Christmas in July

Perhaps today feels a bit strange, like we are pulling out the carols in the off season.

There are some places where Christmas seems to stand outside of time. Several years ago when I was trying to book rooms for a women’s retreat in Pigeon Forge, I looked into the Inn at Christmas Place. This hotel and each of its rooms stay decorated for Christmas year round and for a small fee, you can enjoy one of these rooms and regular visits with Santa and cookies and milk.

But wait, there’s more. If you go across the street you can enter into the Christmas store which is sure to tempt you with all manner of Christmas decorations.

If you are truly in the mood for Christmas, there are a few places that have dubbed a “Christmas town” that remain decorated year-round including Santa Claus, Indiana which boasts 15 Santa statues, North Pole, Alaska, North Pole, NY, Pigeon Forge, and Cascade, Colorado.

There are some places that seem to keep Christmas even in the off season. But how did Christmas in the off season, or Christmas in July, become so popular?

Ninety-one years ago in 1933, Christmas in July began at a girls’ summer camp called Keystone Camp in Brevard, North Carolina at the request of camp co-founder Fannie Holt. That first Christmas in July camp celebration included carolers, a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, presents, and fake snow. Then campers began to use their laundry bags as makeshift stockings that they would place outside of their cabin in hopes that they would be filled with candy.

Then in 1940, a movie titled Christmas in July came out and put the phrase into full swing.

But there are others who like to celebrate Christmas in the off season. While it might be too hot to drag out any of our Christmas sweaters in the Delta summer, across the world in Australia, everything is different. While our summer season meets us with humidity and mosquitoes, their summer months are actually their winter.

It seems a bit backwards to think about, but maybe thinking backwards is exactly what we need when it comes to Christmas.

Sometimes when we are in the midst of Advent and Christmas, it can lose some of its focus and luster. We are surrounded by the pressure to buy a present for everyone, to attend all the gatherings, to make all the food, and to support every holiday charity. Folded in between the church stands and sings its song and reminds the world that light is about to be born.

Maybe Christmas in July gives us a fresh chance to remember the wonder of Christmas: the story of holy announcements, nothing people from nowhere towns, and the soft skin of a newborn baby, God with us.

And so here in July, halfway through the year, we celebrate Christmas and we join the longing for the upside-down promises that are anchored in Christ.

William Willimon spent a summer in Australia and New Zealand a few years ago, but noted that the “summer” was the dead of winter. In Australia, everything feels upside down with “the people in the cold south speaking of the conservatism of the tropical “deep north.”

While he was down there, or up there as you might say, he discovered a new Christmas carol titled Upside Down Christmas that goes something like this:

“Carol our Christmas, an upside down Christmas;

snow is not falling and trees are not bare.

Carol the summer, and welcome the Christ Child,

warm in our sunshine and sweetness of air.

Carol our Christmas, an upside down Christmas

snow is not falling and trees are not bare.

Carol the summer, and welcome the Christ Child,

warm in our sunshine and sweetness of air.

Sing of the gold and the green and the sparkle,

water and river and lure of the beach.

Sing in the happiness of open spaces,

sing a nativity summer can reach!

Shepherds and musterers move over hillsides,

finding, not angels, but sheep to be shorn;

wise ones make journeys whatever the season,

searching for signs of the truth to be born.

Right side up Christmas belongs to the universe,

made in the moment a woman give birth;

hope is the Jesus gift, love is the offering,

everywhere, anywhere here on the earth.”

Maybe the spirit of Christmas is held and kept by wise ones who make the journey, whatever the season, looking for signs that truth has been born.

What are the signs that remind you of Christmas in the off season? What are the glimpses that truth, that love incarnate, has been born and dwells among you?

**Where is the stable of the love of God in your life? This week I saw the love of God among members who showed up and loved on one of our members. I saw the love of God in the life of a stranger who made their way into the office. I found the love of God in the hug of a friend, and in the ***

Years ago the founders of Hallmark published a book called American Christmas. In it, poet Gwendolyn Brooks said “for some, the Christmas message is medicine.”

But what happens when we receive this medicine, this love, this goodness, this salvation? William notes how the charges against the early Christians were that they were turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6).

Maybe here and now, we need a fresh dose of the upside-down love of God to give us new eyes for seeing, new ears for hearing, new hands for holding on. For even in the off season, we sing of Christmas.

Howard Thurman believed that Christmas was supposed to transform our hearts and invite us into the upside-down work of Christmas. He said, “There must be always remaining in every man’s life some place for the singing of angels – some place for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful and by an inherent prerogative throwing all the rest of life into a new and created relatedness. Something that gathers up in itself all the freshets of experience from drab and commonplace areas of living and glows in one bright white light of penetrating beauty and meaning – then passes. The commonplace is shot through now with new glory – old burdens become lighter, deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all of the crassness of life, despite all of the hardness of life, despite all of the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.”

We meet today without all the presents and the lights or trees or any sugar cookies, and we keep singing of Christmas. We are the refrain of the chorus of the angels. Within our song, the work of Christmas continues.

As Howard Thurman said,

“When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

When the Christmas decorations have been put away.

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among brothers,

To make music in the heart.”

To turn the world upside down.