Different type of Christmas ...

Tuesday, December 13, 2011. Sometimes, the time before Christmas looks quite stereotypic. The shops reuse their Christmas decorations. The towns have decorated everything with the typical light chains. Christmas markets appear everywhere, providing a steady flow of Christmas punch and Christmas cake.

A Reality Show …

Sometimes the time before Christmas appears to be a real reality show. It is not really good, it is not deep, but quite shallow. It shows ordinary people moving from one Christmas party to the next. Nothing against Christmas parties and Christmas markets - I like both! But if there is not more happening than the party pattern, we are lost …

Christmas time is filled with quite shallow activities. The main characteristic of this time is that the shops make half of their yearly turnover in the four weeks before Christmas. The main characteristic of this period of time is that we are hectic and try to get things together for the winter holiday. I am fine with some little economic push, of course. But it could be different!

Reality and show come together at the time before Christmas, but not in a good sense, but in a bad way. The show is the sense of Christmas, the sense of light, the sense of celebration. But it is not a real celebration. And it is not real reality either!

Different Type of Show! …

I think that the origin of Christmas is different. And there is the invitation to live a different advent time, a different preparation for Christmas. We are invited to celebrate real Christmas: a life that matters.

God wants us to come to a true celebration. That means that we become aware of what is important for our life. It means that joy grows in our heart which is deeper than the joy of some Christmas market. It is the joy of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

To some extend Christmas is a kind of show as well - as it is presented in the New Testament. There is this Jesus baby, which is ordinary on the one hand, and not at all ordinary on the other. This is the point where the mystery is, and where it is unveiled at the same time. God comes to us, into our ordinary circumstances, with his holiness … At Christmas he is there! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts