Susan Lee, a divorced mother of three in New York City, is taking a drastic step this year. “No Christmas for me,” she says. “No gifts, no turkey, no tree, no kidding.”
Lee, 41, a marketing consultant, says she needs a break from the stress and spending that are integral parts of the holiday. Her kids will celebrate a traditional Christmas with their dad, but she’s ignoring all the rituals.
“I start dreading Christmas from the time the decorations go up in the stores,” she says. “It stopped being fun for me, so I’ll find out this year if I can do without it altogether. I think it will be a relief. It already is.”
What a silly article!
No mention of the Nativity nor of its joyful result for us. Instead, we hear of paper plates and other assorted impedimenta most of which, I suspect, celebrated some vague winter holiday.
Christ is born!
Glorify Him!
This is an unsurprising result of the tendency to make Christmas about “family” and “traditions”, instead of about the coming of God into the world in human flesh.
If we celebrated the Incarnation as a family, instead of using the Feast of the Nativity as a cover for celebrating ourselves, we may find the season a teensy bit less stressful.
Or at least, I’d like to think so.
“No gifts, no turkey, no tree, no kidding.”
Perhaps now there will be left room in her life for the birth of Jesus.
Our family traditions are centered on the coming of God into the world in human flesh. So long as the traditions focus on that, then Christmas will continue to be a joy. Once it becomes a ritual of going through the motions with material trappings, then yes, despair.
As I tell my CCD students; No Christ, no Mass; no Christmas.
A blessed and joyful Christmas to all here.
It’s traditional in our family that we all gather for dinner on Christmas Eve, and we adults get together around the fireplace for hot buttered rum while the children have hot cider, and then we head off to Midnight Mass, and of course, we open our gifts on Christmas Morning. I can’t imagine not teaching our grandchildren the true meaning of Christmas while at the same time gathering as a family. And we celebrate all twelve days of Christmas, too, because Christmas is not just one day long. But really, Christmas should last the year ’round, shouldn’t it?
It also helps that our granddaughters are now in their teens, and they do know the true meaning of Christmas.
She is right that “Cultural Christmas” is dread-full. Can’t say it enough – Christmas without Christ is worse than empty.
Christmas does not require a tree, decorations, gifts, food, Christmas cards, or anything else. If you’re into any of these, great. If you’re not — why on earth would you force them on yourself?
It’s precisely because these people lack the one thing that IS Christmas, that they burden themselves (or feel burdened by) all that it isn’t.
Perhaps they need to re-visit the Grinch??
“Pooh-pooh to the Whos” he was grinchishly-humming.
“They’re finding out now that no Christmas is coming!
They’re just waking up. I know just what they’ll do.
Their mouths will hang open a minute or two.
Then the Whos down in Who-ville will all cry BOO HOO.”
“That’s a noise,” grinned the Grinch,
“That I simply MUST hear!”
So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow.
But this sound wasn’t sad.
Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so.
But it was merry. Very!
He stared down at Who-ville
The Grinch popped his eyes.
Then he shook!
What he saw was a shocking surprise.
Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming.
It came!
Somehow or other it came just the same.
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow
Stood puzzling and puzzling. How could it be so?
“It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes, or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”
Scheduling department:
Appointment for Susan Lee: three spirits at 12:00am 25 Dec 2011.