Reasons why you shouldn't kick the Christmas Decorations!

Homily preached at Eltham College on Tuesday 1st December based (loosely) on St. Matthew ii.


Down comes the box
out of the loft.

Well,
eventually,
after Dad manages
to wedge it stuck in the loft doorway,
and only frees it
with a good kicking.

After dusting it down,
the box is opened.

Thus begins the task
of unpacking
the Christmas decorations.

Dad is trying to work out
where on earth to put them this year.

Mum's put the new chest of drawers
in the place where the Christmas tree
used to go.

First out of the box
is that very tree,
that noble exemplar
of Christmas decorations,
proud, lush,
green and elegant.

Of course,
this Christmas tree is plastic
and 12 months in the loft
have rendered it scrunched up
and misshapen,
resembling less a pine tree
and more
an ancient, green
giant lavatory brush.

Next out of the box
is a shoebox marked
“Tree Decorations – Be Careful”
in thick black marker.

The fact that the shoebox
makes a noise
not unlike broken glass
reminds Dad
that kicking the box down from the loft
wasn’t a good idea.
Now he has to make
a trip to Bluewater
to pick up new baubles
and other decorations.

In another shoebox lies the fairy.

However,
decades of facing the agony
of being thrust on the very top of the tree
have taken their toll.

Now she looks about as glamorous
as the discarded Barbie Doll
that Dad sat on last year
- another item on Dad’s shopping list.

And so it goes on.

The tinsel is in a knot
that defies the laws of physics.

The fairy lights have blown a fuse.

And the Baby Jesus
in the very expensive Nativity Set
seems to have been replaced with
a Lego Darth Vader.
The resulting search for the Lord
in an Imperial Tie Fighter
is fruitless.

“Oh,” says Mum,
“why do we bother with this.

It’s the same every year.”

Mum’s got a point don’t you think?

[PAUSE]

Year after year we see,
and sometimes wrestle with,
the same old Christmas decorations
to the extent that they seem commonplace.

Most of you will have seen
between 11 and 19 Christmasses.

Some staff members
are candidates for having witnessed
the first Christmas,
so think what it’s like for them!

We sing of “White Christmasses”,
yet only 13% of the Christmasses
since 1950 were white.
Our Christmas cards show
robins and snow scenes,
happy snowmen scampering cheerully
without fear of boys with flamethrowers,
carol-singers still happy to sing
“Once in Royal”
for the 15,973th time,
lovely country sides from long ago.

However,
a Christmas card
with a bunch of hoodies standing
shivering under a bus shelter
graffitoing
“Happy Chrimbo aiiight”
would not make the front of a card,
yet it’s more realistic given
that we are now in the 21st Century.

It’s difficult to see how relevant
these old fashioned images are
to modern-day folk like us.


But then they all point to an event
even further back in time
– namely the Birth of Christ.

We have to cross oceans of Time
to understand the events
of the original Nativity scene,
especially one without Darth Vader present.

How can an event two thousand years
distant be made relevant to us now?

[PAUSE]

This is the trouble with our modern world.

You can’t easily compare hoodies with shepherds,
or bank managers with the Magi,
or the manager of Travelodge
with a surly innkeeper with built-in stable.

Precise comparisons don’t exist,
but there are parallels that we can look for,
if we understand the imagery.

According to the Legend,
St Boniface stopped a child being sacrificed
by pagans worshipping a tree
by cutting the tree down.

In its place sprang a fir tree
which St Boniface declared holy,
and this subsequently
became the Christmas tree.

You may believe that legend or you may not.

Seeing that there seem
to be no records of Christmas trees
before the 16th Century,
it makes it seem that it is just a story.

Can we be sure though?

Nonetheless,
by putting up a Christmas tree
you are constructing a symbol
that points to Jesus as the Saviour of Mankind.

Just as the child was saved
from the pagans by St Boniface,
so has Mankind been saved by Christ.

But you have to get the symbols right.

In recent years
it was thought that
tinsel represented the guts of one’s enemies
strewn across the sacred tree
and the baubles certain other parts
of his body
(use your imagination).

However,
tinsel wasn’t invented until 1610,
and the practice of hanging ribbons
around a tree served purely as decoration,
adding a bit of colour
to the green branches.

Baubles were meant to represent apples,
the fruit of the tree which brings us back
to the story of Adam and Eve.

Remember that Adam and Eve
ate of the fruit
of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
and were banned
from the Garden of Eden.

Christ was born in the world
in order to reverse that sin,
and that is why the baubles
are on the tree to remind us of this.

The fairy on the tree
used to be an archangel,
probably St Gabriel
who announced the Birth of Christ
to Our Lady.

[PAUSE]

All these symbols
have a place in our homes each Christmas,
and yet we often forget them
or miss them
or sit on them,
or wonder why we bother
when the Fairy lights fizzle
and go out again for the 167th time.

Do you use
the traditional decorations?

Why do you put up what you do?

What meaning is there
in these decorations for you
this Christmas time?