Have you heard the story about Tassos? A group of friends were discussing the religions they grew up with. Tassos explained to his friends, “I really struggled with my religion because it was all Greek.”
Everyone nodded knowingly in agreement. One friend replied, “I know what you mean. There are many things about my religion that are Greek to me too.”
To which Tassos replied, “No, you don’t understand; I grew up in a Greek Orthodox tradition and the entire liturgy was spoken in Greek, and I don’t speak Greek.”
Perhaps that’s where the phrase, “It’s all Greek to me,” originally came from.
As we enter the Christmas season and are searching for inventive ways to survive the holiday, I have an idea.
A few years ago, I was perusing a calendar that listed the winter holidays. The list is overwhelming. Hanukkah, Las Posadas, St. Lucien’s Day, Kwanzaa, St. Nicholas Day, Diwali, Winter Solstice, Festivus, Epiphany, New Year's Day and Christmas. One holiday in particular caught my eye … Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 6.
So my thought is this: We should celebrate Orthodox Christmas. Now before you roll your eyes, hear me out.
To be clear, the competing date of Dec. 25 versus Jan. 6 is when we celebrate the birth of Christ, not Christ’s actual birthdate. There is theological evidence for disputing a winter nativity, but I offer an agricultural explanation for neither a December nor January birthdate.
If you remember the Christmas plays from your youth, there was always a flock of shepherds. Dressed in bathrobes with dish towels on their heads, they were a key part of the nativity story. My favorite portrayal of the shepherd was my brother in the early '80s. His line was, “I am but a lowly shepherd.” Instead, his improvisation was, “I’m just a dumb sheep herder.” His rendition was certainly less poetic, but the audience appreciated the nuance.
Yes, it’s the shepherds that make the case. “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night (Luke 2:8 KJV).”
My ignorance of sheep herding is surpassed only by my ignorance of Biblical hermeneutics, but even I know shepherds would not be tending their sheep in the hills of Bethlehem in the dead of winter … especially with all that great winter range just to the east. I’m not suggesting you change any of your deeply held beliefs, I’m simply explaining my logic – or illogic.
With that issue cleared up, there are two reasons to celebrate Orthodox Christmas. First, it’s a numbers game. While everyone else is stressing over Christmas, the person celebrating Orthodox Christmas has an extra two weeks. Think of all the holiday baking, Christmas present wrapping and greeting card sending you could do with an extra two weeks. You could finish your holiday to-do list with that extra time.
The second reason is purely mercenary. “If we celebrate Orthodox Christmas, we could start our Christmas shopping on Dec. 26 and take advantage of the great deals on the Christmas returns,” I explain to my wife. Now, I know what you are thinking, “What could that poor woman possibly see in this bizarre man?” I’ve been married long enough to know I should never ask that question, just be happy that she is still there when I get home every night. But really, think of all the money and hassle that could be saved by celebrating Orthodox Christmas.
We do this to a small degree on the ranch. The holiday season is very hectic with everyone attending holiday and family gatherings. The daily grind of feeding and getting livestock through winter remains. So we always host our company Christmas party in late January. It’s a fun time and more relaxed than it would be in December. We can pick any restaurant and any day of the week. We usually get a discount because it is a slow time for party venues. And more than once, the restaurant will say, “We’ve been too busy to take Christmas decorations down; it is a good thing we left them up.”
Regardless of when you choose to celebrate Christmas, I have but one bit of advice. If you set aside one day to celebrate the birth of Christ, then you are doing it wrong. The birth of Christ is a miracle deserving more than one day of celebration … more than two days of celebration. In fact, a person could celebrate the birth of Christ every day and even that would seem inadequate.
I get it, it is a busy time of year. You have a bale feeder that still needs fixed, but your child’s Christmas program starts at 6 o’clock. In all of the hustle and bustle, could we take a few moments to reflect on the miracle that is the first Christmas? And that is whether you celebrate Christmas or Orthodox Christmas … or even an unorthodox Christmas.
