The Preaching Life:
It's Tradition

by Rob Prince

One of the Christmas traditions my family had when I was a child was that we did not see the decorated and lit Christmas tree until Christmas morning. We were told that Santa Claus decorated the tree when he delivered the gifts. That’s pretty impressive time management on Santa’s part if you ask me: deliver presents to all the good boys and girls in the entire world in one night, and still have time to decorate the Prince’s Christmas tree in Garden City, Michigan. I never thought about the overwhelming logistics of that feat as a child, but now I’m very impressed with Santa’s accomplishment. We probably should have given him more than two cookies and a glass of milk for his troubles.

I think the tradition of Santa taking time out of his busy schedule to decorate our tree on Christmas Eve started during the Great Depression, when my unemployed grandfather would go to a deserted tree lot after it closed on Christmas Eve and help himself to one of the leftover trees. However it got started, we wouldn’t see the beautifully decorated tree until Christmas morning.

In fact, we wouldn’t see the decorated tree until after breakfast on Christmas morning. Hanging a bed sheet over the entrance to our living room to ensure no peeking, my parents, trained in the art of torture by an evil terrorist organization, would make us eat breakfast before opening our presents. “Can’t open presents on an empty stomach,” they would pronounce, as if we would pass out from malnutrition and the exhausting exercise of gift unwrapping.

The breakfast we would eat wasn’t just any breakfast: our Christmas breakfast was a glass of juice and a bowl of Rice Krispies. Under normal conditions that would be a perfectly fine breakfast of champions, but on Christmas morning it’s awful. It’s a horrible and torturous breakfast because my dad, who normally was a very fast eater (The great conversationalist lived by the motto, “I don’t talk at dinner. Every time you talk you lose a bite.”), would eat very, very, very slow. His bowl of cereal was consumed one “Snap, Crackle, and Pop” at a time. Do you know how long it takes to eat a bowl of Rice Krispies one krispie at a time? It takes forever! Haley’s comet can complete an orbit in less time than my dad’s Christmas morning breakfast experience (at least it seemed that way at the time).

Once my dad’s bowl was sufficiently empty of the very last Krispie, my siblings and I would line up by the refrigerator from best to worst behaved during the previous week as determined by the Prince Behavioral Control Officer (read: my mother) and would wait to be called into the living room to see the lit Christmas tree and all the presents. As I recollect, my goodie-two-shoes sisters usually were called to see the tree before my brother and me. (Is it a coincidence that my brother and I are both pastors now? Obviously, dishing out pre-Christmas “hurtz donuts” and “noogies” to siblings does not disqualify one from ministerial service). After much waiting and hearing my sisters make adoring noises from the living room, finally oh so finally, my name would be called and into our living room I would run.

Then I would see the most beautiful sight: our Christmas tree bright and shining. With silver plastic icicles, homemade ornaments and a very old angel at the top, I always thought our tree was the prettiest Christmas tree of all. Santa really knew how to decorate a tree!

What does all of this have to do with your Christmas this year? I’m glad you asked!

Christmas will be here soon. You may have shopping to do and, of course, there are still sermons to prepare and board dinners to host. There are presents to wrap, lights to hang, rooms to decorate, cards to send, cookies to bake, and toys to be assembled. There are pastors and spouses Christmas gatherings, Sunday School get-togethers, delivering gifts to the needy, program rehearsals, hanging of the greens, checking on the candle supply for the Christmas Eve service, and caroling at the Senior Center. Christmas might be “the most wonderful time of the year,” but it’s also the busiest time of the year—especially for the preacher.

So why not give yourself a present this year: the gift of saying “no.” Don’t say “no” to everything, just to the less important things. Keep the Christmas joys flowing in your home. Take time to laugh and sing and have fun. Make sure you are creating positive memories and traditions with your family. Make the type of memories that when your children and grandchildren are many years and miles removed from these days in the home of the preacher, they will look back and say “My family really knew how to celebrate Christmas. Church activities were important, but so was family. We loved Jesus, we loved each other and it showed!” So make parsonage Christmas memories this year, but please don’t include a Rice Krispies Christmas morning breakfast—preacher’s kids have it tough enough.