In 2018, the Rev. Daniel Brereton, a priest serving at St. John’s Dixie in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, made a post that went viral. 5 years later, on this Christmas, his words still ring true – “Don’t keep Christ in Christmas.”

Don’t keep Christ in Christmas.

Let him out.

Let him out of the box of decorations stored in the attic

Let him out of prayers you only say at Midnight Mass

Let him out of carols as background to your shopping.

Let him out of a sentimental story cleansed of violence and pain

Let him out of the creche, where he remains a helpless infant

… where the only woman present is silent and meek

… where poverty is romanticized with no threat and no smell

… and shepherds are cuddly and everyone is white

… and there is no messiness to obscure the miracle

Let him out of December’s candle-lit coziness

… where his heat melts the wintry ice of our selfishness

… and his buds unfold amidst the mud of injustice

… and his flowers overtake the borders of manicured gardens

… and his harvest fill barns with fruits we never knew existed

Don’t keep Christ in Christmas.

Let him out.

And then, when Christmas comes ’round again,

We won’t have to “keep him in it”,

For how could he not be “in Christmas” when he has been here, the whole time,

Keeping us?

Let us not put away Christmas for another year. Christmas is not the end of the story; it is a beginning. Let us endeavour to keep Christmas every day – honouring Emmanuel, God who came to be with us, with the homage of our justice and our joy, our mercy and our love, our compassion and our generosity.  

Merry Christmas to all!

CG+