{"id":20329,"date":"2014-12-11T00:01:29","date_gmt":"2014-12-11T08:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=20329"},"modified":"2014-12-11T00:01:29","modified_gmt":"2014-12-11T08:01:29","slug":"advent-witnessing-to-the-light-with-tinsel-and-a-plastic-santa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/advent-witnessing-to-the-light-with-tinsel-and-a-plastic-santa\/","title":{"rendered":"Advent: Witnessing to the Light \u2013 With Tinsel and a Plastic Santa"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
Just one of many boxes in the basement labeled “Advent” or “Christmas.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s Advent, the traditional time of (quiet) preparation for Christmas.\u00a0 This Sunday in churches around the country, congregations will be reading the Magnificat — Mary’s song in praise of God and God’s generosity and justice. They’ll also be hearing that odd desert wanderer, John the Baptist, testify to the Light that was to come.<\/p>\n

As for me, every year, as my Christmas tree twinkles its lights at my children, my husband, our next-door neighbors and the occasional UPS agent bringing packages \u2013 I like to think that, like John the Baptist, I\u2019m witnessing to the Light that is on its way.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
The angel.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And as I haul the Christmas tree angel, the tinsel, the plastic Santa and the fake pine boughs up from the basement, part of me clings to the idea that in decorating my house for Christmas I am, along with Mary, proclaiming the greatness of the Lord.<\/p>\n

But it is a feeble witness. Lots of people put up Christmas trees<\/a> each year \u2013 my daughter\u2019s Jewish godmother, for one, the atheist I interviewed for my book, Wrestling with God<\/em><\/a>, for another. You don\u2019t have to be a Christian to do Christmas these days.<\/p>\n

I string the tree lights and tinsel; the pine needles prickle the backs of my hands. I wrap the fake pine boughs around the stairway railing. I pull out the Christmas stockings my mother painstakingly needlepointed for her grandchildren when they were small.<\/p>\n

And I listen to a CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir belting out Christmas carols.<\/p>\n

Not “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Not \u201cWhite Christmas.\u201d Not \u201cI\u2019ll Be Home for Christmas.\u201d Not the watered-down stuff you hear at the mall these days.<\/p>\n

But carols with some backbone: \u201cSilent Night\u201d and \u201cHark, the Herald Angels Sing,\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as John the Baptist wasn\u2019t afraid to speak truth to the cultural authorities of his time \u2013 the priests and the Levites \u2013 these carols speak their truth to me, to my household and to our surrounding culture:<\/p>\n

\u201cSon of God, love\u2019s pure light radiant beams from Thy holy face.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, \u201cVeiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate Deity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kids don\u2019t sing these carols in school any more, and it\u2019s the rare merchant who will play something so explicitly, viscerally Christian in their store.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m free to play them in the privacy of my own home. My family likes the old carols; they sang them as kids. But they mostly ignore the lyrics.<\/p>\n

The lyrics are too intense, my husband (who was reared by a couple of Berkeley agnostics) might complain. Too heavy, my upbeat, self-sufficient son would say. \u201cToo much God stuff,\u201d my daughter, a beginner Buddhist, might declare.<\/p>\n

Too intense? Too heavy? Too much God?<\/p>\n

Or too much to hope for?<\/p>\n

Here are the Bible passages if you’d like to look them up: \u201cAnd Mary said, \u2018My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord . . . \u2019\u201d (Luke 1:46). Also, \u201cThere was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him . . . \u201d (John 1:6)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Our mini creche. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s Advent, the traditional time of (quiet!) preparation for Christmas. But when it arrives, what does Christmas bring, really? Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1364,1365,35,1366,34,1367,55,1368],"class_list":["post-20329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-advent","tag-angel","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-carols","tag-dont-miss","tag-lectionary","tag-family-stories","tag-santa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}