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Four responses to Christmas - 1. Santa


Last night, at our Advent Sunday Café Church service, we explored Glen Scrivener's 'Four Kinds of Christmas' www.fourkindsofchristmas.com .  This is an utterly brilliant resource which explores different ways we react and behave at Christmas.  You can take a quiz on the website to find out which is your default approach to Christmas.  The first time I took the quiz, I got 'Santa.' 

Santa people LOVE Christmas.  They get really excited.  They love all the pretty lights and decorations, the Christmas music, the party food, the presents, the fun.  They put up their Christmas tree in October and start watching Christmas films as soon as the nights start drawing in.  This is definitely me.  I put my Christmas earrings in and my Santa hat on at the Christmas Fayre on 19th November and this will be my normal attire until 6th January... or for as long as I can get away with it.  Last year my husband had to insist that I take down the Christmas decorations as January drew to a close.  I left up one set of lights which, fortunately, he never noticed.  Or pretended not to.

For a 'Santa', life is good and there is no expectation that it will ever be any different.  And there's the rub.  Santas are in danger of failing to see, or of glossing over, those parts of life that are not pretty and shiny, or those people who aren't in the party mood.  There is a danger of superficiality in a 'Santa' Christmas which is all froth and no substance.  Christmas definitely is a time to celebrate - for everyone, and especially for Christians - but it is a celebration of the birth of a baby who came to bring light to a dark world.

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