Christ in Christmas.

It’s that time of the year when the “Keep Christ in Christmas”s slogans appear on face book and advertising and opinion news shows. Actually I do agree, but probably not in the way that I am supposed to agree. For me, keeping Christ in Christmas is not about simply avoiding Merry X Mas or whether or not we have nativity scenes or Christmas trees in public places or how we are greeted in a store. Happy Holidays is fine with me as it simply means Happy Holy days, and the last I checked, we are in Holy days.
But I think we should go deeper with this keeping Christ in Christmas. I think we should get Christmas out of our shopping centers and consumer patterns so we can more faithfully keep Christ in Christmas. We can keep Christ in Christmas by remembering to care for the poor not only with our much needed seasonal acts of charity but issues of justice and equity. Maybe we keep Christ in Christmas by avoiding that latest plastic product, gadget or fad that may be doing more harm than good on the global scale. (As my daughter put it, its Christ-mas not capital-mas!)Wouldn’t we be keeping Christ in Christmas by keeping peace and peacemaking? When we keep forgiveness and reconciliation in our Christmas isn’t that how we keep Christ in Christmas? When we consider our impact on the earth and its resources, I think we are closer to keeping Christ in Christmas. We keep Christ in Christmas by keeping his love in our heart and our words and our actions. We keep Christmas by prayerful living and generous behavior. We keep Christ in Christmas with our lives of worship and service .Maybe to keep Christ in Christmas I will need to keep some other things out. What do I really need, to simply keep Christ in Christmas?
I know that I don’t need to get worked up in the Christmas culture war that is using my Savior's birth as another tool for political divisivness , fear and sometimes even hate! I prefer to celebrate a humble birth of love . I will keep a humble Christ in Christmas. If these things are what we mean by keeping Christ in Christmas, that’s what I seek. I know that I will not be successful. But I will try a little more.