 The Grinch. Ebenezer Scrooge. Your uncle Don. What do all of these people have in common? They hate Christmas, they hate all of its traditions, and they are happy to tell you about it. And while I am certainly not on their level, there are some things associated with Christmas that just bug me, and I’ve got to get them off my chest. So here are a few of my least favorite things about Christmas, in no particular order.
1) Jingle Bells as a Christmas Song. If you ever have the misfortune of going Christmas caroling (this should be its own bullet on this list), this one will make the playlist on every stop. Yet, it doesn’t have one darn thing to do with Christmas. Nothing at all. Jingle Bells is just a song about winter in general. It’s about some dude taking a sleigh ride (hint: the dude is NOT Santa). And if you read all the lyrics, it is just a cheap way for this guy to pick up girls, and he just ends up wrecking into a snow bank halfway through the song, which is less than ideal on a date. Then, after he wrecks the sleigh with the first girl, he just starts picking up girls in general. I don’t get it. Besides that, no one even owns a sleigh anymore. It just doesn’t make any sense. And it probably doesn’t even snow often in December where you live, and certainly not enough to warrant getting out the sleigh (Chad and Dave’s current Christmas forecast appears to be 50 degrees and partly cloudy.) 2) Ugly Christmas Sweaters as a Cottage Industry. Admittedly, this was a funny idea when it first started. It was funny because a lot of people bought and gave tacky Christmas sweaters, unironically. Your grandma bought these sweaters for you annually because she thought they were so pretty, and your mom made you wear it where MiMi could see it, even though you both knew it was ugly and embarrassing. Now, we mock that childhood trauma by having “ugly Christmas sweater parties.” But in a strange turn of events, a thing that began as a way to mock trendy, mainstream fashion has itself become a trendy, mainstream fashion. When you intentionally buy a Christmas sweater specifically because it is ugly, you have now become the butt of your own joke. Now, stores sell these things on purpose. Why? Because you will spend $40 on this stupid thing that you will wear one time ever to your office Christmas party, which probably required that everyone else in the office wear one, too. See also: if your company or your university alma mater sells ugly Christmas sweaters, but that also just happen to be completely “on brand” or make use to the company logo, you have once again become the butt of your own joke. 3) “Advent” Calendars That Are Really Just a “Countdown to Christmas.” Repeat after me: “Advent is not the same thing as Christmas.” Say it again. And again. Now also go tell your mother. And that lady at church that gives you a new Advent calendar every year around Thanksgiving. Advent is the season on the Church calendar that immediately precedes the season of Christmas. Advent should be marked by preparation, hope, and maybe even a little repentance sprinkled in for good measure. It should not be marked by cookies, more gifts, and rampant consumerism. If your “Advent” calendar requires you to give or open a new gift every morning, you are doing it wrong. If your “Advent” calendar shows you a new cookie recipe or a way to serve yet another holiday finger food, you are doing it wrong. 4) Christmas Caroling. Okay, I am still hung up on this one from earlier. I wish I could get past it, but I can’t. Christmas caroling is dumb. There. I said it. We get together with a bunch of people from our church, nearly no one in the group can actually sing except the one person who is leading this ridiculous expedition and who made you go in the first place (shoutout to our good friend Melodie!). Half your group doesn’t know the lyrics. People have no idea what to do when you show up at their house. You just dragged someone away from whatever they were watching on TV, warm and cozy under a blanket, and now they are standing on the porch in their jammies shivering, watching your group do a poor rendition of Silent Night, even though everyone knew we started it 8 keys too high in the first place, so now everyone drops out on the first “sleep in heavenly peeeee----eace”. It’s just awkward. **Bonus story: Chad’s dad served as a music minister during much of Chad’s childhood, and thus dragged Chad along for many a caroling outing. The best one was at a nursing home, when we caroled on the move, walking through the halls as we sang. Chad’s dad was walking backwards, facing the group, directing the song (because how could anyone ever possibly sing without the music director waving his arms to keep time?? Without that 4/4 arm metronome going, we would descend into certain chaos!). As he neared a lady in a wheelchair, she reached up and grabbed a handful of his rather ample booty. We all saw it. We all saw it coming; didn’t intervene. We all were rendered inert in our singing, unable to breath from the laughter. The old lady that groped my dad while Christmas caroling is easily in the top 5 times I have laughed the hardest in my lifetime. This list could obviously go on for days, but I’m afraid if I keep going I am going to make (even more) people mad. So what things do you want to add to the list?
