SCL

My favourite Christmas/church memory was when I was in Sydney and at the Christmas Eve service they pretended that Santa came in on a Helicopter to deliver sweets to everyone. They had the speaker system play the helicopter noise and it really felt like one had just landed on the roof… Santa said he’d just been in NZ delivering Christmas presents there even for authenticity (NZ is two hours ahead). I liked it that they didn’t get all religious about Santa and just had fun.

As a kid we used to do the SAME christmas play every year, with angels dressed up in old white sheets and shepherds with tea towels on their heads. Sometimes I think there was a bit of artistic licence used for the birthing of Jesus though which was hilarious.

Oh and I agree with Tim Smith on the Christma letter thing – though my pet hate is when it’s written from the perspective of the baby that has just arrived in the household that year.

Oh and I agree with Tim Smith on the Christma letter thing – though my pet hate is when it’s written from the perspective of the baby that has just arrived in the household that year.

Oh boy! My parents also came straight out with the Santa Clause issue. My older brother actually got into an argument with another little kid in early grade school over this issue (it may have been kindergarten). Needless to say, he was in trouble.

Anyway, I love the church’s annual youth banquet. We all get to dress up nicely, act awkward around each other, and pick at what would otherwise be tasty food. This year, however, things will be different. This year, I’m prepared. I have a lovely black dress picked out, an elegant pearl necklace, and the loudest red and green Christmas socks you could imagine! This is going to be fun… =D

How about…

The ridiculous amount of Christmas sugar-based dishes. Seriously, do we need that many pies, cakes, fudge, cookies, etc.? No wonder so many people make New Year’s resolutions to lose weight!

People who get hosed present-wise because their birthday is in December. (My son’s is the 22nd and mine is the 23rd)

White elephant gifts! (a.k.a. crap a distant relative gave me last year and I never bothered to open, but it’s PERFECT for you!)

Ridiculous amounts of lawn decor for the holiday season. OR, how you look like the neighborhood heathen if you don’t have at least 17 inflatable or light-up Santa/snowmen/reindeer in your yard.

This comment may officially disqualify me from heaven, but, I HATE Christmas Shoes. It could be the lamest song ever. I would rater listen to a Twila Paris marathon that is being narrated by Sandi Patty and Ray Boltz. Every time the song comes on I turn the channel. “Christmas Shoes” gets used year round in our family. We were recently getting our snow tires put on and I asked if I could pay in Christmas Shoes…my wife hit me, When we do any sort of a special offering at church I ask my wife how many Christmas Shoes we should give, and I get hit.

Also, I love Santa.

Do we really hate the x-mas? because it’s not really an ‘x’ it is X ‘chi’ the first letter you use to spell ‘Christ’ in Greek.

How about the Christmas card table/sort box at church? You know, the one where you distribute cards to church families and make a donation to the chosen mission in the amount you would have spent on postage? Not only does it have the potential for creating a popularity contest, but it also makes you wonder: How many people actually donated the $28.56 it would have cost to mail the 68 cards (or Christmas letters — :p ) they stuck in the slots?

Irrisistable houses covered in tacky Christmas decorations

pairs perfectly with a cup of hot chocolate

How we have prepackaged Christmas to the extent that a local church’s Live Nativity has been upgraded to the Drive thru Bethlehem. I am not sure God had Honda Odysseys full of sweaty children in His staging concept of Christ’s humble birth…I wonder how the conversation went, “hey kids, let’s swing through Bethlehem on the way to McDonald’s drive thru…no, you don’t have to put on a coat we are not getting out of the car.” Or, from the creators of such an extravaganza of complacency, “I am sure people would like feel the Bethlehem experience, but we have to make it as easy as possible… you know how people feel about walking these days…”

What about friends questioning your Christianity when you fail to put an angel at the top of your tree???

Growing up, my church always put up a life-size lighted christmas card drive-through. I don’t know why it was a drive-through. This was in Florida, so it was certainly not too cold to walk through. Anyhow, the christmas cards were sheets of plywood painted with scenes from the life of Jesus. I painted the nativity card and made the Holy Family all vaguely Hebrew looking. You know, cause they were. I came back the year after I left for college and someone had repainted baby Jesus and Mary blonde and blue-eyed. Joseph was allowed to remain Sephardic for some reason.
-tk

Advent calendars anyone? Chocolate treats vs. the message of Christ

What about Christmas craft fairs? We used to have these at my Texas megachurch and I swear there had to be some 3rd world country sweatshop outsourcing or factory assembly line thing going on. No way there are people that talented, crafty, and devoted to the hours and hours of work that went into these pieces of decor. Are you sure all that money is going to charity? Or is the sweatshop the charity of choice?

