Have you read John Grisham’s novel Skipping Christmas or watched the film adaptation Christmas with the Kranks? It’s about a couple who decides to forego the usual traditions of Christmas gifts, decorations and parties in favor of taking a vacation during the holidays. It doesn’t take long for them to experience opposition to the idea from others, and to begin making exceptions to their pledge, culminating in a full-blown traditional celebration at the last minute when their daughter announces her unexpected return home for Christmas.
I’m no Scrooge. I like the Christmas season. I enjoy exchanging gifts and especially spending time with family. I enjoy seeing Christmas decorations in the neighborhood and, in fact, wish more houses had them. But you know what? I’d be in favor of doing what the premise of the book and movie suggest – skipping the usual trappings of the season and instead concentrating on enjoying time with family and worship with my church family.
Oh, it’s a safe bet that we’d still get presents for our children and grandchildren, but I’d be quite happy for nobody to have to think about getting gifts for me. There isn’t a thing I really need that I don’t already have. There are things I want, but I can get those myself when I decide. And it would sure be nice to have a December that wasn’t booked to the gills with non-stop events due to every possible group and organization with which we are affiliated thinking they have to have a Christmas event of some kind.
Like the Kranks, I’d be perfectly happy to book a cruise with family and get away for a while. I could still celebrate the reason for the season – the coming of Christ to earth in that most selfless act to bridge the chasm between sinful men and a holy God. I’d still be happy to put emphasis on the experiences of the season for the youngest members of the family. Other than that, though, it would thrill me to let simplicity, worship, and time with family be the focus.
I won’t hold my breath for that to happen, but with each passing year I’m more and more ready for that to come to pass. Traditions don’t last forever. Someone has to initiate change.
Stay tuned.
Each December we hear a mixture of greetings due to the various holidays celebrated. Not everyone celebrates every holiday, of course, so we tend to use the one with which we most identify. As a Christian, the holiday I’m focused on this month is Christmas, so if I greet someone with a holiday-related greeting, it will be “Merry Christmas.” I’ll have the good sense not to say that to my Jewish friends and colleagues or to those whom I know do not celebrate Christmas. I would not expect them to say it to me.
I have extremely good memories of Christmas from my childhood. Forever locked in my mind’s eye are spending time at each set of grandparents’ house, exchanging gifts with the extended family, listening to my Aunt Nonie read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, seeing the Chrismon tree at the front of the church, and the Christmas morning excitement when my sister and I would find all kinds of things Santa generously left for us.
Yesterday was Labor Day in the U.S. – a much needed holiday for me after a very busy August. If you had asked me last week my plans for the day, I would have told you that I would take the time to catch up on the nearly 100 emails that I have yet to address at work having been out of the office much of last week. However, taking my own recent advice of sometimes 
I never served in the military. The U.S. discontinued the draft the year I turned 16 in 1973 and has had an all-volunteer military force since then. I remember my mom crying with joy at the news since she knew that I would at least have the option of whether to serve or not, unlike my Dad and other men in my family’s past who served willingly, but also in obedience to the law. Like many my age at the time, I went on to college and other things and did not serve my government in that manner.
So to my father and the men of my family in previous generations who bravely served, to the countless heroes who knowingly and willingly put their lives on the line for a cause greater than themselves, to men and women who never came home to hold and love their family members again, and to the far too many serving overseas today in harm’s way, please accept my tear-filled, inadequate “thank you” for your service. The world is not worthy of those who give such a sacrifice. May you and your accomplishments never be forgotten.
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