From November onward it is impossible to forget that Christmas is coming. Colored lights decorate many town centers and shops, along with shiny decorations and artificial snow painted on shop windows.
On streets and shops, Christmas trees also will be decorated with lights and Christmas ornaments. By mid-December, most homes will be decorated with Christmas trees, with colored lights and decorations around the rooms and outside electric lights hanging on homes, trees, and shrubbery.
True Christmas
Father Christmas, as he is known in Europe, or Santa Claus (from the Dutch Sinterklaas), as he is known in America, has become the human face of modern-day Christmas.
From Thanksgiving on, pictures and figurines will be seen everywhere of the old man with the long white beard, red coat, and bag of toys; and children will be captivated by the expectation that Santa will magically appear on Christmas Eve to bring them gifts.
Santa Claus is based on a real person: St. Nicholas. Nicholas was a Christian leader from Myra (located in modern-day Turkey) in the 4th century AD. He was very shy and wanted to give money to the poor without them knowing it.
It is said that one Christmas Eve he climbed the roof of a small house in which a very poor family lived, and he dropped a purse of money down the chimney. It landed in a stocking that a little girl from the poor family had hung near the fire to dry.
From these humble beginnings of charity has evolved the nonreligious commercialized tradition that Santa Claus comes down the chimney and places gifts in children's stockings.
However, the real Christmas story is found in the Bible: Matthew and Luke chapters 1 and 2. It is a story about the earthly birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Conceived in the Virgin Mary of the Holy Spirit, He was born, He lived and ministered on earth, and then He died and rose again to become the promised Savior.
Jesus was not then nor is He now an exclusively white European or American, and Christianity is not exclusively a Western religion. Christmas cards from different countries often show Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus in the landscape of that country and with the racial appearance of that nationality, whether African, Indian, or Japanese.
This is good and right, because Jesus came to identify with every racial group, every culture, and every society.
Christmas observance
Until a couple of centuries ago, Christmas was observed in European and European-colonialized countries as a noncommercial religious holiday.
For centuries in most of these countries gifts were exchanged on New Year's Day. Christmas gifts, if given at all, were generally limited to feeding the poor or as special gifts to pastors, teachers, and missionaries.
During the 1800s and earlier, Christmas in America was primarily a time for feasting, going to church, and giving to the poor and needy.
Giving small gifts to children was occasionally included in the celebration but such gifts were considered to be of secondary importance.
It wasn't until the prosperity of the 1950s that expensive gifts, giving more than one gift per person, giving gifts to adults as well as to children, and a month-long shopping season became prevalent. This trend continues today, especially with the high percentage of double-income households.
Today's Christmas
The hurry and overwhelming flurry of dashing and shopping and spending and worrying sounds typical of an American November/December for most Christians. However, Christmas should be a time of close fellowship, family togetherness, and sharing in the needs of others.
The way we observe Christmas these days is a far cry from the tranquil manger scene that welcomed Christ into the world some 2,000 years ago. Consider the contrasts of:
- The solitude of the manager versus today's Christmas rush.
- God's mercy in sending His son versus the rudeness and selfishness of holiday shoppers.
- The free gift of salvation versus the forced giving of commercialization.
- The adoration of the newborn King versus the commitments that distract us from worship.
- The joyful anticipation of the shepherds versus the dread of the holiday hoopla.
“Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat,” says the old English carol, and our pocketbooks had better be getting fat, too.
Even though Christians don't want to lose the significance of this Christmas season, the excess of gift giving can drain Christians of their joy.
This is especially true as they try to combine added obligations of the season with being gracious, sensitive, creative, compassionate, and caring, and then attempt to have enough money left after Christmas to be able to buy groceries in January.
Unfortunately, it's tragically true that this holy season has, in most Western nations, evolved into nothing more than a gift-buying marathon, in which some Christians will actually go into debt to buy expensive gifts they can't afford and their families don't need—a fact confirmed by a national survey conducted by Impulse Research Corporation.
They found that Americans have steadily increased their holiday spending in the last 10 years by at least $100 and in some years more than $100 over what they had spent the previous year.
This results in debt, stress, and worry.
True focus
It is possible to move away from the materialism of December and shift our emphasis from the shopping cart back to the manger as the reason for the season.
Christmas is not the time to throw caution to the wind and allow a well-meaning generous spirit to dictate spending. Instead, we need to honor the One whose birthday we're celebrating and be good financial stewards of all He has entrusted to us.
By setting realistic budgets and planning ahead, it's possible to have a Christmas focused on Christ and not a financial crisis.
Although we should never let ourselves feel pressured into buying gifts we can't afford under the guise of showing our love for others, exchanging meaningful, well-planned presents with friends and relatives can be an important part of Christmas.
The key to avoid getting sucked into financial trouble with its accompanying stress, anxiety, and worry is to plan ahead.
- Have a planning meeting with your family and pray about the amount of money that should be spent for Christmas. Next, set up a holiday spending budget that fits within the family's financial means and make a commitment to spend no more than the amount budgeted. Then stick to it. Save all receipts and keep track of all spending.
- Make a point to mail all out-of-town gifts well in advance to avoid rush delivery charges.
- Do some kind of family service project such as purchasing food or toys for needy families. Commit to give at least a tithe of the budgeted Christmas spending amount to needy causes and for the spread of the Gospel (see Matthew 25:34-40).
- Remember that the best gift parents can give children is their love and their time. As such, check garage sales or consignment shops for great deals on toys rather than going into debt to purchase the newest and the most popular. So often after the holidays are over, parents have to work overtime, taking time away from their children, just to pay for accumulated Christmas debt.
- Ask grandparents for practical gifts for the children instead of more toys. These could include money for ballet lessons, athletic uniforms, music lessons, or money for tutoring.
- Stamp out Christmas credit. As bad as commercialized Christmas is, commercialized Christmas on credit is even worse.
Conclusion
As another Christmas celebration approaches, we can take heart in the fact that Christmas gift purchases and gift giving are totally under our control. We can choose to buy or not to buy, to go into debt or not. There's nothing wrong with giving gifts at Christmas. We simply must be careful not to indulge.
After all, it's the misuse of gift giving that entangles us, thereby diverting our attention from Christ to material things.
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