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Introduction to the Services
These services are designed to be used with events... whenever they may occur, rather than on specific dates. They vary in length.
You are urged to select an appropriate reflection to accompany the service. If, for example, you use the Service for Hanging of the Greens around the First Sunday in Advent, then use the reflection written for that day.
For Services on Planning Your Gift Giving, Trimming the Tree, Sharing Memories, Preparing for Travel, and Close of the Season, see the 1996 Edition of Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway?
A Service for Hanging of the Greens
Leader: We have gathered to adorn our home (our church) in preparation for a celebration, a celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world, son of the everlasting God. Together let us begin by together praying:
Group: God, creator of nature, God, creator of color, God creator of green, everlasting God: parent of us all, parent of your son whom we will celebrate with this adorning of our home (our church) accept this adornment as our praise to you, our thanks for the gift of Jesus, your son, Jesus, the light of the world, Jesus, the embodiment of your love for us.
Group: (Sing to the tune, O Christmas Tree, or read)
O Evergreen, O Evergreen, your leaves are green forever. (Repeat)
Not only in the summer time,
but also in the winter time.
O Evergreen, O Evergreen, your leaves are green forever.
Voice one: Some trees lose all their leaves in the fall. They have a time of inaction. They have a time of renewal. They have a time of fullness of life during which they manufacture their food and store it for the period when they have no leaves, a time of dormancy, a lean time. Such is the human life as well. Evergreens are always green. Old leaves are always being shed. At the same time, new leaves are always growing. But there are always green leaves, always growth. They are always constant, eternally green. Such is God's time, kairos time.
Group:(Sing or read)
O Evergreen, O Evergreen, teach me to see eternal truth. (Repeat)
The hope and constancy I see,
Give strength and help to comfort me.
O Evergreen, O Evergreen, teach me to see eternal truth.
Voice two: The evergreen tree stands straight and tall, pointing always to heaven. It represents God's eternal strength, God's constancy. God is always with us, in the summer and in the winter of our lives, when life is happy and smooth, when it is joyously delightful, and when it is troubled and sad. The color green represents God's continual presence in our lives, God's eternal nature.
Group: (Take hold of the greens and sing or read)
O Evergreen, O Evergreen, we thank you for your Greenness. (Repeat)
God bless us as we consecrate.
And decorate to celebrate.
O Evergreen, Evergreen, we thank you for your greenness.
Voice Three: There is a legend from Arabia that says: On the night Christ was born, all the trees in the woods bloomed and bore their fruit, even those living in ice and snow. So we decorate with greens, fruit, and flowers to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Voice Four: There is a legend that says: In Germany, Martin Luther brought a tiny evergreen into the nursery and decorated it with candles to show his beloved children the beauty of the heavens aglow with stars, and the eternal nature of God.
Voice Five: In ancient times, the Roman Christians decorated with Laurel as an emblem of peace and joy. In their windows it indicated that Christ had entered the home. In France and England, Christians used Holly and Ivy. The Scandinavian pagans and the Druids revered the mistletoe, which later came to symbolize Christ's healing powers for the Christians.
Group: (Hold high some greens or decorations.)
Leader: God bless us this day as we consecrate these greens, as we decorate to celebrate your coming to us as one of us, in human form like us, coming to teach us to love, to forgive, to hope. May we be lifted high in our hopes of eternal life by the eternal green of these branches and boughs of Evergreen. Amen.
Group: (If at all possible, hold hands, and dance or at least walk around the tree, repeating the song, singing "la, la, la," or listening to a recording. Begin the decorating.)
-Lois Brokering, Bloomington, MN
More Ideas on Hanging of the Greens, Decorating the Home, Preparing Holy Space
O COME, O COME, EMMANUEL!
Make clear your focus in the way you prepare your home for Advent. A prepared space shapes us and our focus as we shape it. We can prepare our environment so that it communicates to us, with us, and for us in this time of expectant awaiting.
