Advent vs. Christmas

Advent vs. Christmas

This year, 2024, Christmas and Hanukkah fell on the same calendar day. (Except, of course, for Eastern Christians who celebrate Christmas somewhat later.) Many Jews celebrate December 25 every year—as a “Winter Holiday.” But they would not identify Hanukkah and Christmas—even this year. Although they fell on the same day, they were two distinct holidays.

I suggest that serious Christians make a similar mental shift about December 25 and the season leading up to it. We celebrate “Advent” and secular people and religious non-Christians celebrate a “Winter Holidays.” We both call it “Christmas.” For the majority of urban Americans and Europeans, however, there’s nothing of Christ in Winter Holiday Christmas.

As a serious Christian, my primary interest in December 25 and the days leading up to it is celebration of the coming into our world of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Yes, I know he was probably not born on December 25 and maybe not even in winter. As an American with many secular friends and loved ones, I celebrate December 25 and the days leading up to it as Winter Holidays Christmas. The two are, to me, entirely different holidays. They just happen to coincide on the calendar.

I experience a certain degree of cognitive dissonance when I go to church and see Santa Claus figurines carried around by children. I don’t know where they got them, but presumably from someone in church as they all have one. My intention is not to blame or shame anyone but only to encourage other Christians to keep Santa Claus out of church. Also to bring Christ into Winter Holidays (calendar-wise) in decorations, music and personal celebrations.

Christians have always had a habit of accommodating to cultures. One way this happens is by mixing the two holidays inside the church. By “inside” I don’t mean just “inside the church building” but also “inside our Christians celebrations of Advent.” On the other hand, many of us insist that secular people include Christ in Winter Holidays Christmas. They may, if they wish, but that often leads to a kind of syncretism of the other side with Christ being confused with materialism, holiday “tinsel,” and partying.

Last evening my wife and I watched the newest Christmas Special of the ongoing British TV series “Call the Midwife.” I was pleased that the makers showed the Anglican nuns and their Christian friends singing Christmas carols. However, they also showed a Salvation Army band playing “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.” Somehow that didn’t feel authentic.

My point is simply to encourage you, my Christian friends, to separate the two holidays in heart if not in mind. One is Advent; please let’s keep Christ in Advent and Santa Claus out of Advent. And let’s participate in our society’s Winter Holidays Christmas without syncretism.

Sidebar: Yes, yes, I know “Santa Claus” is based on a tradition of “Saint Nicholas,” but modern Santa Claus, at least in America, has nothing to do with that Christian historical person. So please don’t bring it up as an objection. Nobody I know represents Santa Claus as a Christian saint.

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