US Mennonite Brethren

The Christmas season is fun, but sometimes it can be kind of frustrating. Families that have a lot of holiday traditions, for example, can get bored with doing the same thing every year. They start to wonder, “How can we change things up?” People who always try something different for the holidays face another challenge. Eventually they run out of new ideas and ask, “What are we going to do now?”

Well, I’m here to help. Following are some fresh ideas for your holiday activity list.

First, you can have conversations with your friends. You might be thinking, “I always talk about Christmas with my friends.” Maybe so, but do you talk about the reason for the season? No, not the joy of eggnog appearing on the supermarket shelves. I mean Jesus. Aha, forgot about him, didn’t you?

A lot of people do. Strange as it seems, Jesus doesn’t get that much publicity this time of year. Christmas is supposed to be about his birth, but a lot of folks hardly notice. That’s why I’m rehearsing the following script to slip into my conversations:

Me: So how are you going to celebrate the birthday of the most influential teacher in history, who was sentenced to death for his radical ideas yet lives again to save us from ourselves and help us live lives of thoughtful service rather than selfish materialism?

My friend: Whuh?

Me: I mean, how are you going to celebrate Christmas?

My friend: First I’m going to drag a pine tree into my house and hang stuff on it, then I’m going to string up enough lights on my house to illuminate a small nation, then I’m going to shop for odd presents, then I’m going eat enough to feed two small nations, and finally I’m going to wonder how I got born into such a weird family. You know, the usual.

Me: Yeah, same here.

The second thing you can do for the holidays is rearrange your nativity scene. Something I’ve noticed about Christmas pageants and nativity scenes is that they don’t always have a high degree of biblical accuracy. Like, what’s with the shepherds wearing bathrobes? I thought they were out in the fields watching their flocks, not just getting out of the shower.

Even more puzzling are the “three wise men” that show up in the stable where Jesus was born. The Bible doesn’t say there were three of those guys, or that they came to the manger. The wise men, however many there were, actually visited Jesus anywhere from months to a couple of years later at a house where his family was staying.

So if you have a nativity scene on display in your home, here’s how to fix it. Just take the wise men from the stable and move them to the ceramic Christmas village you have in the other room. You could place them at the front door of a likely looking house where Jesus might be. Just look for the place with a star overhead.

The third thing you could do is raise a glass of beer in honor of the holidays. “Whoa,” you might be saying. “I won’t drink beer in celebration of Christmas!” Well, you might not, but plenty of other people will. Apparently it isn’t so taboo for people of faith to enjoy alcoholic beverages anymore. I read about a church in Washington, D.C., that even started offering its own house brew for the popular “pub lunches” it served after Sunday morning services. For a Christmas fundraiser the church also brewed a batch of spiced ale that sold out immediately.

I also read about a Midwestern church that started to hold outreach gatherings at a microbrewery. As you might expect, those events went over well with the young adults the church was trying to reach. As you also might expect, it caused conniptions among the church’s denominational authorities.

That’s understandable on the grounds that Jesus wouldn’t approve of doing ministry in a place where alcoholic beverages are enjoyed, right? He was at that wedding, for instance, where guests drank so much wine they ran out and Jesus had to make more…oh wait, that’s not a good example of Jesus condemning drinking. Well, at the last supper Jesus passed wine around to his disciples and…. OK, another bad example. Hmm. Let me try to find the Bible verse that prohibits sharing the gospel in a microbrewery, and then I’ll get back to you.

One more thing you could try this holiday season is going to the beach to search for the face of Jesus in a seashell. That’s what one woman found in Florida, and she claims she’s been having good luck ever since.

I need to locate a shell like that. Since I’m heading out right now to find Christmas gifts for a bunch of people who don’t need anything, I’ll need all the luck I can get.