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Cherishing Christmas Traditions
December 1, 2007
Pastor Mike Evans
 
“Cherishing Christmas Traditions”
December 2007
Family traditions are kind of like birthmarks for the soul. A birthmark proves you were born of a woman and not hatched from an egg…as I used to tell my two oldest sons when they were young.
Family traditions are seasonal reminders not only that we are still alive, but also that there are certain things our family does that make us uniquely us.
Traditions give us a sense of place and purpose and peace in our families. Regardless of the frenetic pace of life the traditions go on. They will go on and most should go on!
If our family hadn’t had a Christmas Eve tradition as I was growing up I never would have seen the acrobatic poisoned mouse.
One of the traditions my parents passed down was that on Christmas Eve every year we had oyster stew, peanuts in the shell, and punch. Two out of three isn’t bad.
I never did swallow one of those slimy, stinky, gritty, bottom dwelling critters. But for whatever reason, everyone else in my family loved them.
To this day, I can still see the kitchen in the big yellow house at the top of the hill on West 10th Street in Atlantic. I believe the year was 1976. We had been experiencing some mouse problems in our old house and had put mouse poison underneath the kitchen cabinets.
As our family (including my Grandma Evans who just died three years ago at the age of 104) sat down for our Christmas Eve meal, a mouse came out of nowhere and ran into the middle of the floor.
Bewildered, it stood still for a moment and then darted into an empty pill bottle, which for some reason, was lying on the floor on its side. The mouse inexplicably ran head first into the empty pill bottle.
The force of its head-first entry propelled the bottle into an upright position where it remained with its tail wildly waving out of the top of the bottle.
The mouse was now looking at us with its head pinned to the bottom of the bottle.
Imagine it! One moment we…well some of us are eating oyster stew and the next minute we’re laughing hysterically at the (poisoned?) mouse that ran into the pill bottle which landed in an upright position.
The impromptu acrobatics judges gave the mouse unanimous “10” ratings. Then dad took it outside and squashed it with his foot. Very cool for a 12 year old boy! You won’t see that in the Olympics anytime soon!
Because of this family tradition, we experienced this moment in time that none of us will ever forget.
Well, that’s not exactly true. My mom has had Alzheimer’s for the past 15 years and now resides in a nursing home in a near vegetative state.
But guess what? To this day I can still see the beautiful wide smile on my mother’s face as this episode transpired. If we hadn’t had this tradition I wouldn’t have had this “birthmark” etched into my soul, and I would be the lesser for it.
What about you and your family? What traditions do you have? Even if they’re small, seemingly insignificant things, do not underestimate their importance in the lives of impressionable young children…or even seemingly indifferent teens.
If you are looking for a biblical precedent for traditions, look no further than the yearly Jewish feasts and celebrations in Jerusalem that were incumbent on all faithful Jews in ancient times.
According to Jewish law and practice there were three annual feasts mandated by God in Deuteronomy 16:16 (Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths [or Tabernacles]).
In John Chapter 7, we find Jesus in the northern region of Galilee, with the Feast of Booths at hand.
Jesus is now roughly 30 years old but it was still the family tradition to head off to Jerusalem once a year for the Feast of Booths.
Jesus’ brothers tried to convince him to go with them to celebrate the Feast together. He refused, but later privately went to the Feast.
Surely Jesus’ family had made this trek many times. Surely they also had some great memories from these trips.
This feast lasted for seven full days during which there was much eating and celebrating of God’s protection and provision for His people during the years of wandering in the wilderness.
The Feast of Booths was the best time of the whole year in Israel. The harvest was in, the Jewish people had been forgiven for their sins and so it was a time of great rejoicing, sort of like Thanksgiving and Christmas all rolled into one.
Thousands and thousands of Jews would crowd the hills around Jerusalem during this Feast.
On the first day of the feast each participant had to collect twigs or myrtle, willow and palm to construct their “booth.”
These “booths” were very light, temporary shelters which they would live in for seven days and nights to remind them of the time their ancestors had spent in the wilderness (see Leviticus 23:33-35, 42-44).
The ceilings were to be thin enough that they could see the stars as a reminder of their vulnerability and complete dependence upon God.
