Article
Christmas culture
5 min read

In defence of the traditional nativity play

Despite a seafood medley in the wings of some nativity plays, Yaroslav Walker still prefers the deep power of a more traditional telling.
Three children dressed as orange lobsters stand sheepishly on a stage.
The nativity lobster scene, Love Actually.

“So what’s this big news, then?” 

“We’ve been given our parts in the Nativity Play…[GASP]…and I’m the lobster!” 

“The lobster?” 

“Yeh!” 

“In the Nativity Play!?” 

“Yeh. First lobster.” 

“There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?” 

“Duh!” 

I love this little exchange from Love Actually. Emma Thompson’s mother must be expressing the surprise of parents up and down the country for the last twenty years or so. When I was at primary school there was no doubt that when December rolled around, we would do a straight-down-the-line nativity play. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that more and more schools have been experimenting: a lobster here, an octopus there, a modern re-telling with mobile phones and motorbikes, or abandoning the Gospel nativity entirely in favour of lovely (but not biblical) stories like The Elves and the Shoemaker

I’ve not watched Love Actually in a few years, but this scene burst into my imagination as I was watching the Nativity Play of one of my local primary schools. It was the Christmas story without adulteration – Matthew and Luke would have no qualms about any of the details. Yes, there were jokes to entertain the parents, and the odd song that I doubt the people in Bethlehem were singing at the time, but overall, it was a Traditional Nativity Play in all its glory!  

Stories are the preeminent vehicles of meaning, and so it stands to reason that a ‘traditional story’ has the most power in this regard. 

As I sat through a delightful performance, I was struck by just how comforting it was to see a traditional telling of the Christmas story. When I got up to give a little homily after the show, I thanked the children profusely for their adherence to tradition, and explained how much it had cheered me. I was a little surprised to encounter just how many parents, as they left the church, concurred wholeheartedly with my statement. They were moved to hear that old tale told again, and moved more than they expected when they encountered those timeless themes that the nativity story encapsulates. 

I’m not opposed to innovation and modernisation, but it strikes me that some traditions are sacrosanct – especially around a season like Christmas. Traditions aren’t just activities we perform semi-regularly; traditions are carriers of meaning, emotion, and memory, and traditions have a deep power we can’t always explain at the time. I’m sure most people reading this article will have Christmas traditions, and that those traditions will have a real emotional (and maybe even a spiritual) resonance. It might be a particular concert or panto that you see every year. It might be the particular menu for Christmas Day (more pigs-in-blankets and fewer sprouts). My tradition is that ever since I was a boy the family has always gone on a Boxing Day walk. I can’t quite explain why, but as soon as I take that first step on Boxing Day I’m filled with a tremendous sense of peace and joy. 

Stories are the preeminent vehicles of meaning, and so it stands to reason that a ‘traditional story’ has the most power in this regard. The story of the Nativity doesn’t just give us the narrative of the birth of Christ, it gives us the psychological, emotional, and metaphorical content that the narrative carries. It’s a story, so it doesn’t seek just to tell us what happened, it seeks to makes us feel the effects of what happened. The story of the Nativity is the story of God coming into His creation. It is a story not just of a baby boy being born, but of peace and joy and hope and love and glory being born into the world – born in such a way that they can never be overcome. It is the beginning of the great love story: God so loving the world that he gave His only Son to save it. 

They were moved not just because they delighted in the performance of their son or daughter, but because they were inhabiting ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’.

You can read the nativity of Matthew and Luke once, and you might miss most or even all of this emotional and spiritual weight; but read them over and over again at the same time of year every year, and you can’t help but be changed. You’ll find, over many years, that you’re not just reading or hearing the story anymore…you’re LIVING the story. If you live the story, you feel the story – the great message of Christmas (a mystery we will never truly comprehend in this life) is something that takes over you mind and your heart, and you really are living Christmas. 

Most of the parents I met that morning will not darken our doors again until next year. Maybe some of them are faithful attenders of other churches, and maybe most of them aren’t. In that moment, as their children performed the same play that children up and down this country have performed for more than a century, it didn’t matter. They were moved, many beyond expectation. They were moved not just because they delighted in the performance of their son or daughter, but because they were inhabiting ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’. Many were moved because the themes of peace, hope, joy, love, harmony, wonder, worship, and delight – ideas that entrance even the most cynical mind – were presented again to them. Many were moved because the deep resonances of the Christmas tradition were stirred once again. 

I love The Elves and the Shoemaker. I delight in the creativity of contemporary tellings of old stories. Any time a child finds the confidence to stand on a stage and perform, my heart rejoices. But…I would like to put in a little plea for the resurgence of the Traditional Nativity Play; its story, its themes, and its traditions are genuinely timeless, and a chance to remember the eternal beauty of hope, joy, and love is something we all need…especially at Christmas. 

