Take One: Christmas and the Holiday Season

I figured some sort of introduction is in order, so here's a nice shot of us Perkins. Obviously this is one of our wedding pics--I have my sister-in-law Kristin to thank for the gorgeous shot.

Anyway, we got married on May 6, 2006 in Albuquerque and have had a pretty good time with the whole being married thing--and when we're not having a good time, we're at least learning some good lessons together.

This past summer I had the opportunity to get to know John's daughters, Katie and Hannah, when they came to live with us for almost two months. I think we all survived my first real experience with stepmotherhood fairly well--even our camping trip which involved one big family-sized tent for us all!

John and I were so very blessed this summer also when we were able to buy and move into our first house together. Even with the inevitable headaches that come with buying a house -- one built in 1950 in particular -- we have just really loved making it into our own home.

Which brings me to Christmas. I've had some mixed feelings this year, particularly related to some discussions John and I have had together and with our Pastor. John and Pastor Steve have both made some great points about the, well, problems with Christmas as such a prominant holiday. It's true, we as Christians co-opted a pagan holiday and several pagan traditions in our quest to celebrate our Savior's birth. It's also true that Jesus was not born in winter, but most likely in late spring or summer (not too many shepherds watching their flocks out in the fields by night in the dead of winter).

And I have to agree with Pastor Steve: we've gone just plain silly in the quest to force everyone to say "Merry Christmas"--this now particularly amuses me since I've been forced to stop and consider the question of what the words actually mean: Christ Mass. A bunch of evangelical Protestants running around demanding shopkeepers issue customers a greeting suggesting a Cathloic Mass? That is pretty funny.

On the less funny side is Pastor Steve's point regarding his least favorite saying this time of year: Jesus is the Reason for the Season. For those of us calling ourselves Christians, followers of Christ the Risen Saviour...isn't He the reason for EVERY season? And suggesting that He is merely the reason for this season, isn't that a bit, I don't know, insulting?

Some things to think about.

All this aside, I have to say that Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. I can remember laying with Frank--long after bed time of course--on the living room floor gazing at the beautiful lights, ornaments along with their memories, and the Nativity scene we had forever. Just talking about life, Christmas, whatever. And the joy we shared as a family when we opened gifts... I really came from such a wonderful family because really every member loved so much more the act of giving than of receiving; that moment of anticipation when you watched mom's face to see if she loved the gift as much as you'd hoped.

Not to mention the traditional Christmas Eve candlelight service, mostly music and singing to worship the newborn King.

My favorite sign of the Christmas season tho, has always been holiday lights--on houses, trees wherever. So you can imagine what it meant to me a few weeks ago to find my amazing servant of a husband--who doesn't particularly care for or about Christmas lights--had put them up on the house just to surprise me when I came home from work!

Of course we had to put up my tiny little tree, on a table top, with the sparkly red, white, and silver decorations and white lights. My mom and Courtney Hewes (John's dad's girlfriend) helped us make the little tree work with garland, a tree skirt, and stockings. We opted not to do much in the way of gifts this year, so we had just some wonderful, small wrapped presents from my mom to complete the picture. I know this isn't the best pic, but I had to have one with the lights on!

So there I sat on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (yep, pretty lazy, just did the couch potato thing both days), enjoying my husband, my house, and my Christmas lights. Perhaps this is a holiday that is not mandated Biblically, that we tend to over-secularize with our trees, decorations, and focus on material things. I still find a great deal of value in it myself, and love the opportunity for a renewal of focus as we head into another year!

Okay this was quite a bit longer than I planned when I started. Merry Christmas!