This time of year, many of us look around and feel a little post-holiday bloat. After Christmas, we have fuller closets, toy boxes, and waistlines. We sigh, and wonder where to put the extra stuff, or how to whittle away at that credit card debt.
Last year was my first Christmas in my own home. There was something different about decorating for a home that we really owned. I would be lying if I said there were not a couple of trips down the holiday aisle that did not result in embarrassment at the resulting receipt total. I asked myself later, “Why did I think I needed so many decorations?” Of course, just like anyone in advertising will tell you, the stores sell more than greenery and lights; they are selling an ideal.
For me, decorating is wrapped up in nostalgia. I have memories of listening to Christmas music while hanging ornaments on the tree and watching my mother fuss with decorations until even I was surprised to see how beautiful the home you see everyday can look. These memories emerged in the Christmas aisle, and I fell prey. I wanted to reproduce that ideal for my family.
Even if you do not have similar childhood memories, “falling prey” to these emotional advertising appeals is easy. You desire to recreate some sort of ideal, whether it is the perfect home or the perfect look. This is something that sales professionals know—if you can tap into the emotional ideal that matters to the customer, you have made your sale. For example, the idea of purchasing a huge television causes you to think of being the house where everyone wants to hang out. What about a new car? The sales pitch is that a car makes a statement, that you are one who does not compromise on performance or safety (but never mind that both could be accomplished in a more moderately priced vehicle).
There is a different kind of nostalgia taking place, one more primal to the human experience, and the reason this tactic works on some level in all of us.
C.S. Lewis argues in his book, “Mere Christianity,” that the very yearning for an ideal speaks to the reality of God.
“A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”
Clearly, the nostalgia we yearn for is not of our creation. Our recoil at the injuries of this world points us to Him, as 1 Chronicles 29:11 says,
“Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”
We might take a tip from St. Paul in handling the commercialization of the holidays. When he visited the Athenians, he used something they had created, a statue “To an Unknown God,” as his starting point. He did not condone their idolatry, but it was a place of understanding from which he could begin to witness.
Perhaps we can do the same. It is something of a miracle – that in a world claiming no need for God and where much idolatry flourish – that families who have never attended church celebrate Christmas or Easter.
What do our non-churched neighbors celebrate? Hope, generosity, and special traditions with friends and family are present in every “ideal” celebration of these holidays. That “nostalgia” for something good that has been lost is present even if they do not know Christ. Everyone was created in His image, and all have failed to remain in it.
Do those sound like starting points?
Recently, the Michigan District started an “A2E” initiative that aims to witness to our cities, comparing our age to that of early Christians in Acts 2. We live in a post-modern, post-Christian world, and while that may be frightening (not unlike selling “Christmas” with cheap manufacturing) it provides a fertile opportunity for planting seeds of faith.
We know that there is more to “our” holidays; just like we know that there is more to Christmas than Santa, or more to Easter than a bunny. At times, we may have failed to preserve the sacred nature of our Holy Days, just as we have failed to preserve the ideal in which we were created. The solution is the same, and the truth of Jesus' incarnation, death, and resurrection thankfully does not rely on our abilities to keep tacky “Christmas” products off the shelves or anything we could possibly do ourselves. Christ has done it all.
Praise God that we are made “ideal” through the work of Christ. Praise Him too, that earthly discontents and nostalgia for the true “ideal” holiday have the potential to lead others to the foot of the cross where all our debts were paid in full.
Rachel Tapling teaches current events and language arts to middle school students at Peace, Shelby Township. She is a graduate of Concordia University Ann Arbor and working on her Master's Degree in Social Studies Curriculum and Instruction. She and her husband, Dave, are involved with "GodTalk" ministries in Detroit and are members of St. Peter, Eastpointe. They have been blessed with one child, 3-year-old Mason.
