As I sit here on
this night before the day before the eve of Christmas (I looked at a
calendar as I was typing that and I am still
not sure I got it right….) and
am contemplating everything I have yet to accomplish, I
pause momentarily amidst
the busyness to
reflect. It
is so easy to get lost in the planning and the programming; the
baking and the gifting; the shopping and the creating; the wrapping
and the crafting.
And then there are the late nights – because I am perpetually
behind in all things Christmas; as I always tell my sister, “it
just wouldn’t be Christmas without a really late package from Aunt
Jessica.” :)
And
while every year we hear diatribes against the commercialism of
Christmas from Charlie Brown to friends on Facebook, even to random
shoppers in the store objecting to Christmas displays arriving in
October, this year a
new facet of the current perception of Christmas has been brought to
my attention. Not actually “new,” this
perspective of the season has been building for years; I
have noticed it in a somewhat vague fashion in the past, but this
year for a variety of reasons I am noticing it much more
definitively. I shall call it the “romanticism of Christmas.”
I
don’t
know precisely when it began, but
I suspect it was a subtle shifting as the times, economy, and culture
changed. Perhaps it began with the advent of moving pictures when
such concepts could be easily popularized. And
as the economy grew and more persons had both time and pocket change
to spend in going to the pictures, or purchasing books, or albums.
It was definitely aided by the aforementioned commercialization of
Christmas – after all, the notion helps retailers
sell diamonds and jewelry and chocolates, Hollywood to sell movies,
theatres to sell tickets, etc.
In
many ways, this is not a bad thing. Everyone loves a happy ending
and happy endings can make our hearts happy (there are reasons
romanticism sells). Love is beautiful and marriage (when done God’s
way) is a magnificent
thing – for it is a picture of something so much greater than any
of us. And while a case could be made for the efficacy of
remembering all year ‘round, if
one is to set
aside once per year as
a reminder
of the beauty, hopefulness, joyfulness, and
selflessness
in
love, Christmas is an excellent time to choose – for the love we
show to others is merely a faint shadow of the love shown to us so
many years ago at Christmas.
“He
was born to set all people free; born to die upon a tree...”
“It
was for me He came; for me His shame...”
The
trouble lies in the fact that this
perception of Christmas as a time for romance has so fully permeated
our culture that the reason
for Christmas is as much in danger from this as from any other
reason. Utilizing devices
such as commercialism, atheism, or busyness to diminish something
good are
obvious tricks; utilizing something good to mask something better
is much more subtle, less obvious, and therefore, more successful.
I
went to visit my sister and her family for Thanksgiving this year;
while
I was there, we watched a couple of Christmas movies on Netflix. And
last year and this I borrowed some Hallmark movies from my parents’.
I
noticed a trend in these recently
produced movies:
it seems that movie producers now are going for quantity instead of
quality. The lines are so obviously scripted, actors often appear
stiff and unnatural, and (if I am being quite honest) the stories
which the movies are created to tell are poor and underdeveloped –
it is almost as though they pick one character to fall in love with
another character and that is pretty much all that matters –
obviously they need a bit of scenery and a few scenes, but those all
feel like afterthoughts. And yet, even so, the
movies sell – and so next
year will find even more of these 2nd
rate movies on the market.
I
suppose it is possible that I am being overly critical of these
movies; perhaps my
mind is remembering the older Hallmark and other Christmas movies
through a rose-colored lens – or at least from the perspective of a
child. Perhaps the ache in my heart has something to do with my
somewhat jaded perspective. But whether or not you agree with me
regarding the movies in question, the fact remains: people
in America have fallen hard for this trend.
I
don’t
really have a solution; I don’t foresee our culture shifting away
from this trend any time soon and while it would be ideal to have a culture more in-tune with the truth, it remains an incontrovertible certainty that each one of us is responsible for our own attitudes, actions, and perceptions. So once I have concluded this post, I will pick myself up again and get back to work on my Candy Cane Donkeys (post coming soon) and remind myself once more that Hollywood, Hallmark, and Netflix do not get to define Christmas. Joy, fulfillment, and love are not dictated by whether or not one has a boyfriend, fiance, husband, children, etc.; they are the result of true relationship with Jesus and walking in His way.
Yet I will exult in the Lord,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength
And
it is the season of the heart
A
special time of caring
The
ways of love made clear
It
is the season of the spirit
The
message if we hear it
Is
makee it last all year.
No comments:
Post a Comment