For many years since becoming a Christian I have questioned the celebration of Christmas. It struck me early on that Christmas as celebrated by the world was so commercial and meaningless with Santa and Rudolph and holly and ivy, Jingle bells and wishing wells. In fact Christmas in our family had been traditionally a time of tension and family disputes, probably connected to the financial strain of overspending in December and with it seeing family members we might not usually (want to) spend time with.
Anyway over the years we read various things about Christmas being a pagan holiday and that it should not be observed by true believers, so Christmas kind of drifted into a place where it irritated us and we tried to avoid all the trappings, wrappings, the malls and parties.

We gave gifts, grudgingly, to our children and told everyone else we did not celebrate it and Mark especially would get very irritated by our staff in the business all expecting bonuses and special treatment.

Anyway in December 2008 God laid on my heart that we need to invite people over for lunch on Christmas day, that were far from their home countries like we were in 2007 when we spent our first Christmas outside of South Africa in the USA. While there we were shown such love and hospitality by friends in California, that we had our best Christmas ever and I began to realise that Christmas is a very powerful time of the year, as it gives us a perfect opportunity to show love, kindness and care to even strangers without being treated with suspicion. The fact that the world celebrates it is pretty mind-blowing even though they focus on the wrong thing.
With this on my mind and also wanting to make this a time to remember for our grandson Stephen who lives with us, this year God prompted me to ask 3 Zimbabweans and 16 DRC (Congolese) refugees to have lunch with us, included were 8 children for Stephen to play with.

I decided to drag out the long forgotten Christmas decorations and Mark and Stephen went down to the small forest at the bottom of our garden and cut us a small tree.
Sitting with Stephen I wanted to make decorating the tree about God and His grace and not about presents and noise and flashing lights and it came to me that;

The Tree

Symbolises the tree of Life
This represents Christ in whom God has given us New Life

It also symbolises God’s awesome creation
Conifers are traditionally used as Christmas trees and as I had been looking for trees in my garden to plant as wind breaks (we live in a windy area), I realised that Conifers are also most commonly used as wind breaks because they can stand the wind because of their long and strong tap root system. This tree represents us being in Christ, we have roots that reached down deep, so deep that we can be pummelled all day and night by the winds of life and remain stable and firm and be a ‘wind break’ for others’ It is the conifers that grow the tallest and live the longest in our windy area, and man can this wind pump; sometimes up to spends of 60km/h. So strong that it rips of roofs and can and did recently blow over a large bus in Cape Town!

In Christ we protect others from the storms of life, we have deep roots that find water in the driest times and reach the highest heights we need to live lives of purpose and meaning, we should soften the wind, and give much needed shade and on the hottest days when the temperature reaches over 40C (over 100oF) give off a sweet fragrance just like the conifers do. It is when under fire and tested that we become more like Him.

The Lights and tinsel;

Represents our Messiah, Jesus Christ being the Light of the world and as such our Saviour. The tinsel represents us becoming lights to the world by reflecting His light.
The Lights represent God’s word, which is the light to our path

The Angels

They were the first to bring the good news to the world that our Saviour was born in Bethlehem. They are a reminder that we need to take this good news and share it with the world, to preach the good news to the uttermost corners of the world.
They are also a reminder that our loving Father gives His angels charge over us.

The baubles and the colour red

I explained to Stephen that the baubles represent the world and that God so loved this world that He sent His only son to die in our place and save us. We have red baubles and I explained that red on the tree and at Christmas represents the blood that was shed for us – God’s Grace.

The gifts

Represent the ultimate gift, the most perfect gift that God has given us, our salvation through His son and sharing Christ’s inheritance, as we become sons and daughters of the most High God!
With this in mind we attended a small Christmas service at a little Baptist church down the road and when the pastor asked who had a testimony to share about Christmas, I suddenly realised that I had a wonderful testimony; I had surrendered my life to Christ many years ago on 25 December 1974. It then came to me that my Joy had been stolen, and I had been deceived into believing that because Christmas had become commercial I needed to avoid it, but in fact I had the best reason to throw a huge party and celebrate, because I had met my Saviour on this day and been given a New Life forever! Right there in that little church under the trees I decided that I was going to spend 2009 taking back Christmas for Christ because we, all of us believers have a reason to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas and the tree, the giving of God’s ultimate gift to the world, His only son, that we might spend eternity with Him. My only regret is that I have avoided celebrating His gift to me for over 20 years! Man have I some catching up to do!

So what of the 23 people for Christmas lunch?

It was our best Christmas ever; we shared our testimonies of how we came to Christ and spent a day with people that could give us nothing except the joy of knowing that it IS more blessed to give than receive and a reminder of why we will always celebrate Christmas and why we need to Take back Christmas for Christ. Join me in my quest to take back Christmas for Christ and search for the real reason we celebrate at this time of the year!