Christmas With G.K. Chesterton: A 5-Day Advent DevotionalMuestra

All the old wholesome customs in connection with Christmas were to the effect that one should not touch or see or know or speak of something before the actual coming of Christmas Day. Thus, for instance, children were never given their presents until the actual coming of the appointed hour. The presents were kept tied up in brownpaper parcels, out of which an arm of a doll or the leg of a donkey sometimes accidentally stuck. I wish this principle were adopted in respect of modern Christmas ceremonies and publications. The editors of the magazines bring out their Christmas numbers so long before the time that the reader is more likely to be lamenting for the turkey of last year than to have seriously settled down to a solid anticipation of the turkey which is to come. Christmas numbers of magazines ought to be tied up in brown paper and kept for Christmas Day. On consideration, I should favor the editors being tied up in brown paper. Whether the leg or arm of an editor should ever be allowed to protrude I leave to individual choice.

G.K. Chesterton , The Illustrated London News (1906)

A Warning to Those in Danger of Celebrating Christmas Prematurely

The celebration of Christmas, as traditionally observed by the church, does not, in fact, conclude on December 25. Christmas Day is but the beginning of twelve days of festive celebration (as expressed in the well-known carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”). That certain ceremonies and publications in Chesterton’s day were rushing to celebrate Christmas prematurely betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the Advent and Christmas traditions. As he says elsewhere, “Modern men have a vague feeling that when they have come to the feast, they have come to the finish. By modern commercial customs, the preparations for it have been so very long and the practice of it seems so very short.”

If this sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because we tend to observe Christmas in the following fashion: Immediately after Thanksgiving in America, radio stations begin playing Christmas music. TV networks begin airing Christmas movies. Families begin stringing up decorations. The so-called “Christmas season” (a somewhat vague designation) is officially initiated. Festivities continue through December 25 (the day when families gather and gifts are exchanged), after which decorations are unceremoniously stripped away, trees are dragged to the curb to be hauled off with the trash, news anchors recap the holiday in past-tense language, talking about how Christmas was, how it went, what happened. In the days following Christmas Day, a general malaise hangs in the air, like dissipating smoke from a fireworks display. Christmas came and went in a grand but short-lived fashion. Whatever it was, whatever it was for, it is now definitively and categorically over. “This is, of course, in sharp contrast to the older traditional customs, in the days when it was a sacred festival for a simpler people,” Chesterton reminds us. “Then the preparation took the form of the more austere season of Advent and the fast of Christmas Eve. But when men passed on to the feast of Christmas it went on for a long time after the feast of Christmas Day.”

As we have established, the “austere” season of Advent is a time of expectant waiting. Christmas, fittingly, is its own season—a prolonged feast sustained for nearly two weeks. Chesterton reminds us that in the “old wholesome customs” Christmas would not be spoken of throughout the season of Advent. Gifts were kept wrapped until Christmas Day when they would be opened at last—not all at once in a dizzying blur—but one at a time, over the course of twelve days (I would venture to say most people today lack the patience for such a thing). If this all sounds rather foreign to us, it’s only further proof that the modern Westernized approach to Christmas has been ingrained in us from an early age. Thankfully, we serve a God who invites us to become like children, so there’s always time to unlearn a few things.

The challenge I present to you is this: resist the urge to celebrate Christmas prematurely. Give Advent its proper due, armed with reverent patience and an expectant heart. When Christmas comes, celebrate with prolonged joy “in a crescendo of festivity until Twelfth Night” (I’ll leave the means of present distribution up to you). Rebel against our modern culture by joining the church ranks, which outlasts all cultures. Or shall Chesterton tie you up in brown paper as well?

Reflect

1. Consider how you might allow the church's traditions to influence your Christmas celebration this year.
2. Consider how you might “unlearn” some modern holiday traditions in favor of a more traditional observance of Advent and Christmas.
3. What would it take for you to sustain a “crescendo of festivity until Twelfth Night”?