Christmas traditions
21 December 2007 by Sandy, csj
I was riding in a car with someone the other night who noticed an outdoor crèche with Jesus missing. She was very upset that someone would steal the baby Jesus from the church that was displaying the crèche. It’s funny…I would not have assumed a theft, as I have lived in convents where Jesus was added to the scene on Christmas Day. In fact, in my last house, the Magi started a journey from one end of the house to the other, moving a little closer (with the help of one of the sisters) each day until the Feast of the Epiphany.
Interesting how the traditions practiced in different families/groups will vary. Do you have any interesting Christmas traditions you’d like to share?
I use to be so careful with my Manger and figurines cause I’ve had them since early marriage. One of my granddaughters just loved to play with it. Instead of telling her no I just let her have fun. It was just so precious to see her play with the Baby Jesus, of course Baby Jesus with gallup around on the camel’s back to her delight. Now she always sets the manger up for me.
We break the Oplakti (bread) before our Christmas Dinner, and wish everyone Christmas Wishes.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Blessed and Healthy New Year!
Donna
You’ve brought my attention to a very important every day fact that all of us sometimes take for granted — the differences in our points of reference. As in the scenario you describe, I, too, grew up in a home where Jesus did not appear in the manger until Christmas eve. Yet, if that is not one’s experience, it’s easy to see that the absent Jesus would seem to be an incomplete manger likely occuring from a theft. This simple illustration really raises the questions of how many every day misunderstandings occur because people have different points of view or different points of references of which we are not aware or to which we are not sensitive. As someone who is deeply interested and involved in cultural anthropology, this scenario is such a simple accessible yet striking illustration of ethnocentrism, that is believing that our point of seeing/our set of experiences is the way the rest of the world sees/experiences life around us.
Have a very Merry and Blessed Christmas! You’ll have to stop by my ‘place’ sometime and say hello. I am glad to read that things are on the way up…prayers continue!
Blessed Christmas to you all…and thanks for your responses.
Lisa, I really like how you picked up on the tendency to make assumptions based on one’s own particular frame of reference, not realizing that there may be other explanations for what we observe. I’ve been learning that it’s always a good idea to check out my observations before I make any assumptions.
I still recall my first year of novitiate, where on Christmas Eve, we shared a dinner in which a number of the women in our community (14 all together) tried to put together dinner in the different manners they grew up with…we had the Italians with the 7 different types of fish, and the Poles with the different varieties of pirogies (cheese, potato, sauerkraut, prune). The rest of us just sat back and let the chaos unfold.