Ecumenical Christmas

About this time last year, my boss came into the teachers' room and frowned. "Where's the Christmas tree?" she wanted to know. "Why isn't it up yet?"

There were only three of us in the staffroom and we were all busy with lesson plans and marking. "Isn't it in the secretary's office?" one of my colleagues mumbled.

But it wasn't. My boss came back and started rummaging around in the cupboards. "It's almost Christmas and we still don't have the tree up!" she lamented. "This just won't do!"

I knew I'd seen it, but I couldn't remember where. "Try the bottom cupboard, just under the dictionaries," I suggested.

There was a triumphant cry and my boss straightened up, clutching a tangle of plastic evergreen. "I knew it was here somewhere!" She gave it a little shake and a cockroach that had been wintering in the branches hit the floor and went scurrying."Okay, let's set it up," my boss said, undeterred by the roach. "And look -- here's a bag of decorations to go on it!"

She dumped everything in the middle of the table, shot us a bright smile, and went off to do more important things. I put down my pen and sighed. One of my colleagues groaned and the other rolled his eyes. Two more colleagues walked into the office, blinked, and smiled. "Oh good, you've got the Christmas tree out!"

As we all started stuffing synthetic branches into slots, I almost burst out laughing. We teachers were a mixed bag of nationalities and faiths. Among us were over half a dozen Christians -- Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox (Russian and Greek) and Syriac -- a Bahai, assorted atheists, and many Muslims, lapsed and practicing. Yet here we were, assembling a plastic replica of a pagan symbol manufactured by Communists in China, at the behest of a Muslim, to celebrate the birth of a Jew. How could you possibly get more ecumenical than that, or more surreal?

But as the week went by, I was glad of that tree. Amazingly, it brought back memories of childhood Christmases, the smell of eucalyptus, crushed fir,and cinnamon, the sparkle of glass ornaments, the thrill of finding this green, glittering thing in the middle of our living room.

The more I thought about it, the weirder it was: historically, Christmas trees have nothing to do with Christ, and yet they have become an international symbol of Christmas -- so much so that even in Muslim-owned shops and businesses in Northern Cyprus where few Christians set foot, you could see them. In Japan, where the population of Christians is about 1%, you can see many Christmas trees at this time of year. We had Christian friends in Tokyo who never bought a Christmas tree, but their largely agnostic neighbors dutifully decorated one every year. For some reason, decorating Christmas trees has become a compelling custom. The whole industrialized world seems to own Christmas.

"It's money," scoffed one of my colleagues in Japan. "Money and cultural imperialism. That's why people put up Christmas trees." And I could see his point: when Christmas trees go up weeks before Halloween, it's impossible not to feel cynical. "It has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity," a friend lamented, shuddering at the abomination of a PVC Christmas tree in a window, glittering with fiber optic decorations. Disco carols boomed raucously from a shop while girls in short red velvet skirts pinned shiny garlands of plastic tinsel to the display window.

But although I can't speak for those who are of other faiths or have no religion at all, I think there is something all human beings can celebrate over Christmas, something that has nothing to do with commercialism, the fundamental idea behind even the plastic replica of a pagan symbol: unselfish giving. Whether or not we believe that Jesus was the son of God, almost all of us have been lucky enough to experience this at some time or other -- a gift offered to us freely, given from the heart, with no strings attached. Yes, it takes a lot to see it there in an aluminum tree festooned with baubles, but have faith: the love is there. And faith and love are what Christmas is all about.

Thank You For Christmas

We have a weird custom in our family: we get our kids to write thank-you notes for their presents on Christmas Day.

It started the Christmas our eldest was four and a half and her sister was sixteen months. On Christmas morning, my husband and I watched as they savaged a pile of gifts from us and other far away family members. We looked at each other uneasily: you hear people going on about how Christmas is all for children and how much fun it is to watch the little ones opening their presents, but we actually found it pretty awful. Our children were turning into greedy little consumers right before our very eyes. Worse still, we had aided and abetted it.

"Who gave you the book about bats?" we asked our eldest a few hours later.

She shook her head. "I don't remember."

"How about the train set? Was that from Uncle Paul?"

We had to ask her twice; she was too busy playing with a puzzle. "Umm...I don't know."

We were mortified: How could we possibly write thank-you letters when we couldn't even remember who'd given our kids what? I'd been trying to keep a record of who got what and from whom, but the kids had plowed through their presents so fast I'd managed to lose track.

"Christmas," my husband muttered despairingly. "Greedfest is more like it."

I felt exactly the same: clearly for our kids, the day was nothing more than a present-opening event. There was little gratitude shown, little sign that the day meant anything other than an opportunity to receive gifts and treats. Lacking direction, our kids had behaved perfectly naturally. We had to do something to civilize them.

And that is when the inspiration came to us: We were already teaching the eldest to read and write, so why not start her on simple thank-you notes? She would be responsible for remembering who gave her what gift; we would suggest a few ideas about how and what to write, then nag her to do her duty. It took a couple of months, but by her fifth birthday, the eldest could manage a few shaky lines. That Christmas, she wrote her first thank-you notes in pencil, copying what we told her to write in a wobbly, endearingly clumsy hand:

Dear Auntie Bertie,

I just love the cute cat pajamas you sent. Thank you so much!

Have you had a good Christmas? We have had a wonderful one!

Love XXX ---

We were thrilled with this, and as soon as the youngest had learned to print, we started her too. When nagging the kids to do it turned out to be a pain, we came up with an even better plan, one which had the added benefit of slowing down the whole gift-opening process: we had the kids write a note for every present they opened, as they opened them.

Believe it or not, this method has worked brilliantly for us. Faced with a huge pile of presents and the knowledge that they won't get to open more unless they produce, the kids keep those notes coming. Before each gift, we talk about the giver and how that person is special. I know: it sounds obnoxiously smug and smarmy, but instead of a dizzy, thirty-minute orgy of gift-opening, we have managed to stretch Christmas Day out to a good eight-hour session. Stationery piles diminish; carefully printed letters pile up. Photographs of aunts, uncles and cousins are pulled out and examined; anecdotes of funny events are recalled. Remember the first time you met Auntie Leslie and you threw up all over her in the back of the car? Remember the time Uncle Gustavo let you eat eight bananas all in one go?

Shortly after moving back to the U.K., we spent Christmas with my husband's family down south and had to abandon this custom. The next year, we were invited down again, and once again, thank-you notes had to wait until we got back. On the way home, one of the kids said wistfully I wish we could do that thing with the letters again. Do you think we could do it again next year?

Sure, maybe she was just saying that because she knew we wanted to hear it. Maybe both kids are making a virtue of a necessity and only going through the motions of being grateful, but even if that's the case, it's good enough for us. The next year, we stayed home and wrote our Christmas thank-you notes again, and we've done it every year since.

We'll be doing it this year, too: thank you for Christmas.

And on the subject of gratitude, thank you all very much for reading and commenting on my blog. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all!