Christmas
The secular takeover of Christmas (and the Advent season) has made many forget the purpose of the holiday. How can we best reclaim it?
Key Insights
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Gift-Giving
The tradition of gift-giving (really rooted in Epiphany) has taken over the Christmas tradition. It is prone to excesses, in consumption, time, and stress. The resources below provide many ideas on how to place healthy limits on gift-giving. |
Advent Anticipation
Advent is a time of prayerful anticipation, but many jump into Christmas prematurely (since the Christmas advertisements start sometime in September now?). How do we best prepare our hearts and minds for our coming Savior? |
Meeting the Poor
While we pray through Jesus' experience of being born in the poorest of circumstances, how can we be present to the poor? We can give to address their material needs, but even better is to find ways to be in relationship with them, as Jesus did. |
Quotations
You have come to us as a small child, but you have brought us the greatest of all gifts, the gift of eternal love. Caress us with your tiny hands, embrace us with your tiny arms, and pierce our hearts with your soft, sweet cries. Bernard of Clairvaux, 1090-1153
We will much more likely meet Jesus this Christmas in the filth of the ghetto than in the best-decorated sanctuary or the most festive shopping mall. Shane Claiborne
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A few hundred years ago, the Puritans banned the celebration of Christmas because they thought it was frivolous and that the joyousness was inappropriate to true Christian piety. Doyle Burbank-Williams
Alternative For Simple Living |
The least we can do is make his coming not more difficult... than the earth makes it for spring when it wants to come. Rainer Maria Rilke
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Books
Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyful Christmas
Bill McKibben Too many people have come to dread the approach of the holidays, a season that should -- and can -- be the most relaxed, intimate, joyful, and spiritual time of the year. In this book, Bill McKibben offers some suggestions on how to rethink Christmastime, so that our current obsession with present-buying becomes less important than the dozens of other possible traditions and celebrations. Working through their local churches, McKibben and his colleagues found that people were hungry for a more joyful Christmas season. For many, trying to limit the amount of money they spent at Christmas to about a hundred dollars per family, was a real spur to their creativity -- and a real anchor against the relentless onslaught of commercials and catalogs that try to say Christmas is only Christmas if it comes from a store. (Amazon) 
Celebrate Simply: Your Guide to Simpler, More Meaningful Holidays and Special Occasions
Nancy Twigg From Christmas to Valentine's Day, birthday parties to wedding celebrations, and everything in between, Celebrate Simply seeks to bring the fun back into holidays and special occasions. (Amazon) |
Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season
Jo Robinson Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli answer the questions they have heard most often in their many years of talking with people about Christmas, such as: "How can I reduce the stress of preparing for Christmas?" "How can I make our celebration more spiritual and less materialistic?" "How can I get my husband to be more enthusiastic about Christmas?" "How can I get my wife to relax and enjoy the celebration?" and "How can I help my children see that Christmas is more than just presents?" (Amazon) 
Celebrating a Christ-Centered Christmas: Ideas From A-Z
Sharon E. Jaynes Christ has been crowded out of Christmas by shopping malls, parties, and decorations. Sharon Jaynes offers help to return our focus to the baby in the manger. Organized A to Z, Celebrating a Christ-Centered Christmas is filled with twenty-six innovative and creative ways to do just that. Come let your focus be renewed and use these great ideas to have a joyous celebration of the Savior's birth. (Amazon) |
Christmas Is Not Your Birthday: Experience the Joy of Living and Giving Like Jesus
Mike Slaughter Every year, we say we’re going to cut back, simplify, and have a family Christmas that focuses on the real reason for the season—Jesus. But every year, advertisements beckon, the children plead, and it seems easier just to indulge our wants and whims. Overspending, overeating, materialism, and busyness rob us of our peace and joy and rob Jesus of his rightful role as the center of our celebration. This Christmas, cut through the hype that leaves you exhausted and broke at the end of the year. Instead, experience the peace of knowing that God is truly with us, the joy of giving sacrificially, and the love of a Savior who gave everything he had for us. In five short, engaging chapters, Pastor Mike Slaughter inspires readers to approach Christmas differently, and be transformed in the process. (Amazon) |
Videos
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Organizations & Websites
Simple Living Works: Whose Birthday Is It Anyway
This organization now hosts all of the extensive past resources from this annual campaign run by Alternative For Simple Living. 
Simple Christmas
The Simple Christmas site is a gift to you from First Baptist Church of Jefferson City, Missouri. Several years ago, our church was involved in an emphasis of Simple Christmas. Sermons and activities related to the theme. Leadership and congregation alike tried to find ways to do more than pay lip service to the idea. |
Buy Nothing Christmas
A national initiative started by Canadian Mennonites who offer a prophetic "no" to the patterns of over-consumption of middle-class North Americans. They are inviting Christians (and others) to join a movement to de-commercialize Christmas and re-design a Christian lifestyle that is richer in meaning, smaller in impact upon the earth, and greater in giving to people less-privileged. 
The Advent Conspiracy
We all want our Christmas to be a lot of things. Full of joy. Memories. Happiness. Above all, we want it to be about Jesus. What we don't want is stress. Or debt. Or feeling like we "missed the moment". Advent Conspiracy is a movement designed to help us all slow down and experience a Christmas worth remembering. But doing this means doing things a little differently. A little creatively. It means turning Christmas upside down. Includes resources, weekly messages, children's curriculum, and more. |
Center For a New American Dream
Providing tools and support to families, citizens, and activists to counter our consumerist culture and to create new social norms about how to have a high quality of life and a reduced ecological footprint. Their "Simplify the Holidays" program offers resources for Christmas. |
Parish Ideas
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Ask "Whose Birthday?"
The "Whose Birthday Is It Anyway?" campaign by Alternatives For Simple Living (see above) provides extensive free faith-based resources intended for use in parishes. Utilize them, but be careful not to focus on the negative or guilt. The intention is for a more joyful, more fulfilling Christmas, not a grumpy one. |
Parish Resources
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4-page overview handout used as a bulletin wrapper to introduce the concept to a parish.
4-page flyer encouraging people to be intentional about their Christmas plans. The middle two pages, blank in this document, were replaced with the chart provided here by Alternatives For Simple Living.
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2-page flyer.
Note: Simple Living Works has many, many more great resources available.
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Related To
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The hectic rush of Christmas can take over our time and intentions.
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The challenge to simplify and refocus Christmas part of this larger movement.
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In this season overtaken with the concept of gifting, how do we ground ourselves in understanding gift from God?
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A consumption-focused Christmas begs the question of what our relationship with possessions is as Christians.
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Header photo by John Donaghy (Creative Commons License).