“The whole Nativity Season deserves to be relished.”
~Sybil MacBeth
There is perhaps no holiday for which it is possible to go more “all out” than Christmas. Stores start their marketing campaigns before the calendar has turned to Fall; Christmas trees go up before Thanksgiving dinners have even been digested (or earlier!); yards quickly fill with ever-more-enormous inflatable characters and Griswold-worthy light displays; and the weeks leading up to Christmas can easily become a flurry of shopping trips, cookie swaps, Hallmark movie marathons, and the endless wrapping and unwrapping of gifts.
I will admit: I am a little bit of a Christmas nut. I start getting the “fever” right around October 1st (embarrassing, I know), and it’s non-stop from then until December 26th, when I crash in what can only be described as a post-Christmas hangover. Until then though, I watch “Elf” on at least a weekly basis, drink peppermint mochas like they are going out of style, organize the office door-decorating contest and holiday party, negotiate daily with my husband to PLEASE let me just go ahead and put up the tree, and play Christmas music constantly. I love it. But it is also exhausting. And to be quite honest, this kind of celebrating is not all that fulfilling. I know I am not alone here. For Christians, the navigation of how to celebrate Christmas in a culture of consumption is difficult. We crave the merriment and celebration and joy and excitement that the season represents and deserves to be honored with, but often struggle with how to achieve such celebration in a way that is spiritually fulfilling and holy as well.
Now that I have two sons of my own who are about to celebrate their first Christmas, striking this balance has become especially important. I have struggled intellectually and spiritually with finding a way to teach them about Christmas in a manner that is celebratory, but holy. In a way that allows us to indulge the “fun” of anticipation and giving and gathering while maintaining humility and gratitude and grace and a focus on Christ.
Sybil MacBeth’s new book The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent, Christmas and Epiphany Extremist is for Christians like me. Taking the liturgical calendar as a starting point, she offers the idea of expanding our focus on the one day of Christmas to a celebration instead of “The Season of Nativity.” This season—which includes Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany and extends from the end of November to the beginning of January—can serve as an opportunity for us to indulge in and learn from all kinds of creative spiritual practices. It is a way of recognizing the trajectory of important moments on both ends of the climactic moment of Jesus’ birth: Advent as a time of excited anticipation of the birth of the long-awaited Savior and Epiphany as the period in which we experience the implications of Jesus’s birth and ministry.
MacBeth describes in detail the significance of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany to Christians and offers extended and helpful lists of specific ways we can celebrate them. Her suggestions are ones that families or individuals could easily enjoy and learn from:
- decorating with purple—the color of Advent—to remind us to “wait,” that we are not yet to the reds and greens of Christmas
- turning Advent calendars into decorative art projects or opportunities for prayer
- extending Christmas gift giving over the “Twelve Days of Christmas”
- studying the lyrics of Christmas songs
- incorporating celebrations of the feast day of St. Stephen (December 26th), the Feast of the Holy Name (January 1st), and Twelfth Night (January 5th)
- reflecting on the gifts God has given us over the past year
- redecorating the Christmas tree with stars to celebrate Epiphany
- learning about and celebrating Candlemas
Page after page is full of ideas. If one were to adopt all of MacBeth’s suggestions, each day from the beginning of Advent to the conclusion of Epiphany could easily be one of heightened celebration and spiritual focus.
What occurred to me as I read this book is that what many of us likely are seeking when we find ourselves diving into the flurry of secular traditions of Christmas is a way of recognizing the importance of the season in a manner that extends beyond one single day of church going, carol singing, and gift giving. We inherently recognize that Jesus’s birth is more than just a moment to be celebrated briefly; instead, it is a moment that deserves a season. MacBeth offers us a way to make this possible without straying from the spiritual focus of the season. I am excited to try out many of these ancient and novel practices and to revise my celebration of Christmas to embrace and celebrate the full “Nativity Season.”
Read a book excerpt and an author interview from The Season of the Nativity at the Patheos Book Club here.
Amber M. Stamper holds a Ph.D. in English (Rhetoric and Composition) and is an Assistant Professor of Language, Literature, and Communication at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. Her research and publications center on religious rhetoric and communication, especially issues of Christian evangelism and the digital church.
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