Also- the lessons and carols service. I’d like to see the SCL version with mixed carols and readings.

Speaking of different versions, how about all the variations on “Twas the Night Before Christmas” You know, the cowboy version, the teachers version, the dieters version, the NASCAR version. How about an SCL Night before Christmas???

How about passing around the emails that describe how Christmas is really a pagan holiday that some idiot pope hijacked and that we’re all going to hell by feeling warm fuzzies toward our family (for once during the year) and seeing the entire world act just a little Christ-like.

I must get a billion of those every year.

Christmas letters in general but also those by elderly relatives that just recently figured out how to scan old pictures…gotta love the humiliating pitures of all the cousins during those awkward teenage years sent out to EVERYONE your grandparents know…gotta love technology

Geez louise… leave the claus alone for pete’s sake… it’s fairly harmless as long as it is balanced with real teaching about Christ in your home.. I did not suddenly decide that everything my parents had ever said to me was a lie when I found out the claus wasn’t real.. good grief… give kids some credit… my mom and dad just explained it this way when we finally asked if the claus was real or not — it’s a “fun” tradition, no, he’s not real, but the sentiment behind him is — do unto others, be kind, think of other people before yourself you selfish oaf — all the same things you are taught about Jesus (hopefully) .. guess what.. I survived having both Jesus and the claus.. the stuff I wrestle with every day has absolutely nothing to do with claus hangover… I for 1 say up with the claus and teach Jesus too… enough with the holier than thou.. to each his own.. I don’t think anyone is going to burn in hell for doing the claus thing ya know???

Personal boycotts of stores that only sell “Happy Holidays” cards (that’s my mom’s yearly tradition, anyway).

How about how at Christian preschools, the word Santa is treated like a curse word and an mention of him means you are instantly destined for hell

The clever name we have to give our adult Christmas program …Jingle Jazz, Holiday Jukebox, etc.. or the fact that we have an adult christmas program.

the worship leader (i.e. me) trying so hard to make christmas songs "cool" that they end up being totally impossible to sing along to.

eating at the amish restaurant nine times during the month of december, for all the different staff, pastors&wives, committee, and board banquets. being so sick of amish food that you start carrying ever portable electronic device you own with you just to freak them out.

decorating the sanctuary with really big, white, glittery, fiberglass nativity set, right on top of the baptistry.

denouncing commercialism, while we wait in the lines on black friday.

youth group parties, which include caroling at local nursing homes, and a gift exchange where at least one kid gets a whiteheart tape.

dc talk's christmas album. seriously.

i have to stop there. i can't top that.

I saw the headline of “baby Jesus” and immediately thought of SCL. haha.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/03/baby-jesus-and-co-get-free-gps-devices-this-holiday-season/

Or the “official” article, with less of the anti-religious smack-talk.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/lightning/gps/prweb1701254.htm

Not sure it would be an appropriate thing to write about–thievery is a real problem–but whatever.
Just know I thought of you, Jon! =)

My church at home always attempted to have the most random animals at the Christmas Eve service, as though seeing a zebra outside the sanctuary would somehow remind visitors of their overwhelming need for salvation. One particularly good memory I have of this is watching 5 of the respectable church elders chase a rebellious rooster around the parking lot for 45 minutes before they finally caught him and hastily put him back in the cage, looking around furtively to see if anyone had seen their nearly unsuccessful pursuit.

Oh Christmas petting zoos…

Holiday (Christmas cards) along with everyone has written about decorating them and having the picture perfect card- the fact that it seems now a days you have to include a 5 pg. single spaced letter on everything your family has done in the past year… on half the time you get the cards from people you haven’t spoken to in years. This always makes me laugh. You then throw there old picture away and put up the new one, just in case they were to ever come over (eventhough you haven’t seen them in years) or another friend comes over and said- didn’t you get that card from so and so? wasn’t it beautiful- wait where is the picture?

how about those aweful food baskets you get from people in the office or other random people that cost 50-60 dollars and are filled with weird cheeses, meats and jellies… and you think to yourself, “what am I going to do with this.. my dog won’t even get near it”
ha makes me laugh everytime

us christians REALLY need a new slogan besides “jesus is the reason for the season.” we’ve truly worn it out, but is there any hope that another bumper sticker phrase could replace it? i’d like to know!

I loathe all the “shepherds wear dishtowels” and “Mary was 9 years old” crappy church pageants. For pete’s sake, but some brown fabric, try to look authentic. The shepherds probably didn’t have cute little cows saying “eat chicken” wrapped around their heads.

And darnit, why CAN’T we encourage that wayward pregnant teenage girl and give HER the Big Part??? Huh? And a hottie young Joseph?? You never know…it might lead to a nice relationship after the play is over?

