Our First Christmas Tree

It’s still 66 days before Christmas Day but the season has already arrived at our home. Last night Joseph and I already set up our first Christmas Tree as Mr. & Mrs. Palarca. Although we believe our tree is still a work in progress, it will have to suffice for now, especially since we’ve already hit our budget limit for the tree, hehe. Gosh, Christmas trees are so expensive these days. We should have gotten one as early as January this year – you know at one of those post-Christmas Sales where all prices for décor items drop down by almost 75%. I know I should have scoured Divi or Dapitan, or any place else where I could probably get it for a much lower price, but well, I don’t have a car to drive around, and the expenses I might incur in transportation might just equate to the savings that I would get from shopping. So in short, it would totally defeat the purpose so why get into the hassle?

So we got our Christmas tree from where else – SM! =) We got the 7 ft. tall that had the closest resemblance to the pine tree. Have you ever noticed how manufacturers or stores never really get the correct height measurements of these trees? Our supposedly 7ft. tall tree didn’t actually reach a full 6 feet. Odd… anyway, for now we’re playing with a plum and gold theme, to match with the purple and yellow accents that we already have in our home. Those are my favorite colors by the way, next to pink.

Actually, this is REALLY my VERY FIRST Christmas Tree. I’ve never had a tree or any Christmas décor at my single life condominium for the past 9 years. I figured I don’t usually spend Christmas there anyway so why bother decking it out with boughs of holly? This coming Christmas though promises to be very special. This is going to be my first Christmas as Mrs. Palarca and my husband and I have decided to ditch going to our hometowns for the holidays and just stay here at our humble loft in Cubao.

Being the curious cat that I am, putting up our Christmas Tree made me think about whether this practice is biblically acceptable or not. So I hit the Bible of course and the World Wide Web for answers. Alas I found out that like most Christmas traditions that we know, the Christmas Tree is just one of the many pagan rituals that have been “Christianized” through time. In fact some fundamentalists even argue that the prophet Jeremiah (10:2-4) depicted this practice as pagan idolatry. Come to think of it, you can never find a chapter or even a verse in the Bible that commands us to celebrate Christ’s birth as a “feast”.

Jesus never asked His followers to remember His Birth; instead he commanded his followers to remember His Death. This is very clearly mentioned in the book of Luke, "..And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me. Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you (Luke 22: 19 -20)."

Biblically speaking, let me just stress that, Christ’s death is actually more important than his birth because this was THAT IMPORTANT MOMENT when MANKIND WAS SAVED OF SIN. Our salvation came through His death and not through His birth. Come to think of it, practically speaking, if we have to put it in a VERY SIMPLE superhero metaphor – we were “awed” when Kal-el emerged from his space capsule BUT our “cheers” went to whenever Kal-el now as Superman saved the earth from the villain’s diabolical scheme. In short, we do naturally celebrate “being saved” as compared to “witnessing a birth”.

But of course, that’s not to say that we should never ever REMEMBER Christ’s birth. It’s just that “biblically” speaking it’s NOT SUPPOSED to have taken this titanic size of a fiesta. Blame all that to a long history of paganism, religious imperialism and modern capitalism. Add to that is the fact that as human beings, it is in our nature to put so much importance to birthdays. Who in his “right human mind” would want to celebrate someone’s death, anyway? Death in human vocabulary means a sad affair.

Well, Jesus was no “mere” human. He doesn’t think and act the way we do. He was the Son of God. God in Himself. Enough said.

But fast forward to 2008 and we’re 66 days before that former pagan festival date turned Catholic celebration by the Roman Church, we all realize that we are all riding the big Christmas caravan – with all its Christianized pagan rituals and commercialism. It’s kind of disheartening to know now that everything that we have been born into loving about Christmas is not related to Christ at all. The Christmas we know and practice is everything that the Bible is telling us not to do. Yikes!

So as Christians what do we do? Throw out our beautiful tree? Cancel presents? Do not celebrate December 25 at all? Pretty tough call, huh? Let’s admit it… we are kind of trapped in this material world. I confess it’s hard NOT to bite into the whole marketing ploy of Christmas. It’s NOT EASY to withhold our excitement. C’mon it’s CHRISTMAS! You know what I mean? But then again, after reading the long history of the twists and turns and the many scandals that revolved around the evolution of Christmas, it will really make you think twice about following the traditions. In a way, if you discern it well, you’ll get that strong feeling that the enemy has definitely spoiled this soup.

But for the sake of putting ourselves in the mood and probably reinforcing the ambiance of the holiday, setting up a tree and putting on all those wreaths may be harmless, AS LONG AS WE HAVE THE ESSENCE OF THE SEASON IN OUR HEARTS. We all agree to that right? Celebrating Christ’s Birth is definitely more than just following a tradition rooted in imperialistic motives. Christmas is about Jesus. And since the Bible never really told us of any specific date, it only goes to show that celebrating His birth can be done any day and every day at any time. Compared to Christmas lights that look tacky when it’s lit up on other months other than December, the LIGHT of God’s Word never goes out of style.