One of my Christmas traditions during the weeks leading up to Christmas is to watch the six hour movie “Lonesome Dove“
Afterwards, as we were sitting on the couch, a little depressed from all the people who die, the women who get treated like trash, and the overall view in the movie that life is cheap, my wife said, “Of all the traditional Christmas movies, “Miracle on 34th Street,”
I looked at her and said, “I have no idea. It’s just what I’ve always done.”
My Christmas Tradition
Upon further reflection, this tradition began for me around 15 years ago. I think that the local television station showed this movie on television around the Christmas season for two or three years, and then my mother bought me the tapes for my birthday one summer, and after that, it was just something I did during Christmas. Now I watch the movie at Christmas because it helps me “feel” the season.
Church Traditions
I think most of what we do in church is the same way. We do what we do because we’ve done it for a long time, and it helps us “feel” like a Christian. It’s not that what we do is mandated in Scripture, or that it helps us accomplish what Scripture does mandate (e.g., go and make disciples), but we do it because we’ve always done it.
Tomorrow we’ll look at a way to determine if a tradition is something that should be cut or continued.
What strange Christmas traditions do you practice during the holidays?
It’s summer here in New Zealand, around Christmas time we go to the beach and have a barbeque!
David,
Good to hear from you! Hope all is going well in NZ and at ABC…
I’m experiencing some of what it must be like during Christmas in the Southern Hermisphere…we were up aroudn 85 degrees F on Friday (I’m sorry, I don’t know what this is in Centigrade…what was that equation…85-32 x 5/9 = 29 degrees C).
Little beats a good cowboy movie like that.
Dude…I just did that last month!
It don’t get better than that, enjoy and blessings.
Yep, it’s one of my favorite movies!
Um… I watch the “alternate Xmas movies” http://danceswithklingons.wordpress.com/?s=Christmas+movies
ha! Never heard of that one. But it certainly sounds “alternate.”
Maybe also “The Nightmare Before Christmas”? 🙂