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 Artwork: "Magnificat" by Ben Wildflower. For more of Ben Wildflower's exceptional work, visit BenWildflower.com. Today, the Wheel of Advent Content has landed on "Apocryphal Chapters Excerpt" and we're offering a little sneak peak into some of the bonus content you can find in our "Apocryphal Chapters." This week, it's fitting that we fix our attention on Mary's Song - or, as your many Latin-speaking friends prefer to refer to it, The Magnificat - as it is an optional Scriptural reading in the Revised Common Lectionary for both last Sunday and this Sunday. As we pored over what is perhaps the first ever praise song Jesus heard, we couldn't help but dig into the Greek a little bit and create a more expansive translation/paraphrase that might help highlight some of the themes that are sometimes prone to get lost in the vaulted ceilings of the cathedrals where this song is typically sung. So, without further ado, we present to you "All That I Am For All That He Is: A Contemporary Magnificat Paraphrase." Everything I have
is invested in everything He is. Just as my body is bursting with life, my spirit is bursting with joy - all because of God my Liberator - because His generous eyes have noticed the bankrupt state of His servant. Now, all of Eve’s descendants will see in me the abundant wealth of God His healing hands deliver Life, Even as He has insured that those who miscarry justice will have no offspring, A stillborn legacy. To those beyond poverty’s reach, He has clipped their artificial wings But to those who can only dream of flying, His goodness has eclipsed even the gravity of their situation. All of this from a God whose promises return again and again to mercy-memories, One continuous, unbroken cord of grace tethering our ancestors even to our descendants.  Today as we spin the Wheel of Advent Content, we land on “A Few of Our Favorite Things.” Today, let’s visit Chad’s favorite obscure Christmas album: Do You See What I See? by Todd Agnew (and friends). The album was made in 2006, and nearly every song is an original piece—this isn’t a Christmas album where they just do yet another tired remix of “Go Tell It On The Mountain” or a peppy version of “Silent Night.” This album is playful, prayerful, and poetic. Todd Agnew is probably not the most household of names, and you would be forgiven if you said, “Who in the world is that?” He’s a humble artist who never really tried to compete in a world full of Chris Tomlins, dc Talks, and Steven Curtis Chapmans. Some listeners do not like his low, gravelly voice—if you are looking for the vocal gymnastics of Mariah Carey, keep moving. For me, I love the thoughtfulness and reflection of Agnew. I had him as a worship leader at a youth camp once, and he was one of those guys that didn’t want the spotlight, didn’t just play whatever worship song was trendy, and always aimed his songs back at a carefully crafted theological idea that helped you see something in a new and different way. His method of leading worship didn’t take you on an emotionally-manipulated trip through well-timed key changes; his method led you on a journey to think about things in a different way, and maybe feel things in new ways, too. And that is exactly what this Christmas album does. The back cover of the CD describes the album this way: “What did the first Christmas look like to the people involved? They didn’t get the benefit of 2000 years of understanding the context. They just had to live it. The gospels record their amazement, confusion, heartbreak, and joy. My friends and I have the privilege of recording songs that we hope bring their wonder into our world.” What I love about this album is that it explores so much of the emotion of the characters in the story, and it does it in deep and imaginative ways. The songs are almost entirely written from a first-person perspective of some character within the birth stories. As a sample, here are a few examples. The innkeeper track, “No Room,” opens with this line: “There’s no room, no room in the inn // if you were someone important, we might try to fit you in // but there’s no room in here for you.” Or consider some of these lines from “Did You Know?” (which is not a “Mary, did you know” track, but more of a “Jesus, did you know” track): “Were Mary’s the first eyes you saw // or did you remember choosing that shade of brown?” “Did you know? Did you shudder each time your hammer struck a nail?” Or my favorite, “Did you remember the brightness of your glory // or did you just notice it was cold and dark here?” There is a track that explores the helplessness and inadequacies that Joseph must have felt as the father of the creator of the world. There is a Magnificat track that understands the economic justice and revolutionary language of that subversive song. There is even a lullaby from Elizabeth to her son, John. Or, if you want to hear a bit, here is “Did You Know”, quoted above. If you feel the itch to buy a Christmas album, this is a good choice, and definitely one of my favorite parts of Christmas!
