Christmas can be weird!

“Christmas time can be weird! What other time of year do you sit in front of a dead tree in the living room and eat nuts and sweets out of your socks?” ~Unknown.(1)

How did all the holiday weirdness begin? Some point to the ancient Druids and their mysterious winter solstice rituals. Others insist it was the Romans who first decorated with evergreen boughs. There’s also debate between the Scandinavians and the Germans as to who first brought a mid-winter fir tree indoors. One legend tells of Martin Luther who on a snow-covered Christmas Eve around the year 1500, decorated a fir tree with candles and read the Christmas Story aloud to his children.

Regardless of how or when it all started, every year since we’ve been quite busy decking the halls, so much so, that today Jesus is hardly visible through all the tinsel and lights. It’s been going on for a very, very long time. Johann Dannhauser, an influential Lutheran theologian in the mid-1600s wrote,

“the Christmas or fir tree, which people set up in their houses, hang with dolls and sweets… Whence comes this custom I know not; it is child’s play… Far better were it to point the children to the spiritual cedar-tree, Jesus Christ.” (2)

So, how can you point your friends, family and neighbours to Jesus Christ through all the Christmas glitter?

The booklet, What are Christmas and Easter all about? might just help. Instead of just retelling the Nativity story, starting and ending with the baby in a manger, it takes a reader on a captivating, easy-to-follow journey through the Bible. The reader understands who Baby Jesus was and why he came to Earth. Not only does the booklet give the reason we celebrate Christmas, but it carries the story forward to the Good News–the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This full-colour, eighty-page booklet only costs about what you’d pay for a Christmas card. At that price, there’s no end to the possibilities…

• gifts for coworkers
• cards to friends and family (hint: they fit in a regular card-size envelope)
• hand-outs to attendees at Christmas programs
• stocking stuffers

This Christmas, amid all the hustle and bustle, tinsel and lights, giving What Are Christmas and Easter All About? can help people realize and remember the true reason we celebrate Christmas.

And who knows, you might just make your holiday season this year a little less weird!

 

Bibliography:
(1) Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/funny-christmas-quotes.html
(2) Clement A. Miles, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1912). Pg. 259