“A Home For The Holidays”
the Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne, December 23, 2007

Congratulations, you have made it to Christmas. It’s been a long haul – from school and church starting back at the end of summer through Halloween, Thanksgiving and all the preparations for the holidays while the weather turned wet and cold. It’s been busy, busy, busy. Whew! We need a break! Oh the weather outside is frightful, the fire is so delightful. Yes, we need some down time just to sit in a big overstuffed chair and snooze for an afternoon or two. Can I get an Amen?

If you ask me, getting some rest is the real reason for the season, and I don’t want to hear any old fogey jokes about it. Just look at nature, all the plants and animals know to take some down time while the days are short. But, we humans had to create a winter holiday, and not just a little old Monday off from work holiday, a really big one. We have to have this big hullabaloo before we can give in to our weariness and rest for awhile.

Why did we do that? Well, the early humans who lived more or less outdoors, were afraid when the sun was visible less and less and the weather turned cold. The needed its heat, and understood the plants and animals they depended upon for food needed the sun, too. They were afraid, with good reason, they might starve or freeze in the harsh winter. When they had watched the sun wane and then it began to wax again, they felt relief, and the beginnings of hope that warmth and food would also be theirs once again. When people’s observance of the sun’s cycle became sophisticated enough to mark the shortest day, what we now call the winter solstice, they celebrated the sun’s return right after it. They used their celebration to re-assure themselves that life as they knew it would go on. Then with full bellies they could let go of some of their fear and go through the period of winter dormancy. So, the real reason for the celebrations at this time of year is the solstice.

Our human forebears had other reasons for a holiday this time of year. Early Christians established December 25th as Jesus’ birth date, probably based on a Jewish concept called “Integral Age” which held that great prophets died on the date of their conception. If Jesus died during Passover 9, months later gets you to December 25th. In the year 274 of the Christian Era, in an attempt to unite his collapsing empire, Roman Emperor Aurelian inaugurated a holiday to be celebrated by everyone on December 25thand called it the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun”. Christians and Pagans have been arguing ever since over which came first. What we refer to as “The Holidays” today is a mixture of many traditions including Chanukah, Kwanza and others. When we look deeper, it turns out there are many reasons for the season.
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Ever since 1945 the lyrics of Sammy Cahn have been telling us:
It's the most wonderful time of the year with the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you "Be of good cheer"
It's the most wonderful time of the year
It's the hap-happiest season of all
With tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.

The problem with The Most Wonderful Time of the year is that - for many of us it's not.
Lack of money to live up to expectations, family difficulties, or just the impossibility of making a specific week in our lives perfect, can all contribute to anxiety about the holidays. One church member expressed a sentiment common among UUs, “I’m just not sure how I can support Christmas as a holiday when I don’t believe in the event of the virgin birth or that Jesus was God. I can do the lights and Santa for the kids, but…” I tried to just not celebrate Christmas for a few years, and for the first time I became aware of what it must feel like to Jews or Muslims to have “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas” imposed on them from every direction. Even if you like Christmas, it can be overwhelming. You can’t escape it, and our society can be very hard on people who don’t go along with the program.

And the feeling of being pushed to the edges of our society isn’t helped by Bill O Reilly’s War on Christmas, which is I must say a metaphor most ill-suited to convey the spirit of Christmas. But, from his point of view a war does it exist and the stakes are high – He’s out to proclaim “the American way of life is the most wonderful, with his concept of a fictional traditional style of celebrating Christmas as the shining example of what America stands for. He’s not really about preserving Christianity, or even putting Christ back in Christmas. And, he’s not anti-materialist. Shopping fits the “way of life” he promotes, and he would be the first to tell you to go to the malls and shop till you drop.

While many Americans don’t buy wholeheartedly into Christmas, there isn’t really anything like a war over it. First, we can’t even agree on the symbols we are ostensibly fighting over. Who gets to claim the wreath? Is it a symbol of Christmas or a figurative Sun and therefore pagan? I think people can have it both ways. Second, many of us don’t want the “way of life” O’Reilly touts, if it ever existed. Many traditionalists wish us to return the 50s, the decade they claim as the ideal. Well, that decade wasn’t so ideal if you were an African American, or a woman, or a Unitarian or Universalist for that matter. Remember WASPs - White Anglo Saxon Protestants? If you weren’t one of those, you don’t want to go back to the 50s. There was no room for us then, and still none today, in his model…
I am not personally down on Christmas. I have come back to a place where I can embrace at least parts of it, and many UUs just love it. However I totally reject Bill O Reilly’s approach to it, saying there is only one right way to go thru the holidays. His exclusivism hurts people by making them outcasts if they can’t or won’t agree with him. This year he declared he had won the “War on Christmas.” The joke, of course, is on him. His triumphalism just alienates people and sends them running in the opposite direction.
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Charles Kuralt a great chronicler of American life, told a story about a tree that grew up on one of the high mesas in the desert west up above Grand Junction, Colorado. There aren’t a lot of trees up there, in fact this little juniper was the only one for miles – out all alone on windswept rock. When they built the highway up out of the valley where the Gunnison River joins the Colorado, from Grand Junction to the town of Delta, the bulldozers came right next to it, but amazingly they spared the tree. I quote Kuralt, “Nobody remembers who put the first Christmas ornament on it—some whimsical motorist of years ago. From that day to this, the tree has been redecorated each year. Nobody knows who does it.” In that southwest corner of Colorado, I’m sure the ornaments include Native American symbols as well as Christian ones. The tree has survived the weather and the passing trucks against all odds. The people of Grand Junction and Delta know and love the tree. Nobody owns it, and everybody does. There are miracles of two sorts here – one that the tree survives it’s harsh environment, and the other that people each contribute to the spirit of the season in their own way.

