The Man Who Invented Christmas was the irresistible title of a book published in 2008, about Charles Dickens and his role in shaping or reviving many of the traditions now regarded as part of the timeless British Christmas – trees, cards, presents and so on. It’s an enjoyable and plausible thesis, albeit even these allegedly “new” practices often have very deep roots. The tradition of carols, for instance, far predates Dickens. Even though many now-popular carols were first arranged in their current form in the 19th century – like O Come All Ye Faithful or Hark! The Herald Angels Sing – their origins generally lie much further back.
Carols are an interesting example of the fascinating tension between what you might call the two Christmases. First, there is the Feast of the Nativity, “the reason for the season” as the US bumper sticker slogan reminds us. This is a religious time, with its focus on the special significance of the birth of Christ, and the accompanying rituals, commemorations and devotions. The vertical aspect – the remembrance of what God has done for us in the Incarnation – is ultimately more important than the horizontal aspects – socialising, gift-giving and so on.
Then there is the other Christmas; let’s call it Yuletide. This is a north European response to the dark and cold of midwinter. Across much of the British Isles, the Low Countries, Scandinavia and Germany, by mid- to late-December it’s only properly light for about six or seven hours a day. Some days it barely gets light at all. It’s freezing and we’re a long way from spring. No wonder then that in those regions, the winter solstice – one of the turning points of the year – has traditionally been the occasion for a big blow-out.
Of course these twin Christmases overlap and are entangled in all sorts of ways. Santa Claus, the bringer of presents, is now a secular figure, but the legend is at least partly rooted in the real Saint Nicholas, noted for his charity. And gifts were, after all, a feature of the very first Christmas. Most obvious, perhaps, is the emphasis on light amid darkness. Christians are used to understanding the birth of Christ through that metaphor, with Jesus being “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world”. For the secular celebration, it is the eating and drinking and partying that provides the bright point in the grimmer passages of the year.
Writers and poets have used this overlap to great effect. Christina Rossetti’s poem In The Bleak Midwinter, later arranged as a carol, is one of the most outstanding. In Good King Wenceslas, the overriding theme of the imperative of Christian charity is accompanied by images of heavy snowfall, warm fires and good food. A Christmas Carol explicitly links Scrooge’s newfound joy in the fun of Christmas with his personal repentance and moral renewal: “He became as good a friend, as good a master and as good a man as the good old City knew … it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”
Much of the imagery of the north European Christmas – snow, Santa, trees, candles – has become the default for many parts of the world. This seems to me very fitting, a sign of God’s providence at work. A wintry Christmas is a perfect background for the symbolism of the Incarnation, a moment of cosmic warmth, the revolt of the light against the darkness.
Later this month I will attend an old-fashioned Nine Lessons & Carols by candlelight in a small country church. It will be dark when we arrive. Quite likely it will be cold and still, and the light from the church will blaze out across the silent marsh. A great deal of simple joy will be had from entering the warm, bright, crowded church. That entrance into shelter alludes to the heart of the Christmas story, the bursting of truth into a gloomy and uncertain world.
It goes without saying that this particularly climatic setting is not in any sense essential. Tens of millions of Christians live in countries where freezing temperatures, long, cold nights and stark, hard winters are more or less unknown. But that does not mean that it is completely separate from our faith. Eternal truths cannot be definitively tied to anywhere, but equally our understanding of those truths is always mediated through our own life stories and the culture and environment of a place.
The stories and customs that have grown up around Christmas create a structure of plaus-ibility for newcomers to the faith, a possible way in. It’s common – and understandable – for clergy to roll their eyes at Christmas and Easter worshippers, but they are being drawn by something.
In the words of John Betjeman’s moving poem Christmas:
“And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.”
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