Today is St. Nicholas Day.
What’s that?
I’m glad you asked.
St. Nicholas Day is the day when (according to tradition) Santa calls his doctor to get his Valium prescription refilled. Hey, you try flying to billions of homes around the world in one night, dragging that bag of toys through airport security. Talk about stress.
No, St. Nicholas Day is the day (according to tradition) kids hang up their stockings. It’s true. I didn’t know that either. We jumped the gun and hung our stockings last week when we decorated the house. Actually, I should have said when my wife decorated the house. I sort of didn’t help Lucy at all this year. But I have an excuse. I was out of town when she got the urge to transform the house from the fall decorations to the Christmas decorations. While she was hanging garland all over the place, I was sitting at Sky Harbor International waiting for a flight. Oh the joy of returning to our home to find it dressed for the season. There is garland over the fireplace mantle. There is garland on the bookshelves. There is garland wrapping the banister and the railing atop the stairs. I expected to find garland stuffed into my sock drawer.
There are already gifts under the tree.
Where do they come from? I haven’t even begun to shop. What is it they say? Christmas is the season when you buy this year’s gifts with next year’s money. It is the time of year we join the rest of civilization in the venerable tradition of trying to find a place to park at the shopping mall without causing anyone else to want to run you over with their car. The mall parking lot is the first place I go to find peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. If Caesar Augustus had had to deal with the sort of traffic we have these days, that census he decreed would have been a total bust. Joseph never would have made it from Nazareth to Bethlehem. He’d still be trying to get out of the parking lot at Costco.
If the Gospel was written today it would read: “Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. This will be a sign to you: You will find half-price sales at the mall, but you won’t be able to park within a mile of the place.”
I kid you not when I say even Santa Claus has trouble handling the stress. I read in the news today that a survey of the members of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas – I swear there really is such an organization – found that many have been complaining about work conditions the past few years. A spokesman for the order said the job is more than just sitting in a chair and letting children crawl all over you. Santas are exposed to germs, they hurt their backs lifting kids, and they get overheated in the red fur suit. Every day more than sixty percent of Santas get sneezed or coughed on ten or more times; 75 percent have children cry on them; 90 percent have kids pull their beard to see if it is real; half have their glasses pulled off. One-third say kids have wet on them. Consider this when you send your kid off to sit on the old boy’s lap: his beard has more bacteria than a bus station mop. He could carry penicillin around in an oil drum and it wouldn’t be enough. Imagine dealing with all that and living in constant fear that someone else is about to soil your underwear.So… Rather than go to the mall, let’s go somewhere else for a moment.
But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." - Luke
Over the past bunch of years I have been blessed to experience the story of Christmas every year.
And not just this time of year, but throughout the year. But I love this time of year in particular. I was talking with a woman I know who helped decorate the sanctuary in our church for the first Sunday of advent. They did something with the cross that I have never seen before. You always hear, of course, of the baby Jesus being born in a manger. We are familiar with the nativity scene. But she and the others wanted to do something more this year. Rather than just tell of the birth of Christ, they wanted to tell the whole story. But they wanted to do it without words. When we walked into the church on Sunday morning we saw before the cross a manger, a crown of thorns, and a golden crown. Three powerful symbols suspended in the air in front of the cross. It is a powerful visual telling of the full gospel story. It makes you think.
The scene captured me.
My response was more than just some intellectual comprehension, more than a simple mental registering of what was being said. Because this same story fully captured me 16 years ago, because the person at the center of that story has drawn me into the narrative like nothing and no one else in my life has ever drawn me, the story itself informs and shapes everything else in the world for me. So I stood there still as could be, yet deeply moved. It is through that story that I see everything else. Or at least, it should be.
**
Think I was kidding about there being an Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas? Click here: AORBS
(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)
