Jon the Christmas Hater

I have this friend who hates Christmas. When we walk through Wal-mart before Thanksgiving he tells me about how much he hates Christmas. It was after Thanksgiving when we were in McDonald's talking about it. He looked very out of place with the classic American burger, fry, and orange drink. He's not the traditional type really. I asked him if he hated Christmas. He said yes. I asked him why. He said it was annoying, cliche, and there are a bunch of greedy kids. Jon the Christmas Hater says that the gifts are just awful. He says that most people get gifts before the actual day anyway so what are we celebrating? He says that the kids get disappointed when they don't get what they want. I asked him if he didn't think that there were a lot of people that celebrated the right way. I think he thought that it was so. He had a sports page in front of him with Cam Newton on it and I thought he was going to give me a really clever analogy. He didn't. He wadded it up eventually I think. Jon the Christmas Hater feels that Christmas has become cliche. He really hates most of the Christmas music and all the terrible Hallmark movies. I said they were pretty fun to make fun of. He took another bite of his burger. He says he did however enjoy the family get-togethers. I said that how could you have those if you didn't have a holiday? He says we should change it to something else, like "go to grandmother's house day." I felt like a really good religious fellow for a second and asked him with a spice of drama if he would trade a "go to grandmother's house day" for the celebration of the birth of Christ. He took a sip of his orange drink and said he'd never use a lid again. I didn't deserve an answer I don't suppose. But he finally decided to give me one anyway. He said he thought the birth of Christ should be celebrated every day. I explained to him that if Christmas is already cliche once a year, everyday would be crush it. He asked me if breathing was cliche since we do that everyday, we both agreed that this was a pretty crummy comparison. But I did agree with him. I have a bad habit of trying to catch people in their words. I asked him if there was a perfect Christmas for him. He said that it would be better if he didn't get any gifts. You see his folks get him gifts and apparently there is nothing he can do about it.

I agree sometimes with Jon the Christmas Hater. He is one of my best friends you see? I even agree to a point on his Christmas theories. He is right about the cliches and the greed and commercialization. But I told him there is also an undeniable feeling to Christmas. Everyone feels it and it emerges through the dirt and refuse of our perversion of Christmas.

You know giving gifts seems like something selfish we've come up with. I don't think it is that way at all. After all, when Mordecai in the book of Esther was hosting his own little holiday he made this recommendation: "He told them to celebrate these days with feasting and gladness and by giving gifts of food to each other and presents to the poor." (9:22). Feasting, gladness, gifts to each other and to the poor. Of course it says food, in the King James it says "portions." Either way it's a gift. It's true a lot of us forget the giving to the poor. This is a tragedy. It seems like God cares an awful lot for the poor.

The world has created a lot of secular diversions from the meaning of Christmas. Jon the Christmas Hater doesn't like this at all. I don't either. They seem really irrelevant. Some of them are nice and give me a good feeling. This makes them seem really crafty and maybe sort of a trap. Now I feel like a jerk. But I agree with me.

There's a lot wrong with the way people celebrate Christmas. But there is more right about Christmas than any other time of year. It's like what John Greenleaf Whittier wrote:

Somehow, not only for Christmas,
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others,
Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing,
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing,
Returns to you glad.

Somehow not only for Christmas...The feeling is there. Smell it, taste it, hear it, see it, feel it. Give gifts to one another, but not so it is stressful and in excess. Don't leave the poor out of your merriment, for they haven't got it as good as you. Don't get caught up so much in other traditions that you forget what happened and why it is momentous.

(Oh and Jon the Christmas Hater isn't a modern day scrooge or anything. I imagine he agrees with the spirit of Christmas if not the materialistic mask of it. He is as good a Christ-follower and friend as you'll ever meet.)