Clinging to Christmas

January 10, 2013 By 2 Comments

I cling to Christmas. I’d like to say that I have some tradition to which I hew—celebrating exactly twelve days of Christmas, say, or keeping my garland nailed up until the end of whatever date anthropologists think marks the end of the pagan winter solstice.

I used to aspire to traditions, now I aspire to survival. So cling is the right word.

I grab hold after Thanksgiving, as soon as I can slow the carousel of work and life. I don’t pull the brake until after Thanksgiving, because I instinctively resist being made to do anything. Every year, the desperate big-box retailers try to gin up our holiday shopping a little earlier, and I don’t like the pressure one bit.

I swear, as God is my witness, my local Wal-Mart was playing Mariah Carey’s rendition of “All I Want for Christmas is You” a full two weeks before Thanksgiving this year. Overcoming the perennial commercial Christmas bullying to put up my tree is like starting a meal with a full case of indigestion. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Faith, Tony Woodlief Tagged With: 2 Comments

St. Linus the Evangelist

December 24, 2012 By 1 Comment

An Encore Post

ABC recently ran its annual showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, one of the defining Christmas rituals of my childhood. After the cartoon aired this year, my Facebook feed overflowed with love for Charlie Brown, and for Charles Schulz: “Thank you, Charles Schulz,” wrote one friend, “for telling me the truth.”

I knew exactly what she meant, and feel the same way. I have a special attachment to Charlie Brown, and more specifically, to Linus—he was the first person to tell me the truth. He was the first person to tell me about the Gospel.

In the cartoon, Charlie Brown has a problem, one that can only be defined as spiritual: the materialism in Sally’s Christmas list, the obnoxious lights on Snoopy’s doghouse, and Schroeder’s incessant piano boogie sink Charlie Brown beyond his usual, block-headed depression. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Allison Backous, Faith, Film Tagged With: , 1 Comment

The Christmas I Sat Next to a Sex Offender

December 16, 2012 By 11 Comments

Last year my husband and I celebrated our first Christmas with our infant daughter. She couldn’t understand the holiday, of course, but that didn’t stop us from discussing Advent calendars, wreaths, and Jesse Trees in depth, continuing a friendly argument about Santa Claus that has been going on since our engagement.

Citing our childhood experiences as rationale, we hashed out the significance of the Incarnation in the form of felt, cardboard calendars filled with chocolate, and a fat man driven around by reindeer.

Christmas in my youth meant festive cooking and fellowship. My mom made Greek kourabiedes, baklava, and pecan pie with nuts from my grandparents’ trees. My dad roasted beef or pork, carefully basting it with the au jus so that it melted on our tongues. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Faith, Jessica Eddings-Roeser, Relationships, Uncategorized Tagged With: , 11 Comments