An Upside Down Christmas

"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

This Christmas is different!!!

Christmas decorations, for inside and out, traditionally have appeared in our house on the first Sunday in Advent and disappeared by Epiphany [one of the advantages of an artificial tree!].

Last year, the only Christmas decoration that went up was the table-top Christmas Tree: not the crèche, I had made 38 years ago, not the wreath on the door, no Christmas music, not even the Christmas Teapot made it out into the light of day. To be perfectly honest, if it hadn't been for the two grandchildren living upstairs, the tree wouldn't have put in a appearance either!

This year, Advent 1 saw the tree up and decorated, the wreath hanging on the door, the crèche scene in place, and Christmas music playing. What is different????

A song I heard for the first time this year is 'Christmas Lullaby' (written and composed by Jason Robert Brown from his musical theatre work 'Songs for a New World', 1995) which ends with these words:

"And I will be like Mother Mary

And I'll suffer any pains

For the future of the world

Inside of me"
Click to listen to 'A Christmas Lullaby'

I wasn't surprised when the words 'for the future of the world inside of me’, which are repeated several times throughout the song, caught my attention. For a moment it took me back to that Advent 45+ years ago when I, too, was waiting for the birth of a child and how I had dreams for what the future would be like and how it would change because of that impending birth. Literally, it was the future of my world! In the song, Mary is expressing a similar emotion, one that has been felt by women throughout history. But it is a universal truth, not one only experienced by Mary.

And I think that is exactly what has happened to me this year!

As Clark Griswold says in the Christmas comedy Christmas Vacation "Christmas means something different to everybody, and now I know what it means to me."

I now see the celebration of Christmas as a celebration of the birth of Jesus, similar to the celebration of the birthday of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II on the Monday before May 25 here in Canada. There is early evidence of the celebration on December 25 354 AD of a Christian liturgical feast of the birth of Jesus during the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine. The only link to that birth that the carols, the stories, and the decorations we use in our celebrations have is that which we give them. And so this year I can once again enjoy those things as they are now free of the baggage others attach to them.

The words to this modern carol “Carol our Christmas” by New Zealander, Shirley Erena Murray, speaks of an upside down Christmas, and in a way that reflects my feelings this year.

“Carol our Christmas, an upside down Christmas:

snow is not falling and trees are not bare.

Carol the summer and welcome the Christ Child,

warm in our sunshine and sweetness of air.

Sing of the gold and the green and the sparkle,

water and river and lure of the beach.

Sing in the happiness of open spaces,

sing a nativity summer can reach!

Shepherds and musterers move over hillsides,

finding, not angels, but sheep to be shorn,

wise ones make journeys, whatever the season,

searching for signs of the truth to be born.

Right side up Christmas belongs to the universe,

made in the moment a woman gives birth:

hope is the Jesus gift, love is the offering,

everywhere, anywhere, here on the earth.”

Have a Merry and a blessed Christmas this year!

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