The Trouble with a Hallmark Christmas

I shamelessly confess that I LOVE to binge watch Hallmark Christmas movies. Is anyone else raising their hands right now? 🙂 Welcome, friend! 

What this post isn’t: a call to boycott Hallmark Christmas movies.
What this post is: An encouragement from one believer to another based on a trend that I noticed during one of my movie marathons.

While I appreciate Hallmark for staying clean and family-friendly, the company isn’t expressively Christian. Therefore there will be times when their views won’t line up with ours like the one I want to talk about today: Losing the Christmas Spirit.

Without Christ at the center of Christmas, then Christmas is just another holiday. And we can take or leave it.

But Christmas is so much more than what we’ve let it become.

I cannot count on my fingers and toes the number of movies Hallmark has churned out with the theme of at least one prominent character losing their Christmas Spirit. Every one of these characters attributed this loss to something traumatic like the loss of a loved one of the betrayal of someone they held dear during the Christmas season. And as I watched movie after movie where someone struggles to gain the Christmas Spirit, aka the joy of traditions and lights, the more it weighed on my heart.

How many Christians live this way every year?

How many born again believers have fallen into the mindset of finding no joy in the things associated with Christmas?

I think it’s worthwhile to stop and ask ourselves what Christmas really is.

If Christmas is only long-held traditions, lights, trees, gifts, food, and merriment then people will be apt to losing the Christmas Spirit when their Christmas memories become tainted or when the joy has left their world.

But as Christians, we know that Christmas is more than that. We cannot lose our light because Christmas is a celebration of the Light coming down. While we celebrate with the aid of traditions, the holiday is a reminder of something so much bigger than ourselves and our feelings. Christmas is joy. Joy that the Holy One became Emmanuel: God With Us. Joy that the sole purpose for the manger was the cross.

I’m not suggesting that missing loved ones no longer pain you. But I am suggesting that we have something so much more to celebrate than the rest of the world. If you know Christ, then you can say with conviction that He came for you. And in that humbling thought, you’ll find your Christmas joy.

True Christmas Spirit isn’t an appreciation of trees and lights. It’s an appreciation of Christ and all that He did on your behalf.

For any believer that has fallen into the mindset of depression where Christmas is concerned, I encourage you to view Christmas in a new light. In a holy light.
I encourage you to spend the rest of the season praising God and then turn around and give to others. Where you might be feeling loneliness, I encourage you to pour your time into someone else who is lonely. Seek out a friend without family. Make a new friend. The nursing homes are filled with lonely souls. So are the streets and the homeless shelters. So are our workplaces, schools, churches, and neighborhoods.
Help out the single mother. Assist the new mother. Or the young couple staying far away from their family.

Offer yourself as a gift to others this year just as Christ offered Himself. And know that God will bless it. The joy you give to others will be poured back on you.

And I picked out some Christmas songs that I felt like put all the focus of the holiday back on Christ. Of course, these aren’t the only songs that do. But give them a listen and let your heart meditate on the truth they bring.