Unplug the Christmas Machine!
Rev. Kathleen Ellis
Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church
December 4, 2005

How many of you got up early on the Friday after Thanksgiving to take advantage of bargain shopping?

. . .

Great!  You are prepared, energetic, determined, confident, and hopeful.  You prepared for the day by noticing particular sales that interested you; you mustered the energy to get up early after a day of feasting; you were determined to find a parking place and make your way through the crowds; you showed confidence that you would be among the first hundred or so shoppers who received special discounts; you were hoping … for what?  for just the right gift for someone you love…for a gift that says you’re special…for a good price since you’re going to buy it anyway…for the fun and excitement of a traditional start to a happy holiday season.

My sister Madeleine takes care of her grand-twins so their parents can leave before dawn and do all their Christmas shopping in one day.  They use a neighbor’s garage to hide the loot until later.  I trust that they are not among those who were injured in the grab fest reported in some news reports.  Did you see the woman on The Daily Show who was knocked down and she lost her wig?

I heard from a colleague that three sisters in a northern city rent a van every year for their shopping spree.  They wear matching sweatshirts, carry walkie-talkies and tackle several different stores at once for maximum efficiency.  It’s fun for them, they accomplish something together, and they have stories to laugh about for years to come.

. . . . .

How many of you participated instead in Buy Nothing Day that same Friday after Thanksgiving? . . .

Great!  You are well-informed, defiant, independent, and hopeful.  You are well-informed of the vocal minority of folks who resist the buying frenzy promoted by retailers and internet sources of goods and services; you are defiant in holding on to the weekend of gratitude for food, friends, and family; you remain independent in setting your own schedule instead of following the crowd; and you are hoping … for what?  for a more leisurely pace in the shopping world… to make a statement that more of us should resist the temptations of buying more, more, more… for an extra day of denial that Christmas is now exactly 21 days away… to find any gifts you need at our Yule Fest this weekend.  Even if you really did have to buy something that day, some of you tried to make excuses for yourself or limited your shopping to places off the beaten track.

Bah! Humbug! Scrooge wants nothing to do with Buy Nothing Day.

Scrooge wants the excess of Madison Avenue to trickle down into his pockets lined with banknotes.

Some of you may not observe Christmas at all, but it is well nigh impossible in this culture to avoid the seasonal crowds, long lines at the Post Office, additional traffic snarls, appeals to donate cash and gifts to charitable causes, or endless Christmas carols at every opportunity.

Some of you would rather skip this season altogether, because it’s too painful to imagine Christmas without your mom or dad, your friend, your loved one.  Death, in its natural aftereffect, becomes more poignant at special times of year like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.  After my mother died in June of 96, I couldn’t bear to go shopping, where all the decorations and music and gaiety simply reminded me how much she loved exactly those things. 

As an alternative, I looked around my own home for things to send to my relatives and even my own children—pictures, vases, CDs, homemade cookies—that allowed me to avoid the mall yet send them something special that I had enjoyed.  They were gifts from the heart even if they were not brand new. 

Many families have service members serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, FEMA workers in Louisiana and Mississippi, Peace Corps volunteers, and other kinds of workers all over the world, who may have limited or no leave for many months to come.  Our hearts and prayers go out to you and your loved ones.

Though I named this sermon “Unplug the Christmas Machine” after the book by that title, I feel confident that today’s “Christmas Machine” is not entirely under our control.  It has its own momentum generated by social custom, advertising, and love.  Yes, love, in part for a baby—born long ago—who represents hope for the world.  Love for family and community during the dark season when we come together to share the light we can generate.

In these weeks of winter, although the weather is uncommonly warm; and in these weeks of summer in Australia, New Zealand, and the rest of the Southern hemisphere, the focus of the Christian calendar is Advent — the advent of love and hope for the world.

Pregnancy is a beautiful metaphor for advent.  Gestating, expecting, hoping for the special birth that is to come.  During pregnancy, it is not just the mothers who are expecting.  We also have the rest of the household, whoever they may be, helping prepare room for new life.  The community also plays a part in ensuring that the new life and the family receive proper nutrition, nurture, housing, and education.

Around this hope for new life, we long for new life within ourselves.  What is it you hope will be born in your life?  How will you nurture this hope and bring it to birth?  What resources in the community can help you in the gestation?  What resources do you have in yourself that will carry you through this time of darkness into new light?

One especially stressful Christmas when I really couldn’t add much to my schedule, I asked my sons what they really needed to enjoy Christmas.  Answer?  To make chocolate chip cookies together!  That I could do!  We had a wonderful time that year and many times since then, when I would measure and add ingredients in order while they would mix cookie dough with their (clean) hands.  We had an excellent time together and it made the rest of December a pure blessing.

The boys wanted my gift of time, love, and joy more than any other single gift.  Children need four things listed in Unplug the Christmas Machine: 

This was certainly true for my boys—they clearly wanted time with me, and the fun we had was a bonus.  Instead of making a list of their 25 most-wanted gifts, they wrestled with the expectation that they would get at most one special gift and there was a dollar limit for gift giving.  We scheduled special events that could take the place of routine meetings.  We decorated as a family, each of us taking on a special task as we sipped on hot cider and enjoyed some of those chocolate chip cookies.

If you don’t have a traditional family, don’t expect to maintain traditions dictated by someone else’s idea of a perfect holiday.

