...And They're Off...

Rev Peter A. Friedrichs

November 26, 2006

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me..."

"On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me..."

Do you remember the gifts on the ninth day of Christmas? (Ladies Dancing) How about the 11th day of Christmas? (Pipers Piping) If you total up all the gifts that "my true love gave to me" over the twelve days of Christmas, you'd have 404 gifts (not including the pear trees that the partridges come in). It includes 22 turtle doves, 30 French hens, 36 calling birds, 40 gold rings, 42 geese... well, you get the idea. Basically, you'd have a very crowded and noisy house! There is a theory that the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" started as a sneaky way for Catholics in medieval England, who were prohibited from openly practicing their religion, to teach their children the basic beliefs of their faith. For example, the partridge is said to represent Christ because, just as Christ died to save all believers, so does a mother partridge save her offspring by feigning injury to draw attackers away from them. The pear tree supposedly represents the cross, the two turtle doves the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The four calling birds were meant to stand for the four gospels of Mark, Luke, Matthew and John, and so on. And in this Christmas carol, "my true love" isn't some love-crazed shopaholic boyfriend with an American Express Gold card. "My true love" speaks of God, the giver of all gifts that we enjoy in our lives.

Some of you may adore it, but I suspect that many of you probably share my dislike of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," as it repeats over and over and over again. My favorite version of this song is sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks. (Come to think of it, most of my favorite renditions of Christmas carols are sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks.) About halfway through the countdown, you hear Alvin starting to complain. "...seven swans a swimming, I'm getting tired, five gold rings, four calling birds, three French hens, can we stop now Dave? and a partridge in a pear tree." But there's another reason that the Twelve Days of Christmas ranks low on my list beyond its mere repetition. You see, I have a theory that this innocent-sounding song is responsible, at least in part, for linking the Christmas holidays with excessive gift-giving. Think about it: we teach this song to our kids and they learn about how Christmas lasts for days and days, and how every day you get more and more presents, lavish, extravagant presents, until you can't even move around your house for all the boxes and wrapping paper! Now, I know that some of you here don't celebrate Christmas, but I'll bet that, whatever your faith, you've probably heard this Christmas carol and you've probably experienced some of the craziness of the season, if only vicariously.

I say all this somewhat in jest, of course. Our 16th century forbears could never have predicted the deluge of presents that we find under many of our Christmas trees on the morning that is meant to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Before I go much further, though, I have a few confessions to make. First, when I was a child my parents were incredibly generous, and each Christmas morning my brother, sisters and I would come bounding out of our bedrooms to find a veritable mountain of gifts awaiting us. Presents piled high under the tree in the living room cascaded out into the hallway. It was an embarrassment of riches that thrilled me to no end! My second confession is that as a child I was not particularly good at sharing, especially on Christmas. In fact, I would stake out a corner of the living room as "my space" where I'd toss each gift that I rushed to unwrap, and no one could go near it. I also was perennially disappointed when Christmas morning was all over. After tearing through the mountain of gifts (I was always done first because I was so impatient), I'd have to wait around while my siblings oohed and ahhed as they continued to open new treasures. While my parents were very deliberate about buying each of us exactly the same number of presents, because of my rushed ripping open of my packages, it always seemed that they got more than I did. Christmas morning was thus an emotional rollercoaster for me. Finally, I must confess that, as a parent, I replicated this Christmas morning spectacle with our children. Leafing through photo albums of Christmases past while Becka and Julia were growing up, you find the obligatory "before" photo of the Christmas tree piled high with presents, our living room barely able to contain them. I am thus as guilty as anyone of succumbing to the "Christmas Machine" that we heard about in our reading this morning.

