Let me start by saying that I have a certain…naivety when it comes to Christmas. I love this time of year. I love everything that comes with it. I love the music (The Glee Christmas Album is a new favorite). I love the decorations (I have a tree!). I love the commercials (the first one I saw this year was for Christmas-scented Glade candles!). I love the TV specials (“I’m Mister Green Christmas, I’m Mister Sun!”). I love the birth of Baby Jesus (You didn’t seriously think I was gonna forget Jesus, did you?).
I love this time of year. :D
And I cannot comprehend it when people tell me they hate Christmas. What’s to hate? The cheery attitudes? The sale prices? The tinsel and twinkly lights? The shortened church services? What, pray tell, is so awful about Christmas that people cannot simply enjoy it?
Well, let me tell you a little story…
It was early October. Being in Texas, the weather was still unapologetically warm, and the leaves on the trees and shrubbery were adamantly green. People were filing in and out of Target and Walmart trying to find costumes and candy to assuage their children’s appetite for the truly unruly event that is Halloween. But atop a hill at the cross of two parkways, inside First Lutheran Church, the office was buzzing with discussion of Christmas.
The advent of Advent was upon him and one young, bright-eyed director of youth and family ministries was scrambling to come up with a youth-centric event to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child.
I, Daniel Hofmann, was trying to find a Christmas program that would ease the kids of FLC into becoming more involved. As I had been told over and over and over, this was to be the first time in years that this congregation would have anything of the sort. Of course what I was really hearing was, “don’t screw this one up, you whipper-snapper!”
After much deliberation, I settled on a light play (more like a glorified skit than anything) set around the silly notion of the shepherds (you know, the ones from the Bible) being put on trial for disturbing the peace (you see, it’s funny because they didn’t have a judicial system). I was satisfied with my choice. Now I had to begin the joyful task of spinning play practice every Sunday after church into something young people would want to be a part of.
Let me tell you the real magic behind my choice: this play, wink-wink-nudge-nudge-ingly titled A Not-So-Silent Night (get it?!), was manufactured to be as painless as possible. The entirety of the play, from the dialogue to the sound effects, all came prerecorded on a CD. In essence, all the kids would have to do was pantomime the lines and actions described! It was genius! Genius, I tell you!
So Halloween comes and goes without many people showing a sudden desire to be in a Christmas play (go figure). About two weeks before Thanksgiving, I, the charming, naïve youth director decided to take matters into his own hands…something he really should have done from the start.
I divvy out parts, completely and shamelessly conning and bribing kids to participate with promises of stardom, free food, and confirmation credit (it’s a very funny thing how kids will do so much work just to get out of having to actively listen to a sermon that they have to sit through anyway).
We begin our first practice that next Sunday. I bring the promised free food and look out to see only about half the people I gave parts to.
No matter, I tell myself, it’s only the first practice. So all we do is eat pizza and listen to the prerecorded CD. I left that practice none too reassured.
Our next practice was when things actually started rolling. We began in the sanctuary this time, and each child star was given a script to follow along with as we played the CD. Of course, this proved too much for the ittie bitties and some of the more…attention-deficit older kids. We struggled along on shaky ground until a particularly exasperated mother offered the suggestion that the kids actually say the lines. Unsure of what would happen, I agreed that we could try this. So yes, we were rolling, but the question of rolling uphill or downhill remained unanswered.
The practice after that (the Sunday after Thanksgiving) was the first one where I actually thought we were putting something together worth seeing. Sure, the kids still had their faces glued to their scripts, but they were actually getting into it…as much as confirmation-age kids can get into a children’s pageant. The only problem was, we still had not had a practice with all parts present.
My love for the winter months was beginning to wane. It didn’t help that my mother called to tell me that she and the rest of my family would be trekking to Longview to see my production. It also didn’t help that the greater population of adults within my congregation had not come forward to help out.
The final week of practice loomed its ugly head on Sunday December 12. We would have one more practice that afternoon, a dress rehearsal on Saturday, and then the finished performance the next Sunday, December 19. I stressed to everyone that dress rehearsal was not an option. I must have sent about three reminder emails that week, praying to God that everyone would show up.
On the night of the dress rehearsal, we were missing four kids. The projectors were acting up. The set was still not complete. And my parents were in town. If someone had told me to, “cheer up, it’s Christmas,” I would have punched him in the neck. I went home that evening feeling less than hopeful. At best, the show would be a scattershot of kids bumbling around the stage in funny costumes. I had so much riding on this event, and it didn’t look good.
