Month: December 2004

i hate it when we CHRISTians give up things that are actually a part of our story. case in point – santa claus. there has recently been a debate santa on the youth specialties forum and on some pastor’s wives forum that my wife goes to every now and then (usually to get mad because we don’t agree with much that is said there). in both of these discussions i’ve been amazed by the number of people who are willing to simply give up on the legend of st. nicholas. some people are so upset by the commercial aspects of view on santa that they are willing to completely forget about the legend which shows nicholas as an amazing example of following CHRIST. nicholas is a part of our story. yes the world has ruined and corrupted parts of the legend but that is because we have let them. nicholas is a part of the line of followers of CHRIST and a part of “the family.” you’re suppose to fight for family. yet we are so willing to give him up and let someone else claim him (consumerism). i hate it when we give up our heritage.

the history channel’s website has a great article on the development of the modern santa claus myths. the history channel give credit where credit is do. they recognize that st. nicholas is ours (CHRISTIans’). i just wish we could recognize what the world already does.

last night the austins came by our house caroling. they are great people and pam and i are both glad that we have gotten the chance to get to know them better over the past year. they have become a huge asset for the youth ministry.

after the austins sang to us, pam, the boys, and i started a new yearly tradition – looking for the tacky CHRISTmas decorations. we drove around our own and several other neighborhoods looking for the best example of a complete lack of taste in CHRISTmas decorations. i have come up with a theory for making the tackiest decorations. i believe that a yard’s tackiness is determined by the number of divergent CHRISTmas themes found within a single yard. the best yards where the ones in which you could see plastic nativity scenes, wooden cut-outs of disney characters, and blow-up santas. having a lot of stuff in your yard is important but if it all looks like it belongs together then you miss out on allot of the tackiness. lots of colored lights are definitely a most. yet the most important thing is still combining odd themes together.

we found a quite a few houses with just the right combinations of odd mixes. my personal favorites were the houses where extreme religious themes and cartoon characters were combined. there’s just nothing quite like seeing goofy and mickey mouse worshipping at the foot of baby JESUS. it makes me laugh even now just thinking about it. we have one neighbor who has a vast combination of themes and lights. the aurora that the CHRISTmas lights produce from down the block reminds me of driving up on a football field. i have a great deal of respect for people who will put so much effort into these things.

here’s a picture of one of the homes we enjoyed. it wasn’t the best home (my camera’s battery had died by the time we had made it to the really good homes) but it was a decent one.

here’s the set-up for the back of the room for the view. this was our “welcome table”.

Last survivor of ‘Christmas truce’ tells of his sorrow – guardian article

i had heard about this story before, of an unauthorized cease fire that took place around CHRISTmas day 1914, but i never really believed it was true. apparently it is a true story and this article details some of the memories of the last survivor of that day. the stories say that the two opposing sides just stopped shooting and began celebrating the only thing they could celebrate in the middle of that war ravaged land. they exchanged gifts, the sang songs, they even supposedly played football (soccer) in “no man’s land.”

it’s a really cool story. yet the sad thing is that the unofficial truce eventually ended and the people who were moments before celebrating “GOD with us” began shooting each other and destroying the image of their MAKER later during the same day. if only we could follow the PRINCE of PEACE all the time in such away that everyday would be a CHRISTmas truce.

the picture to the side is from my youngest’ school second grade musical. the picture is from the song they sang named “yankee doodle santa”. it’s basically a combination of the song yankee doodle dandy and basic modern commercial santa claus mythology. santa at least started out as a spiritual icon. he was a hero of the faith until his basic history was stolen for commercialistic gain. so santa is not completely a spiritual icon anymore, yet “yankee doodle santa” is still basically a combination of a religious and national image.

this is just a children’s musical yet this one song does convey a tendency within american CHRISTianity that i hate and that is the deification of all things patriotic and american. just consider the painting that is within the rotunda of the capitol building in washington. it’s called the apotheosis of washington and apotheosis means “deification”. at the center of our government is a mural depicting our first president becoming “divine”. this actually sounds very similar to the imperial cult of rome or the deification of egyptian pharaohs. both of these practices happened to get people to worship the state. the nation in and of itself became the focus of the people’s religion. if the people worshipped the state then they would support it.

modern american CHRISTianity has a tendency to fall right into this. often we like to think that agreeing with the state is the sign of a good CHRISTian. this is called “state religion” or nationalism by some. i just call it wrong. so we smile when our kids sing songs like “yankee doodle santa.” we also turn our churches into huge patriotic parties during the fourth of july and our conservative churches barely ever cry ‘foul” over what our nation does.

the santa, or saint nick, who has been turned into an image of commercialism and now nationalism was originally a follower of CHRIST who because of his love for JESUS gave out gifts to people in need. the original nicholas was an example for us to follow. “yankee doodle santa” is just a joke to be laughed at because he has no real hope.