This is why my family doesn’t go to church on Christmas anymore

I did not grow up in a very religious family; most of my knowledge of the bible comes from my freshman year in (public) high school, when we studied the old and new testaments as literary texts.  Yet every Christmas Eve of my childhood, my sister and I were dressed up in ribbed tights and whatever semi-formal dress we hadn’t managed to outgrow, and carted down to the Methodist Church in Estes Park, Colorado; my mother liked their bell choir.

The church had wood paneled walls and high, swooping ceilings that were buttressed by thick beams.  The pews were long benches of creaky oak, slightly curved to fit a human spine, with bibles and hymnals tucked into wooden pockets on the backs of the anterior rows.  The floor was carpeted in dark, burgundy patterned berber and the pulpit and aisles were lined with potted poinsettias.  Most of the parishioners were older, slightly frumpy men and women in ill-fitting outfits from the previous decade. They managed to smile sweetly at us, while still giving us the stink-eye-of-guilt for our regular church-going truancy.  

Every year the sermon was the same: the preacher would recite the story of the birth of Jesus, interspersed with classic Christmas carols played on the choir’s multi-sized silver bells.  Women in white gloves would jingle teacup sized bells to hit the high notes, and a bald man with a copious belly would swoop his arms in sinuous, robed arcs to clang out warm, sonorous, low tones.  It was easy to get lost in the sights and sounds of the church, allowing the melodic, familiar story to waft around you as you concentrated on the tights bunching at your waist or the off-kilter toupee of the man two rows up.  That’s exactly what happened to my sister, the year that I was ten and she was eight, and the church decided to change things up a bit by offering the eucharist.  

Methodists aren’t known for being particularly strict in their devotion to religious traditions.  Some churches devoutly offer eucharist services, while others do not.  Most of the time they use grape juice instead of the more traditional wine, and the type of bread is unimportant.  It had never been given out at a Christmas service before, but that year, it seems the ladies of the church committee must have had a couple extra loaves of Wonder Bread sitting around and figured why not.  They cut the slices up into little, soft foamy cubes, and passed them around on a tray, along with dixi cups of Welch’s grape juice.  As my family sitting relatively near the front of the church, we had to hold onto our bread and juice for a while as the rest of the congregation was served.  The minister kept speaking and the choir kept playing.  

That’s when I looked over and noticed that my sister, Shannon, had absentmindedly flattened her cube of Wonder Bread into a disk.  Just old enough to begin to understand the significance of the ritual, I leaned over to my mother, and half in horror, half trying to make a joke whispered, “Mommy, Shannon smushed Jesus.”

My mother has a laugh that sounds somewhat like the call of a carnivorous bird, and more often than not it is preceded by a low, rumbling snort.  When she tries to hold it in, her whole body shakes and she makes a sound like a deflating pool toy.  And when a person is shaking, trying to hold in laughter, and they’re sitting on a creaky, oak pew, the entire row knows something is going on.

The minister held up his cube of bread, “On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: ‘Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”

My sister looked at me in horror, just starting to comprehend the symbology. 

“You smushed the baby Jesus,” I reprimanded her.  

All around us, fellow parishioners were swallowing down their cubes of Wonder-Christ.

“This is Jesus?” 

I nodded, “And now you’re supposed to eat him.”

She nibbled on the crust of Jesus.  I couldn’t hold it in any longer and started to laugh as well. 

The minister continued: “When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: ‘Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”

And that’s when the bell choir started playing The Twelve Days of Christmas.  It was the absolute worst song, at the absolutely worst time.  You see, just a few days prior the local Oldies radio station had played their own version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, except instead of being about gifts given, it was about the twelve things that happened to a poor guy who accidentally went into the women’s bathroom at a restaurant.  Instead of a partridge in a pear tree, this poor sap was left with a high-heel up his behind.

We couldn’t contain ourselves any longer.  My mother’s full snort and squawk ricochetted off the buttresses, I was shaking so hard I accidentally kicked the row in front of ours, repeatedly, and my sister was doing her best to keep from accidentally spitting the blood of Christ out of her nose.

Needless to say, we didn’t wait in line to shake the preacher’s hand and the end of the service that year.  And as far as I recall, that was the last time we were ever forced to go to church on Christmas Eve.

Merry Secular Christmas to all, and to all a good night.