Collide Magazine

Trapped in Trappings

James Harleman - Originally posted Monday, November 3, 2008 -

It’s usually the morning after Halloween when commercials begin featuring Santa, sinking his Claus into holiday marketing and checking his list twice as he divides who gets a nice iPhone from who gets a lump of Zune in their stocking. Soon, A Christmas Story will begin playing on several cable stations on an endless loop. A flurry of Scrooges—from George C. Scott to Bill Murray—will shower the channels. Animated Grinches will become civic-minded. Expect to see a silhouette of Rudolph, on highway billboards everywhere, wearing ear buds—wires tangled around his snout—guiding the sleigh, thanks to the glow from his Video Nano.

All this, and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, when that morbidly obese slavedriver traditionally leaves his elfish sweatshop to parade for his corporate sponsor, Macy’s.

The inevitable focus on social routine and merchandise, subsidized by a red-suited felon breaking and entering through our chimneys, atop perfect houses trimmed in thousands of dollars of throwaway decor, has led some to humbug the entire affair. Others keep the tree trim, but their waists less so, enjoying the holiday as if it were an excuse for wasteful spending and thoughtless hedonism. Some Christians make Christmas a time of merchandising conflict, positioning giant inflatable Nativity scenes across the street from their neighbor’s sky-high Frosty the Snowman, blaring traditional hymns to combat the music of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It’s like a religious version of Deck the Halls with Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito—a war of decor in Jesus’ name.

It’s no wonder some of us enter this season with mixed feelings, wondering what all these trappings of tradition and capitalism in our culture have to do with a true story of promise, love, and miracles meant to give the world hope and peace.

As far as Christmas tales go, it seems that everyone—from Hollywood to every family with a DVD player—pulls out the comforting tales at Christmastime. Whether it’s Jimmy Stewart, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlie Brown, Tim Allen, or stilted stop-motion animation, we skate across a narrative field of family dysfunction and social chaos, which are magically mediated and resolved by some undefined, mystical seasonal affliction.

As we sip our cider and enjoy our brand of holiday cheer, the truth is we fall into a common human rhythm—medicating mundane lives with hunger for traditions and connections to something beyond our usual routine, often marked by stories of hope, love, and the miraculous. Ultimately, this winds up satisfying like the spiritual equivalent of hot buttered rum; it warms the insides, it’s creamy, but it’s not especially healthy, and it vanishes when the season ends.

“It’s Christmas Eve, it’s the one night of the year where we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we cheer a little more ... for a couple of hours out of the whole year we are the people that we always hoped we would be.” —Scrooged (1988)

As we pour over the usual platitudes of modern holiday expression, we can become cynical, knowing what happens when the season is over. People realize they are not only several thousand dollars poorer, but that the joyous flame they fanned for a few days or weeks in December is fading. Not every child got their Red Ryder BB gun, and—albeit awesome—Guitar Hero II did not transform their life in one night like the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. That surly neighbor who smiled and shared a cup of cider on Christmas Eve snarled at you after New Year’s when you left your garbage can out by the street. Instead of growing two sizes on Christmas Eve, it turns out the Grinch’s heart experienced only temporary swelling. The tree dries up, the decorations droop, and reality reasserts itself. By watching like a detached observer, it would seem that the holiday is as hollow and fragile as a Christmas ornament. All it takes is one cat’s paw of reality to shatter it on life’s hardwoods.

Most people don’t live on 34th Street, they don’t get a miracle, and it’s not a wonderful life. Even if Oprah Claus gives away more free cars, making her talk show audience feel like it’s Christmas morning, that doesn’t satisfy our hope for the miraculous. As we placate ourselves with purchases and steep ourselves in stirring stories, there is ultimately a yearning beneath these trappings for more than mere hope.

We can rally around cheer, forced smiles, feasts, and window dressings, but Christians exist to point toward something deeper than a wishful hope: a faith rooted in a secure foundation. It can be frustrating when people talk of faith in circular terms and it becomes an end instead of a means, as if faith in faith itself, or faith in myself, or in my heart, would somehow achieve anything. I understand we “just gotta have it,” George Michael, but what is my faith in?

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” —Hebrews 11:1

In the 1999 version of A Christmas Carol featuring Patrick Stewart, the Spirit of Christmas Present takes him on a journey where he sees men of every race, color and creed singing “Silent Night,” unified by the tale of Christ’s birth. This version also is poignant in that Scrooge does not go first to his nephew’s home, but rather steps nervously into morning Mass, where he tries to recall the words to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” The spirits helped Ebenezer; seeing his own story helped Scrooge get perspective, and a peek into the bittersweet story of the Cratchets warmed his heart of coal. But ultimately, it was the foundational story, the birth of mankind’s ultimate hero, our Creator’s gift of salvation, which undergirded his transformation.

“Mortal, we spirits of Christmas do not give only one day of our year. We live the whole 365. So is it true of the child born in Bethlehem. He does not live in men’s hearts only one day of the year, but all the days of the year. You have chosen not to seek Him in your heart.” —A Christmas Carol

Despite our cynicism, decorations are not evil, exchanging presents is not wicked, and silly stories about jolly sleigh-riders are not inherently deceitful. Gift giving is the heart of our Creator, who made mankind in His image and likeness. Scripture says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights,” (James 1:17) and it seems a natural outpouring for us as image-bearers. Decorations and seasonal parties also are a great way to connect with those around us, being incarnational like Jesus, whose first miracle was to make wine for a party.

Last, if our movies, television specials, and children’s books talk about faith and love and miracles in fleeting ways, we can choose to be frustrated at their flimsiness or, instead, see the opportunity to connect and communicate through them, finding places where they ring with a reflective resonance of true hope and firm faith. Remembering Christ’s birth, incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection are pivotal points that keep Christians focused on powerful faith, celebrating a living, active, and sovereign King who has long left the manger and sits on the throne.

So jingle the bells in early November this year, everyone. Buy your friend a peppermint latte and go see Vince Vaughn play Santa’s brother in Fred Claus at your local multiplex. The longer the season, the more chances people playing with Christmas trappings have to hear about Jesus and what His birth means: that even when the trees turn brown and Frosty melts, Christians are warmed by the knowledge that Christmas will ultimately be an eternal event that never ends.

James Harleman has been on staff at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA since 2001, where he is now the pastor of the Wedgwood Campus. James also administrates and writes for Cinemagogue, a blog on popular culture, including film, television, comic books, and more.