What will you be serving on Christmas Day? You may be opting out of the traditional Christmas dinner but, if not, what will you be cooking up? I’ve come to learn there are a few areas where battle lines are drawn.
Let’s start with Brussel sprouts. I love them but my wife hates them and she’s not alone. Personally, I can’t see how anyone could turn their nose up at a forkful of sprouts but I guess that we’re all very different.
Then there is bread sauce. A quick internet search for bread sauce quotes has Henry James speaking of “The time-honoured bread-sauce of the happy ending” – which I take to indicate approval – whereas Adam Kay is comparing it to watered-down loft insulation! Me, I love it and would be quite happy with a bowl of Brussel sprouts covered in bread sauce. My wife likes neither.
Parsnips, potatoes, peas – we could go on – and the other knotty question, which may divide the nation on geographical lines, is whether or not we allow Yorkshire pudding as traditional Christmas fare. But all of this concerns the trimmings.
One thing on which there is general agreement, though, is that a traditional Christmas dinner has turkey at its heart. Now, before you jump in to protest that you’re not having turkey, I should point out that even when people aren’t having turkey, they usually talk about having an alternative in phrases like: “We’re having duck as an alternative to turkey this year” or “I’m having a vegetarian/vegan alternative”. Turkey is seen as being the ‘meat’ of Christmas.
When it comes to the Christmas story, what is meat and what is trimmings? Star, angels, wise men, shepherds, manger – all trimmings, albeit very enjoyable ones. The real meat of Christmas is Jesus. If we don’t have him then we have missed the significance of Christmas altogether.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. (John 1) That’s the real significant meat of Christmas. It’s the entry point for Jesus to come and make known to us the things of God.
Christmas dinner wouldn’t be complete without its afters – Christmas pudding or whatever your choice might be. The Christmas story, too, needs its afters. We need to follow the story onward and ask what happened to Jesus after he grew up but each of us needs to look, too, to our own life and what the ‘afters’ look like there. That is a more personal reflection open, like those dinner trimmings, to personal variation but for each of us Christmas asks the question, ‘How is Jesus wanting to make the things of God known to me and what is my response?’
Prayer:
Jesus, as we celebrate your coming into our world, may we not be distracted by all the trimmings. Help us keep our eyes focused always on you. Wrap us in your grace and truth and gift us to the world that, through us, you might continue to make the Father known. Amen.