There it stood––

an offence to my aesthetic sensibilities.

As a child…

I hated our family’s Christmas tree…

with a passion.

And it wasn’t because it was plastic.

This was, after all, the early seventies––

everything was plastic.

No!

It was the way that the tree looked…

the way that it was decorated.

There was too much tinsel…

somewhat haphazardly draped.

The multi-coloured lights were garish and gaudy…

but at least, in that era, they didn’t blink.

However, in terms of its decorative deficiencies, those were only minor offences.

The real crime lay with the so-called ornaments.

There were a few traditional baubles…

but they spanned the full colour spectrum…

and little consideration seemed to be taken into which colours were placed next to each other.

But it was the other “creative” decorations––

and I use that term very loosely––

which were most affronting.

There were numerous plastic toys––

of the sort that you used to find at the bottom of cereal packets––

demonstrably dangling from its branches.

And, through the course of each year’s breakfasts…

some new ones would be kept aside…

in order to be added to the tree.

All of which made our Christmas tree a veritable cacophony…

of colours, plastic kitsch, and bad taste.

So, as a child, I loved to go shopping at department stores…

where I could see a proper Christmas tree:

beautifully arrayed…

with just the right amount of decoration…

all precisely placed and perfectly colour co-ordinated––

preferably in shades of red and gold only––

and not a hideous, plastic, cereal-packet toy in sight.

And, as an adult, that’s what I have tried to emulate:

a Christmas tree that is symmetrical…

colour co-ordinated…

tasteful…

and minimalist.

 

And yet, I had an interesting reaction the other week.

Sitting in the car, waiting for the lights to change…

my gaze fell upon the giant Christmas tree in Victoria Square.

Tall and slender and sparsely decorated…

it should have appealed to me.

But it didn’t.

The tree was tightly bound with wire mesh––

which was clearly used to constrain it into a perfect conical shape.

And, somehow, it just seemed wrong––

like caging a wild animal.

It bothered me.

And the more that I thought about it, the more that it bothered me.

Confined and constrained…

even confected…

it was too perfect.

And, as I thought about it, it seemed to turn into something of a parable.

Have we not, in a sense, done that with Christmas itself?

 

Thanks to schmaltzy seasonal movies…

and slickly suggestive advertising…

we’re under intense societal pressure to strive for the “perfect” Christmas.

We’re conditioned to expect that it ought to be a joyous celebration…

our extended families lovingly gathered around the table…

enjoying each other’s company…

surrounded by smiles and laughter, and abundant food and wine…

and sharing perfectly wrapped presents––

that were thoughtfully selected…

and just what we wanted or needed.

The image that we’re conditioned to expect is constrained and confected…

almost serenely sanitised.

The reality, for so many of us, however, is quite different.

Rather than love and joy and peace…

our gatherings are so often marked by latent hostilities…

frequently bubbling their way to the surface.

It’s one of the worst times of the year for domestic violence…

and for depression.

But we don’t want to admit to that…

we don’t want to dwell on that…

because, well, it’s just not very “Christmassy”.

 

And, in a way, we have even enlisted the Christmas story into our subterfuge.

Leaving aside the fact that the story of Jesus’ birth… which we find in Luke’s Gospel…

is carefully concocted––

bearing little or no connection to the quite normal and unremarkable birth…

that would have happened in reality––

we have done a good job of sanitising and domesticating that story itself.

Aided by heavily romanticised paintings and hymnody…

we have created a perfectly idealised portrait…

of gently lowing cattle…

pensive and pietistic youthful shepherds…

an irenic young mother…

and a peacefully sleeping newborn babe…

all within a pristinely clean stable…

topped with myriad stars shinning in a perfectly clear sky…

and an attractive angelic host proclaiming “Peace on earth, goodwill to all”.

The story as we hear it––

the story as we imagine it––

is constrained and confected…

almost serenely sanitised.

 

Let’s not forget, however, that this is a story of a birth…

and birthing is painful…

and messy.

It’s accompanied by grunting and panting…

screaming and crying…

blood and bodily fluids.

This is a story of a birth that did not take place in a sterile hospital ward…

watched over by highly trained professionals…

surrounded by the latest whizz-bang medical technology…

but primitively and perilously in an ordinary house…

watched over by farm animals…

surrounded by dirt and dung…

with the baby not wrapped in a clean blanket…

but in whatever rags could be found…

and placed in the animals’ hastily emptied feed-trough.

This is a story of a birth attended by some of the most unsavoury characters imaginable…

a birth, itself, surrounded by a shroud of scandal.

This is a story of a birth that is anything but pretty or pristine…

let alone perfect.

And that’s precisely the point.

 

The message of Christmas is that God comes to us…

that God comes among us…

in the mess and muck of ordinary, everyday life…

in the unexpected and the unlikely and even the unwanted;

that God comes to us…

that God comes among us…

incarnated…

wrapped in flesh…

bathed in bodily fluids…

surrounded by the dross and dung and detritus of life.

The message of Christmas is that God comes to us incarnated––

always has…

always will;

that we only find God among and within humankind;

that we only encounter God in each other.

And the message of Christmas is that that is where we should expect to find God––

in each act of enfleshed love…

in every outpouring of enacted compassion…

in each instance of unselfish courage…

in every moment of sacrificial giving.

And the message of Christmas is that we should expect to find God––

in the weak and the vulnerable…

in the despised and the down-on-their-luck…

in the face of the foreign ‘other’…

in the asylum seeker that we want to avoid or cruelly banish from sight.

The message of Christmas is that God comes to us and among us…

and that God will come to us…

incarnated and enfleshed…

in the mess and muck of life…

crying and screaming…

needing our help…

demanding our response.

The message of Christmas is that God’s coming to us––

that God’s incarnation––

is seldom pretty or perfect;

and it can never be confined or constrained.