Conditioning for Christmas

Do you focus your Christmas holiday around Jesus Christ or around Christmas presents?
Is it about meeting your material quota or more about spending quality time with your family?
What does Christmas mean to you and why is it important to think about it now?

I've become more aware of these problems during Christmas and Easter this year. These questions are definitely not head-scratchers, but they are a little thought-provoking when I get to the "why" aspect.

So for all of my life until a couple years ago, Christmas has always been about becoming a better person during Advent season to impress Santa (or just my relatives as I got a little too old for Santa) and waiting patiently for the wonderful gifts I would receive after Christmas Eve Mass. My Christmas gifts started out as toys and teddy bears, and as I reached the awkward pre-teen years I had been getting more clothes than toys and at first I felt really unhappy about it. Through middle school I started appreciating more clothes than toys, and then through high school I had been getting less gifts overall and my first reaction is "This is poop Christmas" but now I'm okay about it. (~%!!*Thank you, Recession*!!%~) The kiddy, gift-receiving aspect of Christmas, I hope, as shrunken in me so that I can enjoy Christmas the way it should be enjoyed.

Some years ago my dad joined the church choir, Ca Ðoàn Seraphim, and would always sing for the Christmas Mass at noon on Christmas Day, whereas I would attend the Christmas Eve mass and sleep in. Two years ago I attended the noon mass instead and when I found that the music was so majestic and beautiful, I felt a slight change in me and instantly thought "I'm going to join the choir playing violin." So there I was at choir rehearsal and Sunday noon mass with a crowd of 30+ year olds. I got to play for the very next Christmas and I came to the conclusion that working with people to play beautiful music just for God, especially on Christmas, felt so much more fulfilling than sitting through the Mass without any obligations toward anything other than plainly showing up. Thus, transformed again, as I prepare for my second Christmas with Ca Ðoàn Seraphim, I take up rehearsals and even Advent Masses as gifts for God as I condition my violin playing for the Mass.

This still has little to do with enjoying Christmas the way it should be, however after 14 weeks of Lightworks and a thought-provoking prayer group meeting today, I'm slowly getting there.

Today I see that Christmas in the States is arguably mainly only about buying presents for your loved ones and the delight to be on the receiving end, and simply put, it's easy because we don't have to think about Christ. Plenty of people are afraid to face Christ or think about Him unless it's to say His name in vain, and Catholics encourage people to embrace Christ but there's always someone who defiantly asks "why".

Why focus Christmas around Jesus? Why embrace Christ? Why do I need Him?

In regards to today's reading, Luke 3: 1-6, I had to think about this questions first:

What kind of world did Christ come to build?

The imagery in the Gospel made me think that Christ came to smooth out the kinks in our world. To lower the mountains and fill up the valleys was an analogy of extracting Sin from the world to me. But then I thought that it would just mean that God simply needed to destroy Lucifer, his most powerful angel, which then would only allow us to love God by default and not of choice. So, it's less about "fixing our wrongs" to become good, it's about leading each and every one of us to become new. Christ came to build a world of new people, more than merely good people.

I've been told countless of times by my Agnostic friends that "If God is good and loves us, he'll take us if we just live good lives, because someone who's lived a good life without going to church doesn't deserve to be in hell."
More eloquently put by Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) in his Meditations:

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

If we only focus on becoming good people, we treat God as if we treat Santa Clause."Yes, God, I've refrained from lying and stealing for five years so far. How high are my chances of getting into heaven, now?" Instead, we are called to become new persons, through which only Jesus can help us. Living the life Buddha calls us to live cannot transform us as God's graces do, and that's exactly why we need Christ. It's why Christmas is for Jesus and love and family, and it's why we should spend our Advent conditioning our souls for His arrival.

Much easier said than done, I know. And yes, I am looking for a neat gift for my friend. But I don't want to forget what Christmas should be so that I can reconcile that with how I choose to celebrate this coming Christmas. Happy Advent?