Having an environment that communicates a reverence and anticipation of the Great Gift involves us in a special kind of waiting. Talk about what you want to be around during this season and do not decorate with things that do not communicate the attitude you wish.
After Thanksgiving and before Advent, begin with the undecorated home or church building. Walk throughout it saying, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!"
Pray: O God, we look forward to your entering our lives again as we celebrate Advent and Christmas. Just as our space is now undecorated and empty of Advent reminders, our lives sometimes have spaces that need filling with reminders of your presence. Let us use this space in holy ways to grow in your presence again this Advent as we place in this space special reminders of your gifts to us. Amen.
Sing: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," just this phrase, one or more of the verses, or the chorus as appropriate when you prepare your holy space.
The first day that you get out some Advent items like the Advent wreath or
log, pray: O God, thank you for reminders of our relationships with you.
Thank you for the reminders of your light in the world that will come daily
as we light these candles. Amen.
The first day that you get out the Nativity scene so that people can look
at it, touch it, play with it, wonder about the story, you might use these
ideas. If you have a number of manger scenes or creches from different cultures,
you might place them around your home, without Baby Jesus in them, to heighten
the atmosphere of waiting. Make each space a holy space for inviting God's
presence.
Pray: God, we wait with all your people all over the world for your
coming once again as we prepare this scene. (If you have scenes from various
countries, you might say, "We wait with the people of _ for your coming.
We pray for our brothers and sisters in _. Amen."
On Christmas Eve late afternoon, add aluminum foil or other decorative star(s)
to hang from the ceiling over the Nativity Scene, saying again, even more
fervently, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!"
On Christmas Eve before going to bed or on Christmas Morning, the very first thing, members of the household can gather to place Baby Jesus in the Nativity Scene(s), saying or singing "Joy to the World, the Lord is come!" Let this focus on the Nativity Scene come before any focus on gifts.
What About All Those Gifts?
Don't put them under the Christmas tree until the last minute, like before you go to bed Christmas Eve, so that you can focus as fully as possible on the faith story we celebrate without mixing it up with piles of presents that become a focus. It will not diminish sharing but it will heighten the focus on God's Gift!
-Carolyn Hardin Engelhardt, Cheshire, CT
A Service for Ending, Blending & Beginning Christmas Traditions
Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Lord of our life. Most of our Christmas traditions and customs, however, are a blend of rituals and symbols the Christian community has taken from Scandinavia and Europe, the ancient Druids, our Jewish friends and pagan rituals.
As the years have come and gone, new traditions have become part of our celebration and others have been dropped. Traditions point to the sacred but are not sacred in themselves. This is especially important to remember when we blend families. Some traditions that seemed necessary in past celebration no longer fit our lifestyle or present family. We can symbolize this reality in worship.
ENDING Traditions
Leader: We gather to worship, as we live our lives, in the name of Jesus who was born to show us how to love and to forgive.
Response: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Leader: For the memories of past celebrations, we give God thanks. For what memories are we especially grateful? (Let those who wish share these memories with the others.)
Which memories do we find painful or feel disappointment that expectations were not met? (Time for sharing)
Leader: And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth... and from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. (John 1:14a & 16)
All: Thank you, God, for giving us hearts and minds to remember your grace toward us in the past.
BLENDING Traditions
Leader: God, in Jesus, has brought us together to share the celebration of God's great love for us.
Which traditions shall we keep? Which ones give us joy and a sense of oneness? (Time for sharing)
Response: Teach us to respect the needs and desires of those we love. May the joyful blending of our traditions from the past be a sign of our love for you and for one another.
Hymn: O Little Town of Bethlehem, vs. 3- How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv'n! / So God imparts to human hearts the blessing of his heav'n. / No ear may hear his coming; but in this world of sin / Where meek souls will receive him still the dear Christ enters in.
