The Miracle of Christmas

I work at a thrift store and donation center. I was going through stuff at work one day when I found a Nativity set. I pulled it out of the bag to make sure all of the pieces were still together. It was a nice set, but it was missing the baby Jesus. I threw the whole set away. There was no point selling a nativity set if it didn’t have Jesus.

There is no point having Christmas if there is no Jesus.

There is no point having Christmas without His Atonement for us.

There is a point if we believe Christ and not simply believe in Him. If we believe that what He did--lived his life for, suffered and died for--to heal us and redeem us--if we believe that what He did can make a difference here and now in our lives--in my life, in your life--then there is hope.

Hope in This Life

If there is any gift I want to give to my readers, as few of you as there are, or as many as will

come across this single article, I would like to share the gift of hope.

Thanksgiving night, I went to bed feeling weighed down. Some of my friends had been having relationship problems and I just felt bad for them. And I started to wonder about my own future, and how I was supposed to keep living my life if people were capable of being so horrible.

But then I woke up and I felt peace. And I had a lot of thoughts about why I or any of my friends needed to give up. And it just so happened that my scripture reading for that morning was Alma 14, where Alma and Amulek witness the martyrdom of innocent women and children at the hands of unbelievers. A therapist I had worked with in college had used that story to teach me about perspective. Yes, awful things happen. And sometimes we can’t do more than just sit and watch. But God has a plan to make everything right. If you can’t do anything else, trust Him.

We live in a fallen world where everyone falls short of the ideal. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep trying to do the right thing. It is still possible for friendship and kindness to exist between people of different backgrounds. It is possible to have peace in your heart, and peace between you, your friends and your family and everyone around you.

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The world wants to focus on the negative--to bring out every flaw, every failing that proves that living according to our conscience doesn’t work. But they’re wrong. You can do that, and still have peace.

What you have to remember to do is to focus on the positive. Think about the miracles that you see in your everyday life. Think about the people around you who are succeeding without attention in the media--the people who don’t have everything. Look at those who are making their lives work in spite of opposition. 

There is opposition in all things. Where there is great darkness and evil, great good can rise up to meet it.

Every single person around you is a son or a daughter of God. Every single person is capable of good. Every person has the light of Christ inside of them. I may not live like I believe that, but I want to.

All things that are good come because of Christ. Because he paid the price to justice, the Father can give us mercy. We have good things that make our lives richer, and we have the personal peace that makes it possible to balance our lives. In moments when we are discouraged, we have His goodness to lift us up and remind us that we are not alone. When we face the greatest despair, our Greatest Hope reminds us that there is still good in the world. There is still much to live for and to love. Peace in this life and joy in eternity are still possible.

Courage and Charity

The ideas I have shared above are what I believe to be true. But we may not be able to see that truth because of the sadness we see around us in reality. People make bad choices. They reject the light of Christ. They refuse to see the people around them as sons and daughters of God. And not every person you are close to or want to reach out to is going to choose to follow the same path you are on.

You have to remember that judgment is ultimately the Lord’s. You don’t really know what other people around you are capable of becoming, not the way He does. The test is, can you love them here and now, based on what you see? Can you know when to say “Yes”...and when to say “No” ? Charity, the pure Love of Christ, comes when we trust Him and choose to love even though that love could hurt us. It is courage.

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There are bad people out there who will twist good things to their own image, including your own good intentions. Even people you trust and depend on will disappoint you even if they didn’t intend to hurt you. Can you love and still do right by the people you care about even in face of the fear that they will fail you? 

What do you choose to believe, when everything you believe in is questioned? Can you say 'no, that’s not true, I don’t want to believe that,' to every doubt in your head? 

Choosing to believe that Heavenly Father understands and cares for us, choosing to believe that all the people around you are his children and should be treated as such, choosing to believe that God’s ways are better even if we don’t understand how or why they work--that choice takes courage. We may have to actively choose courage every single day, every waking moment when we are faced with adversity. Sometimes making that choice may not be enough to keep bad things from happening. But as President Monson says, “Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, I’ll try again tomorrow.” Courage is what gets you to try and then get up and try again when you fail.

