Do you dress up and use your best dishes for Christmas, or do you relax in your pajamas and keep things simple?
Keeping things for “best” is not as common as it used to be. More and more couples skip fancy china on their wedding registries, and plenty of us, if we are honest, have been trained to think of special-occasion dishes as a Boomer kind of tradition.
I am not a Boomer, but I have multiple sets of china. Three of them were handed down through my own family, from both sides. I have both of my maternal great-grandmothers’ china sets, and I also have my mom’s china, which is the set I used this year.
I should clarify that my mom is still very much alive. She simply downsized when she and my dad moved south for retirement, and I received the blessing of some of her beautiful things, including pieces she had inherited. I am sentimental, and I am something of a preservationist. But even if you do not have heirloom dishes, I am sure you have your own ways of making Christmas feel set apart.
So let’s talk about Christmas together.
One of my quiet joys on Christmas Day is setting the table with care. I spread a Christmas tablecloth, lay out the plates and silverware, bring out the glasses, fold the cloth napkins, and set the Advent wreath in the center as the visual reminder of what this day is about.
That might sound small. It is small, in one sense. But small things, done with intention, have a way of calling a household to attention. They tell the people you love, “This is a day worth noticing.” And on Christmas, that is the truth.
Christmas is a Christian holiday, but it has been well hijacked by the world. Food and drink are almost universal to holidays, and the flavors of this season go back hundreds of years, but many modern traditions have displaced the religious significance of Christmas.
When I was a young bride, my husband took me to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry to see their Christmas Tree Village display. The trees represented countries around the world where populations celebrate Christmas, and each display had a plaque explaining that country’s decorations and customs.
Most of the plaques described Christian communities gathering for a special church service, an evening of prayer, or a large shared meal. Many exchanged gifts. Many of the decorations were genuinely lovely.
Then I reached the American tree, and I remember feeling disappointed and frankly disgusted. The plaque described nothing but the Santa Claus myth. It said something along the lines of, “Santa Claus rides in his sleigh, pulled by eight magical reindeer, to deliver gifts to all the good children.” No mention of Jesus at all.
But the entire point of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
That is the reason for Christmas.
God took on human flesh. God the Son was born of a human virgin in a humble stable. That is not a myth. That is history. And it is the hope of salvation, the gift of peace, our unshakable joy, and a demonstration of the vast love of God for lost sinners like us.
On Christmas Day, we light the Christ candle not because we are sentimental, but because we are confessing something true: the Incarnation happened. God entered His own world in flesh to save.
Every year, some professing Christians insist we should not celebrate Christmas at all. They argue that it is pagan. They argue that it is worldly. They argue that because the Bible does not directly command us to celebrate the birth of Jesus on a certain date, we are not allowed to do it.
But that is not what Scripture teaches.
There are many things we are not directly commanded to do on a specific date, which are nevertheless entirely biblical to do. Scripture does not tell you to have church on Wednesday nights, and yet no one accuses midweek service of being pagan. Scripture does not command hymnals, microphones, pews, video cameras, or live streaming, and yet many churches use those tools as ordinary helps.
The apostle Paul writes in Colossians 2:16: “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths.”
We do not worship the day. We worship the Lord of the day. We do not worship Christmas. We worship Christ.
And there is another problem with the anti-Christmas argument. It assumes that remembering the Incarnation is wrong simply because other cultures held feasts in winter.
But paganism does not own December. Paganism does not own snow. Paganism does not own evergreen trees or cinnamon sticks or the winter solstice. God owns every day on the calendar. He created summer and fall and winter and spring. He ordained times and seasons for His own glory, and made the stars and planets to mark them.
It is not pagan to celebrate the Incarnation. It is Christian.
Luke 2:11 says, “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
Not a philosopher. Not merely a teacher. Not a moral example. A Savior.
This is why Christmas Day is meant to be a day of worship and gladness and celebration. Not a day of stress, and not a day of shopping. The world will do what it does. It will write Jesus out of Christmas if it can.
But we do not have to follow the world’s lead.
So I set a table for the people I love, because we are celebrating the One who loved us first. And I hope that if you take a few minutes to do something intentional this year, whether you set the table, light a candle, read Luke 2 aloud, sing a hymn, or simply pause to give thanks, it feels like an invitation to rest and rejoice in what Christ has done.
And if anyone ever tries to convince you that you should not be celebrating Christmas, or tries to discourage you from rejoicing in the birth of Christ, you can rest in the truth that the Bible does not forbid you from giving thanks to God for sending His Son. It encourages you to do so.
Don’t just take my word for it. Crack open your Bible, and stay Psalted. The Lord Bless and keep you.