What? Like no one has a pregnant teenage girl at their church they want to put on stage??? Come ON!! She’d just LOVE having hundreds of peole whispering about her on Christmas Eve!! Maybe the hottie Joseph guy can sing Christmas Shoes to her while she weeps authentic looking tears and silently curses herself for agreeing to this stupid idea.

So. I’m wondering now how many people will read this and think I am serious?

Live animals in a nativity scene, sans poop. We love that stuff. We love feeling like we were “really there” at the nativity, except Mary isn’t a teenager, the room doesn’t smell like month-old excrement, and the choirs of angels definitely sounded better than the tone-deaf choir.

Well, don’t know how you would incorporate this into your posts, but what about the churches that are built with Christmas and Easter in mind?

I played guitar for a pentecostal church of about 500 people, which met in a geodesic dome structure and was therefore called “The Dome” in our small town. It was built with three long steel contraptions connected to the ceiling, coming from the center and from both sides, with small balconies on the sides.

These contraptions were made specifically for angels to fly during our Christmas and Easter dramas.

We dressed girls from 6-20 years of age like angels, strapped them to the ceiling on carabeaners from this contraption, and had one or two men use the ropes and pulleys to bring them back and forth with a practiced (yes, there was angel practice) graceful movement.

If that isn’t a triumph of the Christmas spirit, I don’t know what is.

I love Christmas music, but the songs with only children singing… that’s a little much for me. I wouldn’t normally listen to a “Bob the Builder” CD or a children’s choir’s “Best of Barney” or a station that only played little voices singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” all day. What makes Christmas season an exception? The month of December (though magical, I’m sure) cannot suddenly revolutionize music tastes. I’m sure everyone loves children just as much as the next person, but you don’t need to make them your new “holiday-themed” cell phone ring just to prove it to the world. We believe you.

I don’t know if this is an idea or not, but it is funny. A few years ago, my husband and I were teaching the kindergarten Sunday school class during December. One little girl “outed” Santa, and I thought we were going to have a five-year-old mob scene. We had asked them a question about what Christmas means to them, and a girl mentioned Santa, which is when the other little girl said, “MY MOM AND DAD SAID THERE IS NO SANTA!” The first girl said, “YES THERE IS!!” and a war of “unh-uh’s” and “yuh-huh’s” erupted from there.

The whole situation was hilarious, but it was also quite a dilemma – how is a Sunday school teacher supposed to handle a situation like that?? Thankfully, my husband, who is very good at thinking on his feet, somehow got things under control and steered the conversation back to something manageable without having to address whether or not Santa is real.

Ok, I don’t know if this has been discussed yet, but Christmas cookies of the sweet baby Jesus. As I was making christmas cookies last night, I noticed the manager scene in cookie cutters and had a debate. If I make baby Jesus as a cookie, will people eat them? Is that sacriligious? Or communion?When I eat a gingerbread man cookie, I like to eat the limbs first but could I dismember the Soveriegn Lord that is a cookie? Why did someone give me this cookie set? Because I am a Pastor’s wife, Does that mean I can’t make Santa cookies and have to make Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus cookies? Oh boy too many questions.

Ha, these are fun ideas to read for me coming out of our church’s big Christmas production! Definitely we need some debate on how easy it can be to forget why we’ve been slaving away since September- not just about having an awesome time or fulfilling that need to get up and act out in front of a big crowd, but to put on a performance that has a message of hope and love for people to hear at this time of year.

Hubs and I always talk about how our small country churches used to “go caroling.” Complete with scorching hot (yet watered down) hot chocolate (from a homemade mix!) and cookies back at the church. We’d only go to old folks’ homes, and then have to stand 5 minutes at the door waiting for them to answer. Then we’d squish 20 people in a small, WARM, ummm stinky (sorry! it’s true!) living room — only to annoy them with songs.

Of course there are always teens in the back who are changing the words to the songs. And getting the evil eye from their moms.

Also. Christmas pageants. (referring to the olden days, not currently. though i may be wrong about that.)

Angels with clothes-hanger wings, shepherds with bathrobes.

My best memory was the year my Dad was in charge of the pageant, and being the “techy” forward-thinking guy that he was — cut a star shape out of black paper and laid that down on an overhead projector to make The Star. I MEAN, IS THAT COOL OR WHAT?

The singing Christmas tree – OH HELP US ALL.

“Mary Did You Know” and THE special music song of the month.

Amy Grant’s “tennessee christmas” album. A CLASSIC.

Handbells.

“Jesus is the reason for the season.”

Christian radio stations playing secular songs (including, but not limited to “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer”) I assume in an attempt to “hook” people in and then keep them listening in order to play God-glorifying songs.