Advent: Love in Pretendovia

"Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it."

'Tis the season of the Christmas special.


Netflix has been trimming Hallmark's grass in these last few years; producing the kind of saccharine love stories accessorized by holly that are as addictive and unsatisfying as the boxes of over-sweet waxy chocolates that also glut the month. And, like that box of chocolates, without knowing the precise nature of the filling of these films, we all know exactly what we're going to get.

Due to the fact that I get offended at bad writing that makes it to the big screen, it wasn't until I was sick last year that I finally watched several of these movies in a row. None were particularly memorable and there was an incognito prince kicking around in a couple of them. The female protagonist is always klutzy with glossy, salon-worthy hair; a fish out of water in the paper thin backdrop kingdom/quaint village/Christmas 'miracle' setting. Her prince/village inn manager/soup kitchen owner(?)/single dad/brusque-handyman-with-a-heart-of-gold male lead is inevitably a cardboard cut-out of a man, but with less to say for himself. But let us not forget the antagonists. These movies have their stock villains, too--generally a sleek, beautiful woman. But not too beautiful. Our villainess isn't a klutz either, and most of her characterization is accomplished by the presence of a large, designer purse which is how you know she's both shallow and bad for our cardboard fellow who cares passionately for the homeless/stray dogs/motherless children, etc.


There are twinkle lights and cabs called in the wake of misunderstandings. And, perhaps the line of succession in the little remembered European country of Pretendovia is threatened by some unworthy Pretender and the climatic moment inevitably occurs on Christmas Eve as the clock strikes midnight. And yes, there is Christmas Eve monologuing. Resolution is swift; the nefarious Gucci-clad greyhound of a woman sent packing, and the music swells.  Somehow Christmas has been saved--; and hopefully all within a tidy ninety minute time frame.

These films have little to do with Christmas other than giving the set decorator a theme in which to work, but they do provide an empty sugary treat of a romance story for a cold winter evening. And, really, considering the fact that Hollywood doesn't seem to bother making love stories anymore, it isn't any wonder that we find ourselves scratching that cultural itch with less fulfilling means. The season seems to lend itself well to the notion of romance--it being cold outside and all. But there is more to it than that. We expect magic at Christmas. And what, more than love, is closer to our ideas of magic?

Love--unlike its counterfeit, lust--is not about ourselves. It is almost the only thing that isn't these days. Love is the demotion of self on another's behalf. Love is selfless while paradoxically being the most fulfilling emotion that we can experience.

It is because there is a sense of expectation that precedes Christmas that we look for stories about love sought and attained. Even if it is only the thinnest suggestion of love from the feeblest of actors working with the tritest of scripts. We long for love stories all the same. We long for the magic that removes us from ourselves and places us in a better story.

 Advent-- the four weeks leading up to Christmas--are pregnant days. It is the preparatory season that deepens the joy of Christmas. It is the building of expectation that something wonderful is coming. There is a miracle due on December the 25th. There is hope that love will be born.

This love that we are all hoping for--reflected in romance-- is the manifest, incarnate love of God. Women in particular, look for romantic love to save them. As much as the current wave of feminists scream that women don't need men to save them; we can't seem to help but hoping that some particular man will. Not just anyone, either. It has to be the right one. People misuse the fairytales, too. Cinderella needed the prince to fall in love with her to rescue her from toiling away for people who did not love her. Love rescues us from indifference; from rejection. Love looks upon a masses and chooses you for your own self. Love is rescue, because it fills up the empty places where people and things are missing in our lives. Love makes the bleakest outlook bearable; love imparts meaning and purpose.

It is love that clothed the Word in flesh in at Christmas. It was love that brought Him to dwell among us; plucking us from the impossible problem that we have been living in.  Without this love-prompted departure from Heaven, we would still be stumbling about in the dark.


The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shined.
[...]
For to us a child is born
to us, a son is given; 
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called,
Wonderful Counsellor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
(Isaiah 9:2,6)

The best of the Christmas-themed stories are all grounded in the need for a miracle; for the perspective of Heaven to break in and change the parameters of the possible; for love to break through. In Charles Dickens's, A Christmas Carol, the hard reality of dwelling in deep darkness is tangible in Bob Cratchit's cold hands and long hours, in Tiny Tim's sickliness and  Scrooge is not merely an old crank; but instead a man who has lived life according to his own morality of self. He has submitted his will to nothing and no one. It is only through an unwelcome encounter in which the  spiritual world clashed with his material world, does Scrooge come face to face with the agony of regret.

“You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” 

The miraculous coming of Jesus to earth is the answer that the world has been waiting for without knowing it. Light has dawned. Jesus is the antidote to regret; not for the hope of better actions but receiving from Him a living heart, rather than the one of stone engirded by the chains we make for ourselves.  The Netflix/Lifetime/Hallmark movies are saccharine without substance because they have no past tense--they acknowledge no real sorrow or regret. There is no danger of the story not resolving. As such, they can only offer a sugary confection that evaporates as soon as it is ingested.

The weighty joy of Christmas surpasses mere gaiety because there are stakes. There is evil. Mankind is fallen from glory. We are all in desperate need of saving from the shadow of sin that covers each one of us. Dwelling in darkness is to reside in fear. It is meaningless, direction-less, and characterized by confusion. Living there has externalities: hopelessness, faithlessness, lovelessness, joylessness. It is the reactionary world of addiction and abuse; abandonment and rejection. The stakes are real.
We are in desperate need of the Light of Christ.

That is why we expect miracles at Christmas--because we got One.