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Choosing to go on in the face of disappointment and adversity, choosing to go ahead and try for as good a life as possible in spite of the risk of falling up short, of not being as good as everyone else, in spite of living in a world full of the worst influences, is courage. And that courage comes from hope in something greater. That courage to live a Christian life in defiance of the pervasiveness of the world comes from the Atonement. It comes from God. It is our choice to use it. But it is possible. The miracle of Christmas is that that Christ came to bring us that hope, to guarantee that promise from Heavenly Father that we would not be left comfortless. It is my Christmas prayer that I will find this hope in my own life, and I hope that some of you reading this will be able to find it as well. 

What Kind of Santa Do You Want?

I have kind of mixed feelings about Santa Claus. Sure, I liked him when I was a kid, but now that I’m an adult a part of me doesn’t see the point anymore. In fact, like a lot of people I’m turned off by how much he’s used for Christmas specials and advertisements. I think the thing that bothers me about Santa the most is how GENERIC he’s become. Red suit trimmed with white fur, belt, hat beard, reindeer. Very little variation. Cultural staple. Everybody knows who he is.

It’s kind of aggravating to think that this version of Santa Claus came from just a handful of texts written in the nineteenth century that were popularized for mass consumption. Sure, Clement C. Moore’s The Night Before Christmas sets up the stereotypes that we’ve come to associate with Santa. But does anyone ever stop and think about how this most commonly-used version of Santa is based on a single person’s interpretation?

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The popular thing to do these days, of course, is to reject the mainstream narrative. The patron of holiday gift-giving can be whoever you want it to be and need it to be. Or you can reject having one at all. I’ve had a few people in my acquaintance reject Santa Claus or try to at least minimize how much their kids are exposed to him. Someday I will be a mom with kids, and my future spouse and I are going to have influence over who our kids think is bringing their presents. We’re going to be picking which holiday specials they watch, we’ll pick the Christmas music they listen to on the radio, we’ll have the final say over whether or not they go to visit the generic guy in the suit who comes to appears at holiday social functions. It’s a huge responsibility. But the sky is the limit.

What kind of a Santa do I want to believe in, if at all? One interpretation of Santa Claus that has stuck out to me in recent years is North from Rise of the Guardians. Yes, he is a hardcore Russian guy with tattoos and swords and he’s got dark fur on his coat. But the most important thing about North is his center. One thing I liked about Rise of the Guardians’ interpretation of the holidays is that every Guardian has a center, something immaterial that they represent or value. If you look at it one way, their center is politically correct, but they can be open to religious interpretation too (which is also why I’m a fan of Bunny’s center, Hope). North’s center, which he explains so well to Jack Frost, is wonder. One thing I’ve come to appreciate about Christmas in recent years is its wonder. Wonder at new-fallen snow. Wonder at how the decorations and lights add beauty to the world. Wonder at the events of the coming of the Christ child. Wonder at the gifts that came because of the birth of Christ. In April 2015, Elder Gerard Causse gave an address to LDS General Conference about not taking the Gospel for granted. Christmas is an important celebration because it reminds us of the wonder and awe and reverence we need to have for those gifts.

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So whoever I want my Santa Claus to be, I know he has to represent the wonder of Christmas. Santa Claus doesn’t really fit with the magic systems I’ve played with in recent years (which is one reason he’s lost relevance to me). I really like Santa figurines or tree-toppers where we see Santa wearing longer robes. Or clothes in colors other than red with elaborate patterns. When I was a kid, the cheesy typical Santa Claus was acceptable. Now that I’m an adult, I want to picture him a little differently. A figure that represents the wonder of Christmas. A figure that represents awe and reverence.

Maybe my Santa is a little more like the traditional Saint Nicholas. When I was in kindergarten, we took a field trip to a place to meet a traditional German Saint Nicholas who wore a simple red robe and who handed out switches to bad children. For a day or so after I would tell people I preferred to believe in Saint Nicholas. Didn’t last long, but it made an impression on me.