You need to be realistic about the demands on your time, your energy level, and personal expectations.  It’s okay to let things drop off the list.  What you can do … is enough.  Get creative—like, instead of making 12 kinds of cookies, make one or two kinds and trade them by the dozen with friends.  Instead of buying and mailing gifts to everyone in your extended family, try drawing names and limiting the time and expense.

As a young wife and mother, I was astonished to discover how much work my own mother had put into making Christmas a happy childhood memory for her husband and four children.  Daddy got the tree, sawed off the end, soaked it in water overnight, set it up in the living room, and strung the lights both on the tree and on the house.  Mama supervised the gift buying and wrapping, decorating and baking, card writing and entertaining.  That first Christmas after my marriage and before the birth of my firstborn was both a magical time and a time of awakening.  It was my turn to set the expectations and carry the responsibility for their implementation.

Whatever I could do … was enough, given the challenges of my life in any given year. I had to learn that the hard way.

Men, don’t let your own wishes, values, and traditions get left out of the equation.  In those early years of marriage I also learned the strange and new ways my new husband’s family celebrated Christmas.  What was essential to him from his own family became part of our new family tradition.

One easy thing to repeat from my childhood was the traditional nativity scene.  First we brought out Joseph, Mary, and the animals, so the children could play with them and rearrange them several times a day.  On Christmas Day, we brought out the Baby Jesus.  On Epiphany we added the Wise Men.  This was a very easy way to teach the traditional Bible story with an element of drama through play.

Another idea is to buy a jigsaw puzzle to bring out the day after Christmas, to provide additional family time and a way to unwind after the excitement of new toys.  It’s also something to look forward to instead of the plaintive, “Is that all there is?”

A large challenge took place whenever the extended family decided to spend several days together for Christmas. How many of you will be doing that this year?  The host family spends a lot of extra time cleaning the house, preparing beds, planning menus, and shopping for food.  The guests have to make travel arrangements, make plans for the pets and plants, secure their homes, get the laundry done, and pack all the suitcases.

All this has to happen before they pile into the car or get on the bus, train, or plane.  Crying babies, sullen teenager, short tempers, and meal requirements that take place at home now have been enclosed in a single space—the car; or on a fixed schedule—by bus, train, or plane.

But there’s more:  once you reach your destination, you may have less living space than usual.  The teens may want to be up late listening to music designed to keep adults away; you had forgotten about grandpa’s loud snoring; the early morning joggers make wake you up too early.  Each person, just doing his or her own thing, will have a way of irritating someone else in the family.  What happened to Norman Rockwell and the image of happy family life?

Fortunately or unfortunately, you can’t kill each other off, so you just have to make certain allowances.

Think about your own expectations of other people—are they realistic?  Imagine filling in the blank:  “I accept the fact that this person will probably (fill in the blank):  drink too much, talk too loud, try to control everything, rub me the wrong way.  Can you figure out a way to avoid touchy conversations?  Can you arrange to take a long walk every day?  Fill in some other blanks about the things you love about your family:  “I look forward to (fill in the blank): the energy of the kids, the good food we’ll enjoy, the chance to watch the great football game, the fact that we feel comfortable enough with each other to be less than perfect.

If you have an alcoholic in the family, refrain from encouraging everyone else to drink.  If you’re feeling a little depressed, remember that alcohol is likely to make you feel worse.  Physical activity has the opposite effect, so get yourself and your family out to the park or into the snow to make angels and generate some fun. Some of the best parties have no alcohol at all.

On the other hand, not everyone has a family.  This can be the loneliest time of the year for so many of us.  Even if you count yourself as totally unmoved by Christmas and its traditions, keep in mind that someone you know and many people you don’t know desperately need a kind word, a listening ear, a helping hand.  If you yourself are lonely, make plans to enrich your solitude with activities you enjoy.

One antidote to loneliness is to get involved in helping others.  You can go caroling with some of us on Christmas afternoon; you can find a soup kitchen that appreciates new volunteers, you can make some cookies and take them to people in the neighborhood.  Get acquainted with someone you don’t know well.  Visit an animal shelter and spend a little time with a different kind of homelessness.

Whatever your childhood traditions or your new ways of handling this holiday, let love be your guide.  Begin by loving yourself.  No holiday, whether religious or secular, is worth a toll on your health and wellbeing.  No childhood memory requires you to recreate that tradition for your own children.  What you can do …is enough.  What you choose to do …can be exactly right for you.

The Christmas season is built on hope.  Ancient peoples were afraid when the days continued to grow shorter and the land remained fallow.  Their rituals were symbolic of the hope that the sun once more would warm the earth and that rains would allow the growth and harvest of life-sustaining crops.

Into that world a baby god was conceived—the hope of his parents, the hope of his community, the hope of the world.  We are now the hope of our own parents, the hope of our own community, the hope of our own world.  Simplify your life until you are fulfilled.  Amplify your life until you have given of your abundance.

And in one final piece of advice, based on the Advent candles, remember to exhale hope, peace, joy, and love, and bring them to birth.

Expect a miracle . . . although . . . it’s just possible . . . it would have happened anyway.

Amen

Copyright ©2006, Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church.
Last edited Friday, September 21, 2007 08:41 PM by webmaster@liveoakuu.org