Now, doesn’t that have a Unitarian Universalist ring to it – each in their own way? Some of us are critical of the gospel accounts of the Christmas event, but we often end up with a poetic understanding of what it means. Many of us embrace it as a myth about the incarnation of divinity in humans. We also understand that Christmas is only one part of a religiously diverse season. We have a much more inclusive vision than Bill O’Reilly. We practice religious pluralism and are comfortable with eclectic worship services. Yet, we are not odd balls. We find harmony and meaning in our diversity.

When Kimberly Tenai interviewed me for her article in the Wyoming newsletter, I told her Northern Hills wants to partner with parents to help them in their role as their children’s primary religious educators. I mentioned some ways we can help them deal with the Holidays when they or their kids might not feel comfortable with our culture’s expectations about Christmas. I am grateful to her for treating me as if I am worth an article and for creating some publicity for the church. After our interview, which you can see on the bulletin board outside the sanctuary, she expanded on the theme of “How can you do the holidays differently.” She wrote an excellent article, “Crazy Christmas Crisis,” which includes tips from several people on how to manage the stress of the holidays. You can read it in the December “All About Kids – Parenting Magazine.” Pick one up at a Kroger store.

This morning I’ll confine my tips on how to deal with the holidays to the “making meaning” dilemma. To begin with, as your minister, I hereby absolve if you from any guilt if have trouble buying into Christmas. You can let go of anything about Christmas you don’t like. Tell your family and friends Unitarian Universalist Christmas is a little different from theirs and you accept them and their way of doing it, too. Then, find your own way of celebrating the holidays. “Our UU liberal religious tradition is elastic enough and encompassing enough to allow each of us the latitude to observe the December holidays as the spirit moves us to observe them.” You have lots of options, the time between Thanksgiving and the 12th day of Christmas, January 6th contains Buddhist Bodhi Day on December 8th, Chanukah, Solstice, Yule, Christmas, Kwanza, New Years, and more I’m sure. Pick one or more of these, learn more about it, or make up your own holiday, and have some fun with your family of friends. We need to celebrate this time in the cycle of our year.
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To summarize, find something that works for you. It feels better than sitting on the sidelines. When we come together in corporate worship, we are careful to welcome all kinds of people and we celebrate using different belief systems. In your homes, you can each celebrate in your own private way. You can create seasonal shrines – that can include a Yule tree, a menorah or any number of symbols that mean something to you personally. For those with children or who have ever been children, you can look at the season through the eyes of a child. Invoke the spirit of childhood by looking at all the holiday lights and snow and myths with a sense of mystery and joy.

As you create your own sense of the holidays, remember that at their core, they are more about life and relationship than about fear of the darkness or theological conformity. It is hard to talk about the meaning of the holidays at my family gatherings which are centered on present opening, but the time we spend together allows us to share our memories and to strengthen connections. Even though we are of different persuasions when it comes to politics or religion, we can listen to, comfort, and support each other.

Holiday celebrations “are always mingled with our losses and sadness, with memories of those who are no longer with us, with recent pain and more ancient pain.” Fortunately, our faith tradition does not gloss over the difficulties we encounter as part of life. We do not pretend that all is calm and bright, or that all we have to do is let go, and things will turn out the way they are supposed to without our participation. Our way of doing things challenges us to face reality and work to make things calm and bright. It asks us to each bring our own light to the celebration, to create our own home for the holidays.

You can include people you miss in your holidays. Set their picture in a special place, give them an ornament on the tree, speak their name at a dinner blessing. Telling stories about them honors their lives and gets out what is in people’s hearts at this time of year. If there is to be joy in the holidays, we have to acknowledge life as it really is – a roller coaster ride with gut level experiences of both sorrow and joy. That we get to experience it – that alone is worth celebrating.
For the rest of these holidays, I wish you peace and joy. I wish you opportunities to experience life in all its splendor and difficulty. May you have opportunities to make your life and the lives of those around you calm and bright. I wish you holidays that feel like home, your home, for you and your family – chosen or born into. I wish you holidays made of traditions but also of new realities and new meaning, holidays that may be made from many religious traditions, and of ideas you are just beginning. May your celebration of the holidays bring you a deeper awareness of both the sorrows and blessings of life, and may those blessings abound in this season and all through the year.

Finegan, Jack. Handbook of Biblical Chronology, revised ed. Hendrickson (1998) quoted in: Ostling, Richard N. “Why Was Dec. 25 chosen?”, Associated Press, in the Tulsa, OK newspaper (Dec. 2004) D-11.
Kuralt, Charles. “A Kind of Miracle,” in Christmas Blessings, June Cotner, Warner Books (New York: 2002) 14.
Searl, Rev. Edward. “How Unitarian Universalists celebrate the Holidays,” Cosmic Enquirer, Unitarian Church of Hinsdale (Hinsdale: Dec 2002).
Krivchenia, Rev. Hilary. “Minister’s Musings,” The Lighted Chalice, Unitarian Universalist Church (West Lafayette, IN: Dec. 2007).
Krivchenia