Have I thought about figures that could replace Santa in my future home? Well, maybe not replace Santa outright but other traditions that I could incorporate or celebrate.

I like Father Christmas. He's got a less obnoxious vibe to me than Santa Claus. I like how C.S. Lewis uses him in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. He isn’t named in the movie but he brings important gifts to the children, and his appearance heralds the coming of Aslan. (And then Lucy’s line ‘Told you he was real’ in the movie is perfection). J.R.R. Tolkien’s approach to Father Christmas was a little more personal. During the 1930s he wrote a series of letters as Father Christmas to his children, detailing how he and his assistants got the presents out and their work during the year. I recently bought my own copy of The Father Christmas letters and brought it home to share with my family. I highly recommend it. It’s a completely different universe/world system from Middle-earth, and it’s more kid-friendly, but Tolkein got a kick out of world-building no matter what, and there’s an elegance to Tolkein’s Father Christmas on its own. I like Father Christmas less because I’m an Anglophile and more because of how these authors have presented him to me.

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I’m also huge fan of anything Russian. There were a couple of girls in a singles ward I was in a few years ago who had served missions in Russia and they introduced me to Ded Moroz and Snegorouchka--Father Frost and Snow Maiden. At their 2013 concert the Mormon Tabernacle Choir did a Russian-themed medley for the dance ensemble. Kind of random, considering the Dickens/British vibe of the concert, but part of the medley was the tumblers’ dance from the Snow Maiden ballet. Ruth Sanderson’s storybook The Snow Maiden is a beautiful retelling of the Snow Maiden legend. I’m no expert on how Father Frost and Snow Maiden are used in Russia, but they’re a lot prettier than Santa Claus.  Snegorouchka especially adds a needed female element to how I want to celebrate Christmas. I will at least tell my kids about them.

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I can see the appeal of the Three Kings/Three Wise men in other cultures, since they are directly a part of the traditional nativity. And there’s something to be said for the Farandole/Three Kings dance in last year’s Tab Choir Christmas concert. But they’re not my first pick.

Now here’s an idea I’ve been playing with for the last couple of years: the three Ghosts from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This is what I get for writing a term paper on A Christmas Carol for my Victorian literature class in college, but bear with me. The Three Spirits could totally work as mythical Christmas figures. The Ghost of Christmas Past encourages reflection on your Christmas memories. The Ghost of Christmas Present represents being connected with friends and family and how they are observing the season. Maybe the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come doesn’t work so well for kids, but maybe it is an appropriate reminder of what happens if you don’t let the Spirit of Christmas into your heart. Maybe they could be for adults. They’re cooler than Santa by a long shot. And in the 2013 Tab Choir Concert John Rhys-Davies took on the mantle of Christmas Present to lecture a young Dickens. Why the Ghost of Christmas Present should anybody else is beyond me.

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There are still some things to be said for the stereotypical Santa. I am also a fan of the Santa in the CBS Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. He’s got an interesting rapport with Mrs. Claus, and he’s conscious about not being fat enough to please the children. The Kris Kringle song is one of my favorites.

How about Calvin and Hobbes? Calvin is a sincere believer in Santa Claus but his issue is how he’s a bad kid and he’s afraid of being punished for his bad behavior with a lack of toys. He questions Santa but it doesn’t occur to him to reject him. That’s what makes Calvin a believable kid. Santa does make occasional appearances in the strip but more as a manifestation of Calvin’s anxieties.

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Over the years, my mom has told me repeatedly that she still believes in Santa Claus because of what he embodies. To me, Santa Claus, in his purest, most non-commercial form, regardless of appearance, is someone who gives. Someone who treats all children with fairness. Someone who acts with kindness. Someone who reminds us of the wonder of the Season. The Real Santa Claus is the Santa who kneels before the Manger and remembers what his job is truly about.  

(And like I said, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir are his favorite helpers). To paraphrase the famous letter to Virginia, yes, there is a Santa Claus in the sense that the things he truly represents--the things you can’t see or feel or prove--also exist.

Jolly Ol' Saint Nicholas

It’s a choice to believe in Santa, even when you’re still awake on Christmas Eve night and you can hear your parents setting out your gifts. But the more important thing to choose is to believe in for yourself is what Santa represents.

