It’s hard to be a conscientious parent during the holidays. I often feel like I get steamrolled by them and, like a tide dragging me out to sea, the culture of consumption is always nipping at my feet. Each year, while I get excited by the festivities, I also feel dread. Dread that I can’t choose my own way to celebrate; dread that I will let my kids down if I don’t buy them all they want, take them to all the fun activities and keep up with the other parents whose kids share their experiences with them. Sadly, I feel that I lose a sense of myself and my values this time of year and often want to find sanctuary from it and breathe a sigh of relief when it’s over.
As I reflect on Christmas, the mad shopping, all the gadgets and goodies dangled before our eyes, and the pressure to conform, I try to remember what it is all about and question if I even know anymore. When I think back to my childhood, it is not the presents I remember – though I do recall the excitement of waking up to them – but the memories of time spent with my parents, the soft dance of light from Christmas lights and candles and the smell of Christmassy treats in the house after playing in the snow. As I struggle against the guilt that comes with not giving my children all that their hearts desire – and struggle through trying to explain to them that things don’t make us happier – I try to remember that someday they will remember the same kinds of things that I do now.
It seems appropriate to speak of Christ around Christmas, and though we are often reminded of his miraculous birth, it is Christ’s first miracle of turning water into wine that sticks in my mind this year. That first public miracle seems like such an insignificant one in comparison to healing blindness or bringing someone back to life, but if you understand Jewish culture, you understand how significant it really was. Wine was considered a holy drink in Jewish tradition and was the earthly thing consumed at all lifecycle or significant Jewish events. It was used to inspire and comfort, lend dignity and importance to an occasion, and turn an ordinary event into an extraordinary one or even a higher spiritual one. When people gathered together over a meal, a cup of wine and its attendant blessings concluded the meal after grace. To run out of wine at a wedding feast would have been disastrous and embarrassing. So Jesus, as we all know, had the servers take ceremonial jars and fill them with water, and when they poured the contents out it was wine. We are told the wine was so choice that the headwaiter pointed out the strangeness of serving the best wine last when everyone is too tipsy to tell the difference. This, of course, bespoke the symbolism of Christ as the Messiah who was predicted to come in the Old Testament. The Old Testament said that when the Messiah came there would be an abundance of wine, or the holy drink, and as Jesus sat at the party, the wine flowed. It is astounding that the importance of the event was not money or gifts, but a libation. It was the simplest of things, so simple that it could almost go unnoticed.
But something else comes with wine in Jewish wisdom. While it gladdens the hearts of men, wine also reveals the hidden things buried deep within their hearts. Jesus, speaking to a crowd, said that what defiles a man is not what he puts in his mouth but what comes out of it. As I struggle against the pressure to conform to the version of Christmas that has taken over our culture, I think Christmas is like wine. It can bring out the best in people, but it can also bring out the worst. Our true nature is revealed during the holidays. It is always hard to go against the grain, to go counter to the culture, but perhaps we will gain something better if we do. Will our kids really suffer if they do not have hundreds of dollars spent on them? Will one more toy, iPod or video game make a difference? Furthmore, could our good intentions numb or blind them to the beauty and love behind those gifts? When all those toys are lying in a landfill someday, will they still hold the significance they do now? It is hard to look into those little eyes and try to explain that even the simplest decisions carry weight, that our desires do not always need to be fulfilled, and that sometimes there is a bigger picture to be seen. We might even need to remind ourselves of this.
Life is fragile and short, and the people in it now won’t always be; the treasures we will carry with us once they are gone are the memories of time spent with them – not the things they bought us or we bought them. This year, perhaps we should allow Christmas to be the wine that brings us together in love and gladdens our hearts, not the wine that makes us drunk on things we do not need, stresses us out and make us forget that people are the reason for the season – not just other people, but ourselves, our souls, our hearts and what grows out them.
Written by Greta Hyland