BEGINNING Traditions
Leader: We think of Christmas as a time for coming home. The Christmas story, however, tells of dislocation and relocation. Leavings and new beginnings seem to dominate the story. Mary and Joseph leave their home, the shepherds leave their fields, the wise men travel to new lands. After the birth of Jesus, Joseph, with Mary and the child, flees Herod's wrath to begin life anew in Egypt. (Read Matthew 2: 1-15.)
Hymn: (Sing or read together)
The Hills Are Bare at Bethlehem
The hills are bare at Bethlehem,
No future for the world they show.
Yet here new life begins to grow,
From earth's old dust a greenwood stem.
Leader: We praise you for the Spirit's holy fire, come first to comfort, then to fill with power.
Response: Come, Spirit of comfort and power. Stir new life, new beginnings within us.
Leader: Give substance to our longings to feel united in new traditions, new ways to celebrate your gift to us.
Response: We praise you for the past, the present and the future - both the joy and pain that dance in steps of change.
(Take time to share ideas for new traditions that could express our life together now.)
All: (Closing Prayer) O Lord God, who has called us your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden and through perils unknown: Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
-Mary & John Schramm, Leavenworth, WA
A Service for Food Preparation
It is at the center of many of the holiday celebrations. Rituals, traditions, heritage and who we are become all wrapped around the purchasing, preparing, serving and consuming of food.
Holiday cookies, party beverages, made and shared. A blessing? All the cooking and baking, planning, shopping and doing can indeed be a blessing of the Christmas season if those involved see meaning in all the parts of this substantial part of our Christmas celebration.
To help see the significance in your preparations of food, set aside a time before Advent for you, and others who will be involved in your celebration, to reflect on how your food preparations can demonstrate your Christian values and beliefs.
To help you in your reflections consider Leviticus chapter 23. In Israel's culture feasting and festivals played a major role because they were times to celebrate all God had done for God's people.
Pray aloud as you begin your time of reflection:
Allow us, Lord, to share your bounty, one with another throughout this season. We will feast and feast some more. And we will eat and eat. And we will prepare sumptuous foods, delicious beverages and tasty cookies and candies. Help us maintain our focus on your great gifts. You have blessed us with abundance. Help us especially focus on your greatest gift, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Following your reading of Leviticus 23, think about how your food traditions help to tell the story of your family, of "whose" you are.
Name the foods your family values and consider if these foods are valued because of tradition, appearance, taste or sustenance.
Allow each person present to recall a special ritual involved in food preparations (the baking of a certain cookie, the making of the annual eggnog, the recipe passed from generation to generation, the search and purchase of that special ingredient ). Then talk about how the ritual connects the speaker to others present either spiritually or physically.
Offer thanks for each of these rituals and the relationships they recall.
Discuss how your preparations include all members of your family and those sharing in your celebrations. Talk about the entire process of the preparations. In much the same way as the Israelites made preparations for the Passover meal and Christians celebrate the Eucharistic feast, consider how your family can establish Christmas feasts that bind one family member to another across generations. To help in doing this ask of each person present:
* How can the eating we do to celebrate Christ's birth reflect the joy and spirit of the celebration?
* How can each person participate? From the youngest to the oldest how can each member contribute? Little ones can crack the eggs, hold the mixing bowls, sprinkle the sugar. Grade schoolers can read the recipes, and measure the ingredients. Older adults can sing the hymns and tell the stories of holidays past as the food cooks.
* As the food nourishes our bodies, discuss how your celebrations can nourish your spirits and lift up your hearts so all can gladly sing the Alleluias of Christ's mass.
Close your time of reflection with this prayer:
Creator God, daily we feast on all that you give us. The presence of your Holy Spirit nourishes us and is our strength. In our daily preparations this season help us to remember the value of all we do. As we feed and are fed help us to be strong in faith. Indeed! Amen.
-Laura Nedeau-Owen, Sioux City, IA
This page last updated 20 October 2012
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