Christmas Favorites from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

You know what one of my favorite things about Christmas is? It's listening to all of my Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas albums. This includes Christmas With the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from like the late 80s-early 90s, mostly because my family would play the cassette on repeat during the holidays and I like the familiarity of it. I also have the not-as-well-known A Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas, and then their brand-label Sing, Choirs of Angels and a stack of their Christmas Concerts.

2010 Concert (Temple Square)

But I love love LOVE the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!!!!!!! Not only because of their spiritual and inspirational work, don't get me wrong, I appreciate that. But their music is just amazing. You don't get a choral sound like that anywhere else. You don't get a single group that produces work that is haunting and beautiful but also fun and exciting along with the religious stuff. Especially with the orchestra and the organ and musical geniuses like Mack Wilberg and Ryan Murphy arranging and conducting. Like all my favorite music, Tab Choir feeds into my daydreams. Especially at Christmas.  And their concerts? Always amazing. And their Christmas concerts, the musical numbers and dancers and processions are astounding.

These are just a few of my favorite Christmas pieces from the Tab Choir, but I've selected them because they're Christmas songs I wouldn't have been exposed to therwise (and some of them, yes, I listen to year-round through headphones because I can't live without them). The nice thing about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas programs is they always have a balance of repritoire pieces with carols that don't get as much recognition.

Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine

Every Christmas, I have a theme carol that I listen to more often or try to learn on the violin or both. 'Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine' is the theme carol for this year. I decided that months ago. I chose it as kind of a wish to find safety and rest, since that is what the melody and what I can make out of the lyrics make me feel.

Ring Those Christmas Bells

This is a fun one from the Choir's 2013 Christmas concert. Out of the four live concerts I have been to, the 2013 one is by far my favorite. The entire concert was just so much FUN, but if you could capture the spirit of that performance in one song this is it. This carol by itself I have never heard anywhere else. The choir and orchestra perform this piece with a lot of energy and enthusiasm that really gets me into the Christmas spirit. It's one of the few Christmas songs I've heard them sing that even mentions Santa Claus!

I should probably mention this now--I'm sorry this post isn't very organized. I don't have a lot of superstitions about the man in the red suit. But one of the few I do have is that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square are some of his favorite helpers.

Wexford Carol

One of the first girls I ever visit taught introduced me to this carol, telling me it was her favorite. It's easy to see why because it's beautiful. The version I listen to the most is a male soloist singing it in Spirit of the Season with the Choir doing vocals. The Tabernacle Choir uses a similar arrangement for the music video that they put out for the holidays this year.

Ding Dong! Merrily on High

If you wonder where my childhood Christmas fantasies came from, it's from hearing the Tabernacle Choir sing this carol in one of the medleys on te 90s album This Is Christmas. The single was featured in their concert album Rejoice and be Merry but for some strange reason not featured on the performance DVD and I have yet to find a video of them actually performing it. Bottom line, 'Ding Dong! Merrily on High' is my absolute favorite Christmas carol.

Carol to the King

This number was the processional for the Tabernacle Choir's Christmas concert with Audra McDonald and it was featured in the concert Rejoice and Be Merry. My uncle who had joined the Tabernacle Choir sent the CD to my grandma Cole the year I was living with her in Arizona and I spent most of November and December listening to it. It was getting 'Carol to the King' stuck in my head as a college freshman that made me beg my other grandma to buy the CD for Christmas. This video is REALLY POOR quality but the performance is still amazing.

Sussex Carol

For Rejoice and Be Merry! this carol is set to a stirring arrangement with the full Choir and Orchestra and Bells, and features the Tab Choir's repeat guest artists The King's Singers. My favorite lines are these: "Then why should men on earth be so sad/Since our Redeemer made us glad?" The Atonement of Christ enables us to overcome the world, and because of it we have the potential to recieve Eternal Life. This carol is a reminder to not only be grateful for those gifts but to find happiness in them. It doesn't do any good to be sad because of all the gloom in the world. We have a lot of reasons to be happy. I think that is one of the most important things that the Tabernacle Choir expresses in its music. This video is from a performance that the King's Singers did more recently with the Choir and the arrangement is slightly different.