Doesn’t this sound neat already? Another crucial element of this feast was the ingathering of the “labor of the field.” The harvest was complete.
God had once again been faithful, and so, each family brought the best samples of their crops and hung them in their individual “booths”.
This feast was a very big deal! In fact it was the biggest and most important celebration of the Jewish year.
In John Chapter 10, we find Jesus at yet another feast. This was the Feast of Dedication and it is mentioned only here in the entire Bible.
The Feast of Dedication, which today is known as Hanukkah, came into being during the silent years, the 400 years between the last Prophet Malachi to the coming of John the Baptist.
During these four centuries, there was no discernable voice from God by way of the prophets.
In 165 B.C., the temple in Jerusalem was re-dedicated to God by Judas Maccabaeus after it had been profaned for 10 years by the pagan king Antiochus, who brutally oppressed the Jews.
He desecrated the temple and forced pork down the throats of priests.
He turned the chambers of the temple into a brothel and converted the altar meant for burnt offerings into a throne for Zeus (see the apocryphal, non-canonical book 2 Maccabees 10:1-8 for a fuller description).
And so, when Judas Maccabaeus defeated Antiochus, he (Judas) declared that every year on the 25th day of the month of Kislev, (roughly mid-December on our calendar) every Jewish family was to rejoice with gladness and joy for eight days.
For each of those eight days, eight candles were to burn in each Jewish home. Sounds like kind of a neat tradition to me!
What I don’t want anyone to think after reading this article is that you must put careful thought and meticulous advance preparation into developing family traditions.
Let them happen naturally! Let them be simple. Let them be uncomplicated…especially let them be uncomplicated!
Want some ideas? 1. Take your family on a drive around town in December to look at Christmas lights and displays, while playing your favorite Christmas CDs.
2. Make Christmas candy together and prepare small packages of the final product for family and friends.
3. Buy an advent wreath, light the appropriate candles, and read a small portion of the birth narratives after supper several times a week.
4. Pop up some popcorn, let the kids bring pop into the living room, and watch your favorite Christmas DVDs together.
5. Gather around the piano or dulcimer or accordion and sing Christmas songs together as a family.
6. Put a dorky little gift into a special tree ornament for the young children to discover each new morning of December. Some days make it a treasure hunt with multiple clues and a classier gift.
7. Go Christmas caroling as a family to shut-ins from church or a nearby nursing home. Bring some of that candy and make the R.Ns mad.
8. Ask your children what is important to them regarding Christmas celebrations. You may be surprised how easy they are to please.
There are countless possibilities in developing family traditions. Don’t let yourself be limited by these eight possibilities.
Last night as I was making my famous caramels, I had Benjamin at my side. I said to him, “Benjamin, one day I’m going to die. When that happens, I want you to be able to carry on the candy making tradition into your family.”
And so I have dubbed Benjamin the junior apprentice Christmas candy-maker of the Evans household.
Yes, I suppose there are more important things I should pass on to my children, and I trust that some of them are occurring, but you must try to understand…..my caramels are reallllly good! (as are the toffee, peanut brittle, and fudge).
And so I encourage you one and all to think of traditions not as burdens but rather as birthmarks that give us all a sense of place and purpose and peace in our families.
On the lighter side:
Yucks and Hucks
Yucks:
On June 7, 2007 I began gutting our primary family bathroom, the only one with a tub. In my youthful enthusiasm I told Karla that if all went well I might have it usable by the 4th of July (While unspoken this was assumed to be the same year).
While my original estimate was 27 days, the reality was far different: After 178 days, the bathroom is once again usable. And I worked hard! So wives, take it easy on your husbands. At least we’re trying.
Hucks:
Back in June I took the whole family to a pizza joint in Waukee to see Governor Mike Huckabee. About fifty people gathered to hear some refreshing ideas from a principled man.
At that time he was merely exploring the possibility of running for President. Now, he’s the frontrunner in Iowa. No one is happier about that than my nine year old Elisabeth. Why? Because in her brief conversation with him she found that he too has a daughter named Sarah Elisabeth. So now she keeps asking us if that man she likes is President yet…and we tell her… not yet!
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