Birthdays were a big deal in our family growing up. We felt it was very important to celebrate the people in our lives and to let them know that they were worth celebrating. So, it only made sense that we also celebrated Jesus’ birthday with a party and a cake. Christmas was his birthday celebration after all.
Since we moved a lot growing up, our family Christmas traditions were restricted to what we could do as a family together every year no matter where we happened to be. Decorating the tree together while listening to Christmas carols and drinking hot chocolate was one of them. Then we’d sit in the dark to admire the beauty of the lit tree and just talk. My mom picked an ornament every year for my brother and I that represented something we had done or been interested in. These would be ours to take when someday we had a tree of our own.
There were no Christmas cookie parties that I remember growing up. Once, at a Christmas craft fair, I sat at a table to decorate hard sugar cookies. My family was a family of bakers who believed in the sanctity of “from scratch.” Several of them had experienced the great depression or it’s after pains. All month it seemed we baked: my grandmother’s apple pie and my father’s pumpkin pie, my Scottish grandmother’s traditional shortbread, and the inherited family tradition of steam pudding, my aunt’s restaurant-quality cheesecake (she sold them to restaurants in Philly), my mother’s Russian tea cakes, peanut butter balls, peppermint bark and her best friend’s rum cake. It was quite decadent in hindsight.
My family taught me the delicate art of crust making and the secrets of steamed pudding. They also taught me that the miracle of Christmas is Jesus. Without the Hope that he brought to the world by coming here, there would be no reason to celebrate. So we celebrated Him with a special cake. Dark chocolate cake to represent our sins, cherry pie filling in-between the layers to represent the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, all covered over with a blanket of pure white whipped cream since we have been made white as snow, and three candles on top to represent the Holy Trinity. On Christmas Eve we’d all sit around the table together and sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus and eat cake.
After Bill and I married, we didn’t develop any longstanding traditions of our own. Bill’s work schedule is complicated and we often find ourselves grabbing the little time we have together before or after work to open gifts or eat a special meal. There are no children in our home and our families are far apart from each other this time of year. We enjoy celebrating different traditions we were fond of from our childhood when we can. For years now, I haven’t baked a single dessert for Christmas. My cousins did take up that torch and are quite skilled.
In many ways, my childhood prepared me for strange schedules, the need to create new ways to celebrate, and being apart from family. I was taught by word and by example that the sacredness of the holy day is in the Hope of what it is we are celebrating. So whether we are with family or only keeping them close to us with their recipes, whether we celebrate on Christmas Day or on Christmas Eve or not on the day at all - the celebration, the party, is honored to the degree outwardly that we celebrate this Hope we hold in our hearts daily.
Over recent years, when our tree has been decorated and my husband has left for work, I find myself sitting in the dark admiring the lights on our tree, appreciating the quiet serenity. In my head I sing the words to “Happy Birthday” and it feels like worship. I am so happy Jesus was willing to be birthed into human form. He appeared and my soul felt its worth. Jesus is worthy of the celebration.
“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” Hebrews 6:19
Perhaps this season God is extending an invitation to you, grace given to slow down and know that He is God Almighty.
Take some time to light a candle, or light a tree, reflect on the wonder of a God who still comes to meet with us.
Let’s worship together.
Living Hope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-1fwZtKJSM&feature=youtu.be
O Holy Night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8LuKI7cSkU&feature=youtu.be
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