Image: Mariana B/Unsplash

From rising up too early to ask who will slaughter the chicken, booking the milkman a night before, to razing down people’s fences in search of a makeshift “Christmas tree,” hype was always my Christmas high!

I even tried to “check myself” some Christmas mornings to “prove” whether I was having the “Christmas feeling.”

So recently, I found myself asking a guard in the neighbourhood where he was going to “eat” his Christmas. I immediately sensed where that sentiment had originated.

“Eating” Christmas?

Partly blame it on my parents (yeah, mean their great-great grandparents—Adam and Eve). My Christmas hype, I rediscovered, had been groomed in the shallows of unbiblical feelings and materialism.

What was “eating” (for all the divine gift it is) to do with the consolation of Israel? “Had my meditation upon the Messiah rose beyond my ideals of minced meat? Or wasn’t it a mere anticipation of a heavier lunchtime, largely motivated by my all-year-round scarcity?

Then came the Christmas Church service, which would get cluttered by all sorts of fundraising, the clout of the village stepping out in their latest everything, timed to grab the attention of fellow once-in-a-year congregants, all stirred by stilettos more than scripture.

Wait, there was even the enthusiasm about new clothes that never left room for meditation on the spiritual nakedness that necessitated a second Adam, who now requires us to put on the new self.

In one of Philly Lutaaya’s wonderful songs, he poetically reminisces about butchers who never go to sleep on Christmas Eve, a reality that makes you wonder whether you have thought through the baby who will soon grow out of the manger and get butchered on the cross for our reconciliation to God.

Just in case you think my parents were the last victims of this frenzy, you should have overheard my eldest daughter correct her younger sister recently, something to the effect of:

Santa doesn’t actually come every Christmas Eve, but mum and dad actually put the gifts the night before.

Here were some under 10’s in my own household meditating and clarifying about gift boxes and white beards—more than the saviour their Dad likes to write about. Decorated living room or thick supermarket checkout line, we must remember that the effort to tether a generation to the God of the Bible remains a parental responsibility.

Likewise, the psalmist-like expectation of blessedness through meditation, beyond rolling shopping carts, lies in how far we immerse our thinking in the streams of what was written, not merely what is wrapped. Specifically, how Yahweh has finally revealed himself as flesh and blood to save his people from their sins.

Sounds too technical for a Christmas meditation? Maybe because I’ve been feeding on shallows for far too long!

Consequently, no matter the shadows around you, biblical meditation is the real meat our heads and hearts hunger to spiritually savour, especially amidst December marketing weeds that threaten to “wither” the word-became-flesh in the hearts of those called to himself.

Merry Christmas!