Christmastime...

Halloween used to be a day. Now, it's a season. Christmas beat it to the punch. While Halloween is rapidly becoming the "most decorated" time, Christmas has held that title for a couple thousand years. Don't ask a liturgical scholar when Christmas begins and ends, as their answer doesn't match what has been going on in the popular culture for centuries, actually. Is it appropriate to sing "Christmas hymns" before Christmas Day? The popular culture is on to things like "Last Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Tell modern church-goers (the ones who still come) we don't sing the few hymns they may actually know like "O Little Town of Bethlehem" or "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," until after Christmas Day, and they will soon join the ranks of those who DON'T come anymore. Are there still folk who like to observe liturgical correctness? Of course. Most of them have at least an M.Div. degree or attend a traditional liturgical church, say Lutheran or Episcopal. There is a place for such liturgical traditions, and I'm not meaning to disrespect them. However, as a pastor whose personal mission statement includes "connecting people with God and people to people," maintaining a liturgical rigidness adds a degree of difficulty I can't accept.

I'll not get into the whole "contemporary" or "modern" worship debate in this brief piece. I believe these are wonderful and viable "flavors" to add to Christian worship, as they speak to the hearts of many folk, and serve to help make the relational connection to God I believe to be Priority One. Personally, I still prefer what we label "Classic" or "Traditional" worship, but only because it falls more squarely within my comfort zone. I read enough music to like to occasionally drop down to the bass line and sing harmony, and can, with enough instrumental backup, sight-read a new piece of worship music. Words on a screen, accompanied by gifted vocalists who like to "bend" the melody line artistically, while fine from a "spectator" perspective, don't adequately encourage me to embarrass myself by trying to sing along. Of course, for us "traditional" folk, this technique would keep us coming back, as after we have heard a worship tune for six or seven times, we might pick up enough of it to get brave.

This same argument, with a few edits, will be used by those of you who love contemporary Christian music and worship songs. You don't see the point in hymns, especially when sung at a slogging pace. You're not at all inspired by an invitation to "raise mine Ebenezer," or signing on to "we, too, will thither..." Interestingly, many of the younger set are gaining a fresh appreciation for the pipe organ. This promises a revival of the type to which I can exclaim, "Hallelujah!" The world is populated by so many significant examples of this magnificent instrument that this new development is essential to its survival. Pipe organs are decidedly "high maintenance." Now, if we can just get a raft of these newbies to sign on to learn to play the things!

Sorry for the tangent. (This is why I never became a stand-out preacher, in spite of being an excellent student of homiletics.) Back to the extended session we call Christmastime.

I'm OK with it. The four-month Christmas Season, that is. Nothing gets folk talking more about religion, God, the Bible, and "church" more than the onset of Christmas, even if it does start before Halloween. (Politics will do that, too, for some, but that's when the fight breaks out...) I love the idea of generosity and giving gifts that goes along with Christmas, although I do wish we could get beyond that "gift for everybody" mindset that has begotten smelly, fast-burning candles and brightly-decorated tchotchkes with a wall-hanger, both of which the giver expects to see displayed proudly when they visit next Christmas. My wife puts "Holiday Traditions" on our satellite radios as soon as it debuts. I'm OK with that, too, because she is just the cutest thing, and I'd love her even if she liked Country music (however, I say a prayer of thanks, daily, that she doesn't, other than an occasional Johnny Cash number). We used to collect Nativity sets until we down-sized and moved into a townhouse. We did keep some of the most significant ones, which are still proudly displayed. I was able to find a young lad in our current church who was happy to receive my Veggie Tales Nativity, still one of my favorites. (I didn't say that my "educated" Christianity was without schmaltz!)

I say "Happy Holidays" so as not to disparage my friends and colleagues from other faith traditions. This year, though, I got a beautiful Christmas card from my dear friends at the Muslim Association of Pittsburgh, North, and the first "Merry Christmas" text I received was from my Rabbi friend. I do, therefore, try to stay on top of when their holidays and festivals are so I may return the kindness. I know that, because of the popular culture, they can't avoid Christmas. Still, it is a sin to "rub it in" by insisting on saying "Merry Christmas." That's crusading.

I decorate. Not to the Clark Griswold level, but I decorate. While my beloved wants to downsize our Christmas Tree, I'm resisting. It is already a pretty humble-sized, artificial one, but It is still taller than I am, which is the acid test. We have a twinkling, colorful tree on our back deck, because no one else decorates their back deck in our plan. Just the rebel in me. Oh, and I have one of those green and red laser things panning the front of our townhouse. I like lasers, and eschew ladders. I like the lights of Christmas--they are a wonderful and universal metaphor for the incarnation, and make a statement that the light of Christ is alive and well in the world and on Village Green Boulevard. East.

I read a story recently about a pastor who was visiting a parishioner several months after Christmas. As they were chatting, his eyes wandered to a shelf where a lone Christmas Tree ornament was displayed. His host saw the puzzled look on her preacher's face, and explained, "No, it's not a mistake. I pick one ornament from the tree each year to keep out, just to remind me that the Joy of Christmas is not just a seasonal thing--it's for every day of the year. Indeed. Now, which ornament to choose...

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, Yinz...oh, and Merry Christmas!