My biggest concern with the movie is that it sort of glosses over the fact that the December 25th celebration we now know as “Christmas” does, indeed, have a good deal of pagan history.  As a result, it takes too lightly those who have legitimate, biblically-inspired concerns.  I can appreciate this, because I’ve been there!  And I think there are more effective ways to have addressed that conflict, in a more head-on manner.

However, with that said, if you allow yourself to get caught up in that, you will totally miss the bigger picture.  Even if you should decide not to incorporate any one (or more) of these traditions into your home, chances are you’re going to encounter them as you go about your daily lives.  The insights here will enable you to use those encounters as teaching opportunities.  And you just might be surprised at how rich an experience they can be if you do incorporate them in your own home.

Here’s how the movie goes: A mom has gone all-out, throwing a huge Christmas party — one she apparently throws every year.  She loves it, and thoroughly enjoys the celebration.  But her husband is having second thoughts this year.  He’s uncomfortable with all the “pagan celebration” going on in his home and escapes to the (quiet!) car to think.  That’s where his brother-in-law (Kirk Cameron) finds him.  When he discovers what the problem is, he sets out to show his brother-in-law how every piece of his family’s celebration points to Christ.

The introduction is pretty slow-moving.  After that, the presentation bounces back and forth between the story — which is a fun-filled, playful, sometimes silly narrative — and more reflective scenes illustrative of the things Kirk Cameron is describing to his brother.  (Personally, I would not take very small children to see the movie.  There is nothing wrong with it; however, I expect most will find these more reflective scenes “boring,” and they’re where the bulk of the purpose is to the film.  If I had it on DVD, I’d show it to littles, though, where if they get antsy during these more reflective scenes it’s okay.)

Throughout this portion of the movie, I had to keep biting my tongue.  The dialogue between the reflective scenes here is where a lot of that “glossing over” is most obvious.  I wanted to say, “But…” “But…”  My personal Christmas tree dilemma?  That was prompted by a pagan friend’s comments about putting up her Yule tree.  These pagan influences are not in the ancient past — they continue today!  That’s not something to pretend away or look down on someone for having concerns about.

However.  The explanations provided — the things illustrated — are amazing.  We are a household that looks for symbolism — and there is still so much here that every one of us had missed.  It’s amazingly rich, and I promise if you watch with an open heart, you will never look at a manger scene, a Christmas tree, even Santa Claus and gifts the same way again (whether or not you choose these traditions for your own family; we still don’t “do” Santa at our house).

The thing that kept popping into my head (besides, “Wow; I never thought about that like that before!”) was that, to a large extent, things have whatever meaning we ascribe to them.  No, Jesus probably wasn’t born in December.  (He was probably born in the autumn — most likely during the Feast of Tabernacles, when God came to tabernacle among men.)  But that doesn’t preclude our ability to celebrate the Light of the World who came to pierce the darkness at the time of year when the light finally begins to once again overcome the darkness.

This mindset, in my opinion, didn’t come through very clearly in the early and middle portions of the movie.  But it seems to be the intent, because the last section of the movie, where everything is summed up, said things perfectly:

“We need to make traditions of our own.  We need to infuse old symbols with new meaning.  We need to arrange our lives and our homes so that every single thing points to Jesus. “

I think this is such a beautiful summing-up of how we need to handle holidays — and every day — regardless of how we each choose to handle the details, that I made a pinnable version of this quote.

It’s okay to throw out a tradition if it’s meaningless for us or, worse, if it’s leading us away from Christ.*  But we ought to take a little closer look before we make that assumption, because it might be that the problem isn’t with the tradition, but with our focus.  “Open the Eyes of My Heart” might be a good song with which to begin the holiday season — so we can choose to see Jesus everywhere.

It’s okay if we don’t all follow through in the same way.  My family chose to keep our tree; we decided we could do more to glorify and focus on the Lord by keeping it and being intentional about it than by getting rid of that particular tradition.  But we don’t “do” Santa Claus.  We don’t hide from the idea or anything; we just don’t embrace it for us.  (When Ariel was little, she referred to him as the “Christmas man.”)  For us, embracing Santa in the traditional manner doesn’t add anything for us.  (Permissable, but not profitable, if you will.)

You might find a different balance, and that’s okay, too.  But please make whatever decision you make after thoughtful consideration and, as Kirk said, make “every single [thing] point to Jesus.”

Odds & Ends

A couple more comments about the movie itself: the “story” portions of the movie have been mocked in certain circles as “bad acting,” etc.  I think it’s intentional.  The story seems to be “caricaturized” for comedic effect.  It’s silly, and it’s meant to be.  We all enjoyed it.  (Could the technical aspects have been a little better?  Perhaps.  For those who would complain about that, though, I’d say put your money where your mouth is.  When you’re willing to fund a higher-budget movie, I’m sure they’d be glad to make it more technically impressive.)

I especially enjoyed some of the little ways they good-naturedly poked fun at us as Christians in certain circles.  There are fun little pokes at Pentecostal exuberance (that’s my background, by the way), anti-fluoridation (yes, really! lol), etc.  In short, they just have fun with us as Christian community and don’t “take ourselves too seriously.” (I know that was bad grammar, but I want to emphasize the “us-ness” of it.)  And I appreciated that Kirk’s character was willing to be hard-hitting with his brother-in-law when he felt he needed it, even though I didn’t 100% agree with his take on the brother-in-law’s point of view.

All three of my girls watched with me.  The three-year-old tuned out a little ways in, I think.  She was pretty antsy, and I don’t think she got much, if anything, out of the movie.  My 7-year-old and 12-year-old both really enjoyed it, and they both were strongly impacted by it, as well.  (My 7-year-old said, “Now I understand why we have a tree!” And I said, “Yes, we’ve been telling you that for seven years.”  I guess it’s true that you have to hear a thing seven times before it sinks in!)

On a more serious note, here’s another great quote:

“Remind your children that every character in God’s story has a place.”

Win Swag!

You can win some cool movie-related swag.  Thanks to Propeller Consulting, we’re giving away this package containing a signed (by Kirk Cameron) movie poster, a car air freshener (for when you’re hanging out in the car for some peace and quiet?), and a CD soundtrack.  (Note: there is only one CD in the package.  The picture shows it twice so you can see the front and the back.)

To enter, follow the instructions in the Rafflecopter widget below for whichever entries you choose to make use of.  (It has been brought to my attention that the widget is a little wonky on mobile — the width is not adjusting properly.  So if you’re having trouble on your mobile device, switching to a regular computer should resolve that.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*Another reason to throw out a tradition would be if it’s a stumbling block to those around us.  In this sense, I think celebrating Christmas is very, very different from keeping household idols in Old Testament times.  In today’s culture, the trappings of Christmas are, as a rule, not associated with paganism any more than the days of the week, and I don’t hear anyone advocating for refusing to say Wednesday or Thursday anymore.