The Cat and the Mouse Carol

My first Christmas Concert with the Tabernacle Choir was in 2010 with David Archuleta. Now, the thing you should know about me is, I didn't listen to a lot of pop music or watch a lot of mainstream TV shows, so I didn't really have a good idea of who David Archuleta was when he was announced as the concert guest. After the announcement came, I went and looked him up on YouTube and watched the music video for Crush. I was blown away. But I was blown away even more when I saw Archuleta with the Tabernacle Choir. He is an impressive classical singer and also his Spanish is perfecto. After making his entry with 'Joy to the World," he introduced 'The Cat and Mouse Carol," a song which prior to this concert even he hadn't heard before. But the simple story it tells is entertaining to someone who likes stories about talking animals, and the melody is enchanting.

(Side note: David Archuleta's 'Silent Night is the best arrangement of Silent Night ever IMO.)



Candelight Carol

This was one of my 'theme carols' from last year. Not a sad song but a slow one, one that makes you feel hopeful. Not a loud carol but one that stays quiet.

Every year there's a difference in what kind of Chirstmas stuff I can get around to. Here it's the ninth of December and I've already listened through all of my Tab Choir albums and I only want more. But, playing their stuff on repeat is a pleasure I never have to feel guilty about. 

If you want to enjoy the sounds of Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or watch clips of their amazing performances, you can visit their website or YouTube channel. You can also tune into their 24/7 livestream via the Mormon Channel, the Tab Choir website, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir App (Yes, there is an app for that, cliche but I had to say it).

Self-generated meme. That's a tall order!

(And yes--I was at the concert where Alfie Boe sang 'Bring Him Home. Surreal. But I was there)

Getting Into Thanksgiving

The celebration of Christmas is a sticky issue, considering how people have responded to its commercialization. The internet has become a battlefield for the campaign to take back Thanksgiving by slandering early Christmas sales, early decorating, and Christmas music in November. What, you guys? I thought Christmas was supposed to be a good thing! For heaven’s sake, elves that kill baby reindeer for every person who decorates early? That is not the Santa Claus I believe in!

Odyssey--I MEAN DOESN'T THAT MAKE YOU SICK?

If I had my way, I’d listen to Christmas music openly year round.  I do acknowledge that there is a time and a place for it. But I’m not an extremist. I like to start my Christmas music (privately) in November. The first three weeks of December can get busy and you don’t get around to all the Christmas stuff you planned on way back last year.

I do admit, though, Thanksgiving can be a frustrating holiday because there isn’t really a lot of special music for it the way there is for Christmas, and not really as many special decorations you can do beside pumpkins and turkeys. Smack right between the two biggest holidays of the year, it can seem like the only thing that matters about Thanksgiving is the family dinner and gratitude and...well, food.  And Black Friday is fun when you get to go shopping with friends and family, but it does seem like the emphasis on all the Christmas sales right after Thanksgiving can take away from your turkey.

The issue, then, is how to make Thanksgiving more special without bruising our Christmas spirit in the process. Here’s something I’ve been thinking about. Why not during the month of November celebrate with American folk music and spirituals? Folk music is as much a part of our roots as pilgrims and pumpkin pie. And for good measure, you can listen to folk hymns during October or when you want to get religious without feeling like Halloween has to dominate everything during that month. We celebrate the autumn with fall leaves and harvest decorations--why not music about similar themes of gratitude and rejoicing?  This is something I want to try as well.

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I am a huge fan of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so bear with me, this isn’t a paid plug, but they do a lot of great arrangements of folk songs and spirituals. You can tune in to their YouTube channel or check out some of their albums. I highly recommend Come, Thou Fount of Ev’ry Blessing--this post was mostly inspired by the fact that the cover of that album is an autumny color.

This was going to be a small post but I ended up writing a lot, as usual. But I hope this suggestion will provide a useful outlet for your anti-early-Christmas angst.