Tag Archives: Christmas

The colors of Christmas: gold

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Merry Christmas! I hope you’re enjoying time with your family and friends, as well as taking time to ponder the great gift of Christ’s birth and promise of His return.

Today, we continue the colors of Christmas series with gold, and there’s even a golden little brain teaser for you at the end of this post. I’ve got Burl Ives’ “Silver and Gold” going through my head, as I picture Yukon Cornelius failing time and again to find gold. (If “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” isn’t a must-see on your list of Christmas TV specials, then you probably won’t know who I’m talking about, but trust me, Yukon Cornelius is the worst gold prospector in the whole world.)

In the song Ives sings, he reminds us that the hunt for material gold isn’t the most important way to celebrate Christmas: “Silver and Gold, Silver and Gold/ Means so much more when I see/ Silver and Gold decorations on every Christmas tree.”

This gold star tops our Christmas tree

This gold star tops our Christmas tree

It’s hard to imagine Christmas without gold decorations, especially stars to remind us of the one that appeared over the manger in Bethlehem where Christ was born, the same star that led the wise men to Jesus.

So it’s only natural at Christmas to think of stars and halos and even a box full of gold given to Jesus in honor of his birth.

The baby Jesus is often depicted with a gold halo to signify his holiness.

The baby Jesus is often depicted with a gold halo to signify his holiness.

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The colors of Christmas: red

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Last week, I began a series for Advent on the colors of Christmas. This week’s focus is on the color red, one of the most traditional colors associated with the season. I remember a few years ago seeing a friend at church in November wearing a beautiful orange sweater, and she said she was trying to wear it one more time before December fashionistas dictated red as the “must-wear” color.

In Western culture, the color red has widely varying associations: blood, passion or love, danger, stop (like the color of most of the traffic signals I seem to see these days) and many things Christmas (candy canes, Santa’s suit, Rudolph’s nose, bows, holly berries).

Even our expressions use the color in varying ways. You don’t want to be “in the red” (in debt) at the end of the year. The parking deck at the mall may have you “seeing red” (feeling angry) as you struggle to find an open space.

“Red-letter days” are ones we anticipate for their celebrations and importance. We “roll out the red carpet” to celebrities and dignitaries. And we can even “paint the town red” on a fun night out. But we don’t want to get caught “red-handed” (in the act) when we’re snooping to discover the contents of our wrapped Christmas presents.

For Christmas reds, there seems to be no end in what we can find in red. Let’s start with what blooms during this season: Continue reading →

The colors of Christmas: white

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Tis the season of Advent, a joyful time in the calendar as we prepare for Christmas. My husband and I got an unusually early start on our Christmas decorations this year, and our weekend of stringing up lights and hanging stockings on the mantel has me pondering the colors of Christmas.

In the coming weeks, I’ll focus on a different color of Christmas, starting today with the color white.

One of my favorite Christmas decorations: a white ceramic angel holding a book and lit from within

One of my favorite Christmas decorations: a white ceramic angel holding a book and lit from within

In our western culture, white represents many good qualities: innocence, purity, light, goodness. We sing songs dreaming of a white Christmas and get a little excited (at least in some parts of the country) if the weather forecast calls for snow to blanket everything in its stillness and quiet on that magical day.

White is the color you get when all other colors get absorbed. I think the Christmas season is a bit like that, absorbing all of our prayers and dreams and hopes and expectations, even our fears and sorrows.

A little white book
I have Enuma Okoro to thank for opening my eyes to this color of the season. I’m reading her latest book Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent. The simple white cover drew me to the book, probably because I’ve found myself craving simplicity more than ever this year.

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After the party, cleaning up the confetti

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After every party comes the cleaning up, the clearing away. A few weeks ago, I described the falling leaves in our yard as confetti, as though Autumn were throwing a grand party.

There’s still some confetti left on the trees, but for the most part, the party’s over. We’re fortunate where we live to have street crews that come through the neighborhoods to vacuum leaves we’ve raked to the curb. Here’s what our leaf pile typically looks like right before the crew is scheduled to visit our street:

A typical pile of leaves from our yard, with our dog posing to give you an idea of scale

The crews came through today, and in advance of their visit, the whole neighborhood has hummed a constant melody of leaf blowers with accents of rakes, preparing piles of leaves to be cleared.

It was a week that I would have preferred a quieter neighborhood, but I’m still grateful that our city collects the leaves this way, as it’s the easiest and quickest way to get the yard cleaned up.

Between now and the crew’s next visit, we’ll resort to filling up cans to the brim, as we prepare for the next party coming, the grandest of the year: Christmas, with its own variety of confetti that comes in sparkling lights and snow flakes. It’s another type of confetti and another party I’m excited and grateful to celebrate. How about you?

May I offer another gratitude challenge even now that Thanksgiving is over? As we prepare our hearts for the Christmas celebration, I challenge you to continue keeping track of all the blessings in your life. I’m hoping for a calmer, more sane holiday season, where I can keep my priorities in the right place and my focus of gratitude on the beautiful gift of our Savior’s birth. I’d love to hear some things you’re grateful for in this holiday season.

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I hope you’ll forgive today’s shorter than usual post. I’ve been quite sick all week with a stomach bug, but even fighting that, I’ve found plenty to be grateful for: getting home from out of town before getting sick, doctors on call in the wee hours of the morning, 24-hour pharmacies, the best husband in the whole world who was able to work from home for two days to look after me, oyster crackers, ginger ale and a calmer-than-usual dog. And, yes, even the hum of leaf blowers and street crews with vacuum trucks reminding me that life goes on.

Less than

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I don’t know about where you live, but Christmas is starting to seep around the edges everywhere here. In the last week, I’ve gotten two Christmas catalogs in the mail, letting me know that I need to get a jump on the decorating and gift buying and plans for cooking.

Have Christmas catalogs begun arriving in your mailbox?

 

Today at Target, while I was hunting for mosquito repellant (still a dire need where I live), I wandered lost among the Halloween costume aisles hoping to find a last remnant of an outdoor section where the repellant sat all summer. And that’s when I stumbled upon an entire section of Christmas cards. In September.

My husband and I haven’t figured out Thanksgiving plans, and already, marketers and merchants are subtly trying to convince me that I’m almost behind the curve on Christmas planning.

All of this got me to thinking about what these retailers are attempting to accomplish, and I think it’s this: If they can make me worry that I may end up with a “less than” Christmas, one that’s less than my neighbors or friends or even the Christmas I imagine in my mind, I’ll buy a bunch of stuff now to make sure I at least look like I’m having a “more than” Christmas.

When the world makes us feel “less than”
I’m not sure when I first learned the less than symbol (<) in math (you know: 3<4), but I’m guessing it was at a pretty young age. You know what else I learned about “less than” at too young an age? What it meant to feel less than.  Continue reading →