Article
Christmas culture
4 min read

Why a cultural Christmas sometimes struggles to celebrate

In the build-up to Christmas there's contrasting rhythms of ancient and modern ways to celebrate.

Alistair Reid is studying theology at Oxford University as part of training for Church of England ministry.

Looking down a red shiny christmas tree in the centre of a department store gallery.
Christmas at Galeries Lafayette department store, Paris.
Bing Hao on Unsplash.

Our lives dance to the rhythm of anticipation and fulfilment. The food in our fridge, the concert in our calendar, the holiday on the horizon. From daily pleasures to longer-term goals, we inhabit the familiar routine of journeying and arriving.  

The build-up to Christmas offers such a rhythm on a much wider scale, moving beyond the personal to a culture-wide experience. We receive our early warning alert in September as the mince pies hit the supermarkets. But by November preparations are in full swing. Retailer John Lewis has coined ‘the 45 days of Christmas.’ Their biggest day of sales for Christmas decorations is on November 10th. By December, the Christmas ads, Christmas lights and Christmas music become relentless. We make plans, buy presents, prepare food in a bid to deliver the promised Christmas cheer. And, finally, the big day comes – with turkey and trimmings. The length, breadth and depth of anticipation channeled into a single day.  

And then it’s Boxing Day. 

Boxing Day can have its own pleasures, but there’s also a sense of nostalgia, and even sadness. The wrapping paper left scrumpled on the floor from the night before, the leftovers in the fridge, the home emptied of guests, whether welcome or not. At best, we have the sad realization that the next Christmas is as far away as it could possibly be. But more likely, the realization that it wasn’t quite as good as we’d hoped, anyway. As Sylvia Plath memorably wrote in The Bell Jar:  

 “I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.” 

And so the cycle goes on. At least there’s New Year’s Eve to look forward to. Or Easter, as the supermarkets swap mince pies for hot cross buns. 

Our cultural Christmas struggles to wait. The joys of Christmas extend ever earlier, with searches for Christmas trees surging from immediately after the summer holidays. 

Our modern Christmas rhythm is, in many ways, parasitic upon an ancient Christian one. In Christian tradition, the four weeks building up to Christmas is known as Advent. The word means ‘coming,’ for Advent is a period of expectant waiting both for the birth of Christ at Christmas, and also the hope that Jesus will return to put all things right. As such, it is a time of preparation, self-examination and fasting, as Christians ready themselves to stand before the judgement seat of God. Advent is followed by Christmas, celebrated for twelve whole days (as in the famous carol), which is why Christmas decorations went up on Christmas Eve, and came down on January 6th, twelfth night. 

In many ways, the ancient pattern is similar to the modern pattern. Both are liturgical rhythms that mark and measure our years, as we inhabit cultural, familial and personal routines. Both involve anticipation and fulfilment, build-up and joy.  

And yet the differences are also stark. Our cultural Christmas struggles to wait. The joys of Christmas extend ever earlier, with searches for Christmas trees surging from immediately after the summer holidays. But, more surprisingly, our cultural Christmas struggles to celebrate. That might seem strange given the quantity of food, wrapping paper and presents that we get through. But rather than twelve days of Christmas, we barely make it through one.  

By contrast, the Christian tradition emphasizes the discipline of waiting. But not as an ascetic end in itself, as if joy is bad. Rather, the denial of waiting is replaced by the sustained joy of celebration. Twelve days of Christmas celebration is almost impossible for us to imagine – wouldn’t we get bored? Given our longing for joy, it’s somewhat surprising just how hard it is to sustain.  

More deeply, these two contrasting Christmases place their weight in very different places. Our modern Christmas expects Christmas to deliver what we’re looking for: through friends, family, food and fun. But while we catch glimpses of joy, we’re often disappointed: the turkey is overcooked, the presents are not what we wanted, the kids are bickering. It’s no wonder that sometimes Christmas can struggle to bear the weight put upon it. It’s no wonder that Christmas Day can descend into disappointment, self-pity, even acrimony. 

But the ancient Advent-Christmas rhythm, while incorporating these joys, deliberately seeks to place them within a larger story. The baby born at Christmas brings salvation from sin and death, turning Advent meditation on our future judgement from fearful cowering into confident expectation and present joy. This is hope and joy that does not depend on the perfect lunch, or the most sparkling of conversation. Instead, the greatest gift of Christmas is, well, Christ. And he can generate twelve days of celebration. In fact, he can generate joy for eternity. Rightly, C.S. Lewis described joy as ‘the serious business of heaven.’  

This is not to condemn our cultural Christmas. Who wouldn’t enjoy a cheeky mince pie in October? But what if it isn’t capable of delivering what we all want? Perhaps our capacity for joy is larger – and rooted deeper – than we thought. In this world of disappointment, sadness and suffering, perhaps the route to such sustained joy is through rhythming our lives to a larger story.