The Reason for the Season(IMHO)

On Lakeview Drive in the Rossville/Ft. Oglethorpe area of Georgia, this morning I drove past a Baptist church that I drive by quite often. Their sign read, “Is Jesus the reason for the season?”  This sign set me off (as most church signs do).

Even if Jesus is the most important person in the world to you, and Christmas is your most important holiday, and thinking about Jesus is the most important aspect of Christmas, it is impossible for “Jesus” to be the only reason for the season. The “holiday” season seems to start a week or so before Thanksgiving. Families make plans to travel or to stay at home and entertain family and friends. They do many things to celebrate Thanksgiving together. It seems to be okay to say “Happy Holidays” before and during Thanksgiving.  After Thanksgiving, though, there’s a change. The people who believe saying “Merry Christmas” is the only authentic way to celebrate CHRISTmas appear in droves. The “Keep Christ in Christmas” and “Jesus is the reason for the season” directives are displayed all over the place. It is no longer appropriate to say “Happy Holidays.” That phrase dishonors “Christ in Christmas”—the reason for the season.

For me it seems that “Happy Holidays” is inclusive and “Merry Christmas”, especially with the emphasis put on it by the “evangelicals, is exclusive. There are many “holiday” traditions that are celebrated around December 25^th other than Christmas. “Happy Holidays” is a way to honor and include these traditions during the “Christmas” season. "Merry Christmas" is included in "Happy Holidays".Some "holiday" traditions are sacred; others are secular. The “evangelicals” cry “foul”, though, that these people have no business embracing “Christmas” and that Christians have every right to insist that “Merry Christmas” is the only authentic way to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

But as I said, even if the birth of Jesus is the only reason December 25^th exists for you, then you still have serious problems with the adage that Jesus is the ONLY reason for the season. Try celebrating just Jesus without the trappings of Christmas. During Christmas you enjoy or endure family gatherings. During Christmas you enjoy, or at least participate, in the exchange of gifts. These gifts are wrapped in beautiful paper and adorned with string and bows. During Christmas you decorate your home, inside and out, with bright colors, trees, special ornaments and lighting and many other things. Some of these ornaments evoke love and joy for special people who gave them to you. And let’s not forget Santa Claus and now The Elf on the Shelf during this celebration. Santa arrives in his sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer and this elf moves around the house through the days leading up to the 25^th,  bringing surprises and playing tricks, and then on Christmas Eve disappears to return to the North Pole or wherever you tell your children he goes. All of this, even if you claim that “Jesus in the Reason for the Season”, is a part of the celebration.

Finally, even if you do none of these things—no family gatherings, no exchange of gifts, no holiday foods, no carols or candle light services, no Santa and elves,  no trips to Grandma’s house and only gather your family around the fire on Christmas Eve to read the Biblical narrative, especially Luke chapter 2, then Jesus is not the only reason for the season. In these old stories you’ll find, not only the baby in a manger of straw, but angels, shepherds, wise men,  Mary and Joseph, the natal star and others in the cast of places and characters that are a vital part of the story. If Jesus had just appeared in that manger with nothing or no one around Him, as a human being He would have died of exposure and starvation.

So celebrate “Jesus” during the season. Exclude, if you will, all other people and traditions besides what happens for you on December 24^th and 25^th, try your best to evoke a feeling of guilt in those who do other things besides “Jesus” during the holidays. But try as you will, you cannot escape the trappings that make Christmas “Christmas” for millions of people. And, please, at least say, “Jesus is my reason for the season” so as not to suggest that He is the only reason for all of us.