My dear folk,

In recent years, I have noticed that I’m experiencing a growing discomfort when the days of Christmastide finally arrive. Perhaps I’m just taking a few more steps down the road to becoming an irascible old man, never content with the way things are now.  But whatever the cause, I do find myself dissatisfied.  I feel robbed.

{grid8}Christmas can seem like yesterday’s news by the time that it actually is Christmas.  The joy meant to overflow into the twelve-days instead disburses like the early fog as the sun grows stronger.


Who can blame us for being a little tired of it all?  Christmas carols and holiday music have blared at us for weeks and weeks from radio and public address systems in the stores.  Advertisements have incessantly urged us to buy.  I understand what’s going on in our culture, why the advertisers have to start early.  If something is to be given on Christmas, obviously it must be purchased before Christmas.  It makes sense that those who would sell us those gifts must emphasize Christmas before the day itself.  That I understand.  But I do feel that the rest of us have all too easily given in to this way of thinking – and that we have lost something precious in the process.  


The Church, of course, teaches us a different way: prepare, and then enjoy.  We know that we can’t celebrate something until it is here.  This pattern is perhaps a bit clearer in Lent and Easter: a time of preparation which is distinct from, but obviously related to, a time of celebration.  But note that the observance of our Lenten disciplines doesn’t end until Holy Saturday.


Not so for the world.  Take the example of my favorite Easter candy, those Cadbury Creme Eggs.  I see them appearing on the shelves as Lent gets underway, but they disappear at Easter.  I try not to give into my fondness for them in Lent: both the Lenten fast as well as their specific identification with Easter make them feel not quite the right thing to be enjoying.  But I find myself in the midst of Holy Week buying a stockpile to enjoy after Easter.  If I wait, as I’ve sometimes done in the press of all the extra work of Holy Week, I can find myself high and dry – and have to wait until next year for those much-enjoyed treats.  It would seem that Easter is gone even as it arrives, at least for the candy-makers and the merchants ... and a lot of others as well.


The same differing patterns are seen in our celebration of the birth of our Lord.  The world and the church are out of sync.  Far from packing Christmas away when we unwrap the last gift under the tree, we Christians are just getting into the stride of our celebration.  Far from being the last hurrah, like the fireworks at the end of the Pops’ Fourth of July Concert, for us Christmas Day ought to be the glorious beginning, like a black-tie gala opening of the new opera season.  We’re just getting going.


I find that I have to work harder each year to keep this right understanding lest I be robbed of some of the joy of the holiday.  Like a child told not to eat too many cookies lest it ruin my supper, I often find that I arrive at the table with little appetite left.  A sumptuous feast there is, but I’m feeling a little off.  To avoid this problem takes some discipline and some maturity – but then that is the story of life, is it not?


Now in this Christmastide is the time to revel in the celebration of divine love, not merely to engage in conspicuous consumption.  Now is the time to marvel at the celestial drama enacted two millennia ago, when God became man that he might restore all mankind to life.  Now is the time to take heart from the faith of the pure and holy maid who was his mother.  Now is the time to emulate the lowly shepherds who came to his manger-crib to worship and then told all that they had seen and heard concerning this child.  This Christmastide, let us not lose sight of the Christ – and of the joy beyond measure which his coming brings.


Yours, in his service,

Michael J. Godderz+

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