 Chad has two favorite Christmas songs—assuming, of course, that “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” doesn’t count as a proper Christmas song. One of them is perfect for the first week of Advent: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Advent, of course, is not—I repeat, NOT—a synonym for “Christmas,” even if nobody in your church seems to know that. “Advent” means “coming” or “arrival,” and it is the season that immediately precedes Christmas on the Church calendar (officially, Christmas begins on Dec 25th on the Church calendar—again, even if no one in your church seems to know that, and even if half your congregation wants to “start Christmas” shortly after Halloween). Advent, then, is primarily a season of preparation (and we aren’t talking about Black Friday shopping or hanging lights on the house, to be clear). Advent is about preparation, anticipation, and hope. Hope. Now there is a tricky concept. Hope doesn’t mean a whole lot unless it follows some sort of despair or desperation (or, as Harvey Dent taught us in the Batman saga, “The night is always darkest before the dawn”). The typical texts that we read on the first week of Advent include Isaiah 40, which is a text written to Israel in Exile. Israel is removed from its ancestral land. The Temple has been destroyed. They are oppressed by a foreign power, inundated with messages about pagan deities, and even left wondering if their God was killed or defeated by those deities. Desperation has set in—alone, abandoned, defeated. Israel is in desperate need of rescue. It is into that context that Isaiah 40 is spoken. The text is an oracle that promises deliverance. Rescue is coming, and this Exile will soon end. God is going to rescue the people and lead them back home, plowing a road right through the middle of the desert! Every valley will be raised up, and every mountain will be leveled. Rescue is coming! Hope is spoken into the darkness. The hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” captures this theme so well, and it is why it is my favorite Advent hymn. It is a hymn for “captive Israel”—it is a song of the Exile, a song of the desperate ones clinging to the hope of rescue. It is a prayer for God to come and “ransom captive Israel”—a prayer for rescue and redemption. And what is Captive Israel doing in this song? Not wrapping presents, stringing lights, and listening to Bing Crosby, that’s for sure! Israel is mourning—“that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears.” It is a song that recognizes the despair and the need for rescue, ransom, and redemption. But the chorus sounds the note of hope: Rejoice! Emmanuel is coming! I love this song because it does not race off to the joy of Christ coming into the world before it grapples with the desperate need for Christ to show up in the first place. Redemption doesn’t matter until I realize how much I need to be redeemed. The first week of Advent is the ideal time to grapple with both the desperation and the hope. And this is my favorite song to help take me there—placing me in Babylon with Captive Israel, waiting for rescue. I hope you get to sing that song reflectively this week. But I still want a hippopotamus for Christmas. Editor's Note: Below is a lovely contemporary rendition of "O Come O Come Emmanuel," featuring people doing dangerous things like having lit candles on a piano and wearing baseball caps while singin' to Jesus.  Both Chad and Dave grew up deep in the South, and as children of the South, we are no strangers to the annual “War on Christmas.” We’ve seen everything from the famed debacle over the red Starbucks cup, to the controversy over the Walmart greeter wishing us “Happy Holidays,” to the White House “holiday tree.” We’ve listened to preachers complain that schools aren’t even allowed to talk about Jesus or display a nativity scene, even though literally every school in the South does both of those things. A lot.
But nothing—and I mean nothing!—can raise the rancor of a Christmas culture warrior quite like the appearance of that magic 4-letter word. No, not THOSE 4-letter words . . . this one: XMAS. There. I typed it. My computer didn’t explode. The internet wasn’t struck by lightning. The cry-less baby Jesus didn’t suddenly start weeping. It’s okay. In fact, let me tell you why it is not only okay to say “xmas,” but why maybe you in fact should use it every now and then. Brace yourselves. Southern cultural crusaders tell us that “xmas” is the equivalent of crossing out Jesus’ name because the X has replaced “Christ.” Thus, quite literally, Christ has been x-ed out of Christmas. There is your war on Christmas, plain as day; those pinko Commie leftist pagans aren’t even trying to hide it anymore! Only that’s not true. To the contrary, the letter X is the first letter in the word “Christ.” In Greek, the X is the letter “chi” (remember back to your college fraternity and sorority training, you probably already know this letter), transliterated with the English letters “ch.” Transliterated into English letters, the name “Christ” is spelled “Xristos.” Further, the second letter is “rho,” or the English “r,” but in Greek, it looks like the English “p.” So when you see XP together (settle down, D&D fans, this isn’t what you think it is), it stands for “chi rho,” or “ch-r,” or the first two letters in the name of Jesus. This is probably the oldest known abbreviation for the name of Christ, and far from being an insult or a means of scratching Christ out of his own holiday, it is a sacred and revered symbol that is close to 2000 years old. So, whenever you see “xmas,” no one is actually x-ing out the name of Christ; in fact, they are employing the oldest known symbol for the name “Christ,” even if they don’t know they are doing it. The X doesn’t eliminate Christ; the X is a (very ancient) symbol for Christ. So the next time you hear someone fussing about how “xmas” is scratching out Christ, feel free to drop some knowledge on them (after, of course, you smugly and self-righteously look down your nose at them for their gross ignorance!). |
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