The next day dawns cold and crisp, with a foreboding fog mystifying the ground. The morning’s worship time is a blur of people’s well wishes and how excited they are for the evening’s performance. Great. So excited. I spend the rest of the day getting the set ready and making everything look perfect. At this point, the silver lining is, “at least it looked great.”
To what I can only chalk up to a Christmas miracle, the entire cast makes it to the church in enough time for us to be more than ready for the absolutely unexpected throng of people that mill into the sanctuary before the show.
With a quick silent prayer and a nod to the kids, I signal to the sound guy to begin the music, and then we’re off.
Apparently, Christmas is magic, because every person hits their lines. Every costume looks fantastic. Every actor is speaking clearly and without slur. And people are laughing. Actually laughing.
The show ends with a rambunctious “Joy to the World” and as I step up to the podium to wrap up the event, I cannot believe how well it had gone.
Every single face is smiling at me. My mother is positively melting my face with her beaming grin. I stutter through a quick thank you and begin to walk down the aisle. Not daring to look anywhere but at the double doors ahead of me, I see out of my peripherals every person standing and applauding. One even shouts my name. I make it out of the sanctuary and lock myself in the bathroom, listening to the people outside praise the production they’ve just seen. Breathing way too fast, I lean against the wall and congratulate my reflection on a job well done.
Once I’ve calmed down and changed into a new shirt, I slip casually into the fellowship hall, where Christmas treats are being served as a reception snack. And when I say casually, I mean I was immediately bombarded with handshakes, high-fives, and someone even tousled my hair. Speechless, I simply smile.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I owe everything that happened that night to the kids. Without them, this would not have happened, and I do make time to say that to the room at large, but of course, the adults make no apologies for giving me equal praise. And who am I to stop them?
The night loses steam slowly; people dwindle out the doors one by one (my parents are of course at the height of alertness, conversing with everyone they can about the wonder that is their oldest son). As the last group hails, “good night,” I am more than ready to go home, crack open a beer, and put my feet up.
I started this post by telling you that I love Christmas. Like any TV Christmas special worth its tinsel, my story has gone through all the staples of development: the cute, naïve main character, the impossible Christmas task, opposition from Grinchy Scrooge-misers, a Christmas lesson learned, and a climatic happy, musical ending in which everyone basks in the sparkly joy of Christmas.
Where I hope my tale differs from others is the lesson learned. While the Grinch and Scrooge both hated Christmas from the start and were shown the errors of their ways, I began my story with an brazen admiration for the holiday.
I said before that I don’t understand why people hate this time of year. Some say it’s become too commercial. Some say people don’t celebrate for the right reasons. Even pastors say it’s become a time when their roles as spiritual leaders are shrunk into roles as entertainers. I get all that. I really do. Having had to put time and effort into what was essentially a piece of entertainment for the rest of the congregation, I can sympathize. However…
I also said before that I approach Christmas with naivety. And with all the complications our little pageant was confronted with, there were times when I wanted to throw up my hands at the impossibility of celebrating Christ’s birth with 20 kids whose attitudes said they’d rather be somewhere else. I guess you could say my heart was shrinking to three sizes too small.
But when that first musical cue on Sunday night began, the Spirit of Christmas Present slapped me in the face. That impossible Christmas task was unfolding very possibly in front of me.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that Christmas will most likely always be a commercial smorgasbord. It will likely always be celebrated by Christians and seculars alike. There will always be things that make you want to run over a snowman or smack a Salvation Army bellringer.
So get over it.
Being naïve about Christmas, in my ever-so-humble opinion, is the only way to approach this time of year. With all the secularization of Christmas, it boggles my mind that so many Christians opt to turn up their nose at the holiday instead of choosing to instill its true meaning. We cannot afford to let that stand in our way of celebrating the “most wonderful time of the year”.
Do you think the shepherds thought themselves better than others because they saw Jesus? Do you think Mary and Joseph even began to grasp the weight of the events of that night long ago? No way. Instead they unabashedly, almost foolishly, celebrated the birth of Jesus, without regard for anything else.
Because really, what else matters?
So that’s it. My very own Christmas Carol. Kind of a backwards journey, now that I look at it. But I hope you can find some meaning in it too. For all its ham and cheese, my story is one I’ll always remember.
I love this time of year. :D
-Danul
