red flags were accumulating on pace with the many traditions of Christmas. We are right to sense a danger, but I wonder if we perceive the different nuances in which it is expressed.

More than 50 years ago, Charles Schultz was apparently already feeling the need to offset the commercialism and secularization of Christmas, and so he did in a beloved animated television special most of us know well. In A Charlie Brown Christmas, one of his characters, Linus, reads a portion of Luke’s birth narrative in chapter two, and then declares, “That’s what Christmas is all about.”

That statement certainly plays today as too exclusive. Well into the next century, our culture would now require a pull-back to something like, “That’s what Christmas is essentially about,” or, “That’s what Christmas is traditionally about.” Or it should be qualified, “…for many Christians,” or, “…in the perspective of classic Christianity.”

I like Schultz’s choice of the Luke narrative over Matthew’s, because it does more than offset the commercialization of gift-giving (and competitive buying). In Luke – especially the portion read by Linus – there are no Magi, no gifts. Yes, there are Shepherds and angels, but they are not the focus. The focus is a proclamation, the birth of a Savior. Then there is worship. Linus stops there, but what follows is verification – real shepherds become witnesses of this real historical event – and the movement of worship from heavenly beings to earthly ones, as the shepherds glorify and praise God.

If Linus is right, and the birth of the Savior and the resulting glory of God is “what Christmas is all about,” (emphasis mine), then Scripture offers a corrective not only for the commercialization and secularization of Christmas. It also leaves no room for syncretization.

Christmas is not some highly evolved culture’s expression of goodwill that Christians would hijack. It is not some blending of ancient paganism, Nordic tradition, or the like with Judeo-Christian myth. Christmas is by definition the worship of God, centered around the joyful event of his incarnation. That is what it is ALL about.

That worship appropriately promotes the values of community and giving that even our secular culture also promotes. It may well find expression through symbols like trees and light and angels (though Luke doesn’t indicate they were the ones with wings). Santa Clause and fireplaces and magical toy distribution…those are much farther removed from worship of the Savior, but I’m not promoting legalism here, only caution. The point is to sift out what is inherent to Christmas from what is not, for what is not may well overtake and even replace what is.

Have your traditions and your fun. Maybe even light up your reindeer and plug in your inflatable snowmen. Compete with your ugly sweaters and white elephants. But let us be sure to bring it down at some point, like Linus, to what Christmas is all about. The world needs to understand clearly that we worship with joy the God who entered humanity to save it. We celebrate his humble birth because he is the Savior, and the Lord of all glory!