Humbug Christmas

After Bob married Doris and two children came along, Bob noticed TV images of shoppers stampeding to buy Christmas gifts.

“Looks like the Oklahoma Land Rush,” he said to Doris.

The next year, Bob thought more about the commercial exploitation of Christmas. He imagined merchants fingering Christmas cash and irreverently singing “What a Friend We Have

in Jesus.” He thought about Christ entering the Jerusalem temple, driving out moneychangers and shouting, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!”

“People have taken Christmas and turned it into a moneychangers’ holiday,” Bob told Doris.

“Bob, don’t lose the spirit of Christmas because some people enjoy the material aspects of the holiday,” Doris said.

“Bah, humbug!” Bob said.

Bob usually functioned normally but transformed into a different person during Decembers, when his wife shopped alone and his children avoided him. Bob’s friends hated to see him coming during the holly-jolly season.

“Uh-oh, here comes Bob with another of his Santa-is-of-the-Devil lectures,” one friend said as he and two others scattered when “Humbug Bob” approached.

“And Jesus wasn’t even born in December!” Bob yelled after them.

One year, during an evening in December, Bob felt tired after one of his tirades against the commercialization of Christmas. He fell asleep on his couch, while his children were nestled all snug in their beds. Doris lovingly laid her hands on Bob’s balding head and sent up a heavy-duty prayer.

Bob awoke later and said, “I had a dream. I saw myself kneeling at a tiny manger, offering a gift – and my gift…well, it was the bad attitude I’ve had about Christmas celebrations. I’m going to try to enjoy Christmas this year, regardless of excesses I see.”

Doris smiled and said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace … heavenly peace!”

Christmas Response

  “SELFISHNESS makes Christmas a burden; love makes it a delight,” someone said.

  
One Christmas when I was near seven years old, I found selfishness in my heart.

My family attended a small, rural Pentecostal church north of Greer, South Carolina in the mid-1950s. Our young pastor announced that the church would give a bag of fruit and nuts to each family attending a special Sunday night Christmas service.                                                          

On the night of that service, we saw the bulging grocery bags beneath the tall Christmas tree in our sanctuary. As I recall, we enjoyed carols and a Christmas play before the evening’s last event, the giving of the fruit. The pastor handed a bag to each family representative who came forward.

In a pew near the back of the church sat a family I had never seen before. They were obviously poor. There was a mother with—as I remember—three children and a husband who seemed shy and backward. It was the thin, haggard mother who timidly came forward to receive a bag of fruit.

I remember thinking, “They don’t go to our church. They just came to get the fruit.”

As that thought echoed in my mind, I sensed I was wrong in my attitude of heart—even if I was right about the visiting family. As our young pastor smiled and handed a bag of fruit to the mother, I watched the pastor’s eyes, and in his eyes I saw no hesitancy, no judgment, no burden—only delight.