Given all this background, and knowing that I have been a rather reliable cog in the Christmas machine, it may seem somewhat disingenuous for me to say that the time has come to put an end to this madness. When the election was over in early November, I was looking forward to blessed relief from those incessant campaign ads on television. But no sooner had they stopped than our airwaves were filled with visions of gleaming new computers, cool teens playing in fake snow wearing their Gap sweaters, and the brightly scrubbed faces of children, eyes and mouths agape at the wondrous toys their parents had bought them. When Irene and I traveled to Lancaster on the first weekend in November, all the Christmas decorations were up at the outlet mall, and I saw signs proclaiming that the stores would be open at midnight on Thanksgiving. Last Thursday morning, I went out to my driveway to get the morning paper and there I found a "Special Advertising Supplement" that dwarfed the daily news. In fact, I weighed it and it came in at a hefty 4 lbs! 4 pounds of ads! We all know about this thing now called "Black Friday," where shoppers line up like race horses in a starting gate, waiting for the doors of the malls and stores to open, and when they're released they jostle and jockey for position like so many ill-behaved thoroughbreds. But even Black Friday has now begun to lose its significance as it eats into Thanksgiving Day, with some stores opening in the evening of this most precious holiday. "Christmas Creep" has infiltrated not only Thanksgiving, but Halloween as well, with retailers dismantling their displays of candy and costumes with tinsel and trees before October 31st. A friend of mine claims that Christmas is creeping in the other direction as well. He predicts that within a decade we'll see another gift-giving holiday firmly established here. You see, in Latin American countries it is customary to give gifts not on Christmas Day, but on the Feast of the Epiphany, which is observed on January 6. This is the twelfth day of Christmas and the day on which the three magi presented their gifts to the Christ child. My friend believes that with our growing Hispanic population, giving gifts on January 6 will become common, and that retailers will capitalize on yet another holiday to separate us from our money.

This whole gift-giving extravaganza may seem like a relatively recent phenomenon, but it has actually been traced back to pagan traditions around the holidays of Saturnalia and Calends. In his book Unwrapping Christmas, editor Daniel Miller describes Christmas as an amalgamation of the three separate Roman holidays: the Dies Natalis Invicti, a festival centered on the family and on spiritual values; the Saturnalia, a carnival like occasion; and the Calends Festival, a celebration which involved lavish feasting, and gift-giving. Miller writes:

Others, including author Tom Flynn, who wrote The Trouble With Christmas, trace the roots for our modern dysfunction around Christmas to early Victorian times. In fact, Flynn lays the blame squarely in the lap of a prominent Unitarian, Charles Dickens and the vision of Christmas he creates in his great work, A Christmas Carol. Reflecting on Flynn's claim, my Unitarian Universalist colleague Rev. David E. Bumbaugh tells us that Dickens is responsible "for our images of carolers, wrapped in mufflers and cloaks, wearing tall hats and bonnets, standing under softly glowing street lamps, as they sing to people hurrying hither and thither with packages under their arms. It is from Dickens that we derive our dream of a family gathered together around the hearth in perfect harmony and total accord. More than anyone else, Charles Dickens created the contemporary dream which we work so hard to incarnate every year when the great Winter festival comes around." So, we have a Unitarian forefather to thank for the predicament we now find ourselves in!

As the authors of Unplug the Christmas Machine tell us,

In our heart of hearts, we know that maxing out our credit cards will not bring these "most sacred desires of the human heart" into being. Intact families, devoted partners, generous spouses, grateful children, warmth, safety and love cannot be found on the shelves of any store. Yet, we feel compelled to feed the Christmas Machine, year in and year out. Even those who don't celebrate Christmas come under its spell, with Hanukah taking on significance far beyond its historic and theological origins, and Kwanzaa becoming established for many of the same reasons.

Let me be clear that I am not advocating a boycott of Christmas or some other form of Scrooge-like "Bah Humbug-ness." Exchanging gifts can be a deeply meaningful practice, a way of expressing gratitude to others who have enriched our lives during the year. What I am calling for is a return to the values and principles we espouse in our lives during the remainder of the year. As in our daily lives, and perhaps to an even higher degree, we need to exercise an intentionality around our decision-making during this manic season. Amidst all the hype about what things we need to be happy or to make our kids happy, we must return to our roots, to our spiritual center. What are my highest values, and how can I affirm them through my actions? What does this season of the year mean to me, and how best can I share that with those around me? How best can I express the love and appreciation I feel for my friend, my lover, my children, my colleagues? What does it mean to be a responsible steward of the earth's resources, caretakers of the least among us? Where can my talents and my energies best be applied? What gifts can I offer to a hurting world? I would suggest that we need to ask ourselves these questions over and over again as we negotiate the minefields of the holiday season, when forces mount against us to disorient, distract and dislocate us with empty promises of instant happiness.

This, I think, is the true danger of the Christmas Machine. It offers up false gods to worship, gods which are shiny and new and seductive. By making promises that it cannot keep, it lures us away from our spiritual center. Instead of bringing us closer together, it separates us from each other and from ourselves. So, let us sing our carols, drink our eggnog, trim our trees, light our menorahs, give and receive our gifts. But let us do so with a mindfulness that honors who we truly are and what we truly believe. Then may we all partake of the joy and wonder that this season has to offer.

Blessed Be and Amen.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Did this sermon bring forth any special feelings, thoughts or concerns that you would like to share? Consider this link as providing you with an opportunity to talk back.