Christmas is a serious business
I spent the Christmas of 1991 working as a Santa Claus at the Grace Brothers department store in Sydney, Australia.
I’ll spare you the details of how, at only 23 years old, I talked myself into the job. But I, and all my friends, were agreed that I’d landed the best and most hilarious Christmas gig of all.
As someone diligently cultivating a reputation for getting into the wildest “scrapes and capers,” I was particularly pleased with myself and imagined dining out on the stories, both true and ‘enhanced’ for years to come.
Caution in the chorus
Into the general chorus of applause, only one voice offered a caution.
Gordon, the boss at my day (soon to be evening) job in telesales. Asking him for a shift change to accommodate my new role, he motioned me to sit down and gently closed his office door behind me.
“Andy, I know it sounds like fun, being Santa, but this’ll be way harder than you think. Every kid that you meet will think you’re JC. Don’t take that responsibility lightly. Christmas is a serious business.”
With these prophetic words passing through one ear and out the other in the time it takes to say “ho,ho,ho,” I turned up for my first shift a couple of days later entirely un-prepared, but I assumed ready for anything.
It didn’t take long for the train, literally, to come flying off the tracks. Early on, a young boy bounded into the grotto and told me he wanted “Percy” for Christmas.
Not knowing what or who Percy was, I asked. “What’s Percy?” …and that was all it took.
Melting down, he screamed “Mum, Santa doesn’t know who Percy is!” and fled weeping into her arms. As he was shepherded away with promises of visiting another, “proper Santa” his father stepped up to my throne and, through gritted teeth, screeched;
“Get a grip, Santa, and learn something about the toys before you wreck everyone’s Christmas! Percy is a train from Thomas the Tank Engine!”
Severely chastened
Severely chastened, I then spent every spare moment in the aisles studying the toys, and in the break room, “second shift Santa” confided in me the secret to handling the child who asks for something you’ve never heard of;
Just say, “Remind me again exactly what that is so I’m sure to get it just right on the night.”
Armed with a more serious attitude, a little product knowledge, and a better question, I managed to avoid ruining any more Christmases. But I soon found there was no clever form of words to comfort the child who tells you their greatest wish for Christmas is “For Daddy to come back and love us again” or the one who wishes for nothing more than the return of her "sister who died of leukemia in the summer.”
Yes. These and a hundred more heartbreaking requests besides are just as much the daily diet for Santas the world over as any for that year’s 'toy of the moment.'
Somehow, on a lark, I had stumbled completely unprepared into the most precious, solemn, and heart-wrenching job I would ever have.
Even for department store Santas Christmas is a serious business.
A balm for weary souls
Working through our advent series this month, I’ve experienced this lesson again and again.
We took our passages directly from King’s College Cambridge’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, a service that was first held shortly after World War I in 1918. Everyone who attended that first service had either fought in the war or lost friends and family to it. And probably both.
Fashioned for the age, the service was conceived as a particular balm for these weary and hurting souls. And didn't need to pull its punches.
The nine passages we copied took us on an unflinching journey from the fall to God’s reaffirmation of His promise, to Isaiah’s specific prophecies, Mary’s submission, Jesus’ inauspicious birth, the first worship service, the complacency of religious leaders, and the first plot to kill Jesus.
This arc sets the familiar Christmas account in the context of the Bible’s broader redemption story and against the background of the prevailing evil in our world. The hope and joy at the center of the Christmas season stand out more poignantly set against this realistic acknowledgment of brokenness, pain, deception, and the ache of waiting.
After a long year in the trenches of everyday life, there’s a natural temptation for us to skip the “hard yards” and jump straight to the “tidings of great joy.”
But these passages restrain us to remember the tragedy of the fall, glimpse true hope in the promises of God, marvel at the glory of the Incarnation, submit to the necessity of worship, and finally (tomorrow for us) joy in the miracle of “The Word Made Flesh.”
Advent is a precious period of hope and anticipation for a Savior. Its luster is more clearly seen and more keenly felt when set truthfully against the real darkness of a fallen, stricken, and largely unrepentant world.
Only when we witness Christmas as the serious business it is can we truly make space for Jesus and delight in his assurance.
