...and so with Saint Nicholas and all the saints...

I couldn't resist showing you a picture of this Edwardian Christmas card. I must apologise for my poor photography (yet again) but it shows Father Christmas giving a naughty boy a bit of a whack on the bottom with what looks like a collection of birch twigs. Yes, good old Santa was birching a small child whilst another child opens a collection of rather wonderful turn-of-the-century presents. I'm assuming the little boy was made of slugs and snails and puppy dog's tails and the little girls was all sugar and spice and all things nice. I'm pretty sure cultural studies students would have a field day deconstructing this image! Wowzers!

Our St Nicholas is a little more benign though. He comes on his horse every year and brings the kids three gold coins and a Christmas tree ornament. The idea is that when they leave home they can take their St Nicholas gifts away with them for their own tree. This isn't really a traditional tradition for St Nicholas day, but a tradition we just made up to tell the story of the good saint in our own way.

It's our church's patronal festival today, and I like the fact that the church we attend is dedicated to such a fun saint! Well, fun in the sense that most people have an idea of of Saint Nicholas' generosity of spirit, if not who the man actually was and what he actually did. To cut a long story short he was a Turkish Bishop who anonymously gave dowries to three sisters, this saved the poor girls from prostitution, but was also the beginning of the tradition of giving presents at this time of year and the story got mixed together with the gifts of the Magi and pagan traditions of the winter solstice. Sifting out the Christian tradition within the whole Father Christmas thing is a tricky process, and if I were honest with you, I love the whole secular shebang of Christmas. I love Santa, Christmas trees, soppy movies, parties, feasting, Christmas pop songs, therefore I tend to keep Father Christmas secular and Saint Nicholas Christian. My eldest girl is making connections between St Nicholas and Father Christmas, now that she's old enough to realise that mum and dad are buying the gifts, and she enjoys listening to stories about the saint and feels connected to him as a good, caring, Christian man.

Which of course brings me onto Advent and Christmas as distinctly Christian festivals, and how I try to celebrate these festivals whilst still embracing the secular nature of Christmas. First, I think we Christians must realise that this time of year has always been a time for celebration. In pre-Christian Britain December was a feasting month and the early church adopted the times and dates of this pagan festival as their own. This is called inculturation, the early church simply used the existing rhythms of the year to spread its own redeeming message of Christ's love for us. I think we modern British Christians can learn a good lesson from our forefathers in the early British church. That is to say, we can claim the good bits about the secular festival of Christmas for our very own. People are selflessly giving of themselves at this time of year, they are more generous in spirit, the media culture which surrounds Christmas appears to be more loving, caring, gentle and wonder-full (less violent, sexual and depressing) and people are more likely to attend a church service at this time of year than any other time in the church calender...and EVERYBODY adores the story of the Nativity, this positivity is an expression of God's goodness working within our culture, Christmas proves that the secular has not quite lost its sense of wonder just yet.

Anyway, here's what I do to keep the festival Christian in our home. It's a right old mixture and a bit personal, but I thought you'd be interested anyway.

• I get the present buying over and done with by the end of November. This leaves me free to concentrate on Advent. For those who aren't into liturgy, Advent is the beginning of the liturgical year and is a time for reflection and penance. I desperately try to "keep" Advent, we all need a time of peace, reflection, and time to make ourselves "right with God"...I'm glad this time has been planned into the year...I'm organisationally challenged! Now, it is also a desperately busy time of year if you are a parent. I've ranted on to various blogchums about how busy I am right now, so I shan't bore you again, but I'm glad I bought my presents and made my pudding when I did, otherwise I would loose Advent.

• I make an Advent wreath and use Advent calenders. Lighting the candles is an important count-down for my kids and is a calming way to remind ourselves of the meaning of the season. We also celebrate St Nicholas day.

• We keep the secular festival of Christmas out of the house for as long as possible. Which means I don't decorate until Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete Sunday is the third Sunday in Advent, it's when we light the pink candle on the wreath, the candle that represents joy. Traditionally, when people would fast for Advent, Gaudette Sunday acted like Mothering Sunday in Lent, a time when the fast could be broken, a time for a mini-party to celebrate the coming joy of the birth of Our Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is this time when I get out the mince pies, or Christmas biscuits, put the tree up and get all Christmassy-fied! From here on in we can watch Christmas movies, put Christmas music on the CD player and so on and so forth. This, I feel, gives Christian meaning to the decorations. Hurray! We're joyous!!

• I tell the story of St Boniface when I put the tree up. Here was a man who believed in inculturation! Although he was born in Devon he worked as a missionary in unconverted Germany, where he taught the people to worship the Creator and not the creation. He asked them to decorate an evergreen tree in honour of Christ's birth and this simple idea caught on. The fact that a Christmas tree is an evergreen (as opposed to the pagan oak, yule, log) is important because it represents the fact that Christ did not die, He lives on!

• We make a big deal of the Nativity. It's important for the girls to love this story, to feel the gifts within this story and the wonder of this story. Christ's birth and the reasons for Christ's birth are easily understood by even very small children, my belief is that this resonance is innate, we are born loving this story. Too many children have their sense of wonder squelched at too young an age in our culture, the Nativity acts as a de-squelcher!

Now, other than going to church every Sunday and on Christmas day, I suppose this is all we do that is markedly different to the traditions of a secular family. But thinking about it, what we actually do is very similar to the average non-believing family's traditions. However, as with most things, it's not what we do at Christmas that's important but why we do it. Why we should keep Christ in our hearts, why the festival brings us closer to our Creator...and let's face it the Christmas season can be a time when we're so angry, bitter and stressed that we feel disconnected from our Creator, forgetting our faith. For me the rhythm of the liturgical year and our family traditions help keep me mindful of my relationship with God, the gifts He has given to the world and the blessings He has bestowed on me. I'd love to hear your traditions for Advent and Christmas. Speak up, gentle reader!