By Robert Clements
Christmas Cheer..!
Ask someone today what Christmas cheer is and chances are they will point you to a bar menu, a shopping mall, or a man in a red suit sweating under a synthetic beard, shouting ho ho ho at children who are more interested in his phone than his promise of gifts. Cheer, we are told, now comes chilled in glasses, wrapped in glossy paper, or piped through speakers at a volume that suggests joy can be manufactured if only it is loud enough.
Some believe Christmas cheer begins with a drink and ends when one can no longer remember how it began. Others believe it is measured by the number of shopping bags carried home, the size of the Christmas tree, or how brightly the house across the street is lit, preferably enough to be visible from space. Cheer has become competitive. Bigger trees. Louder carols. Longer credit card bills. The season of goodwill now comes with instalments.
And then there are those who think Christmas cheer is hiring a Santa to wave at crowds while retailers wave discounts at wallets. It all looks very cheerful. Very colourful. Very busy. There are smiles everywhere, mostly because the cameras are on. There is laughter too, often forced, sometimes fuelled, and usually exhausted by the time Christmas Day arrives.
But somewhere in all that cheer, Christmas itself has quietly slipped out the back door.
Christmas cheer is not intoxication. It is incarnation.
That word has been politely pushed aside because it is inconvenient. Incarnation does not sell well. It does not glitter. It does not fit neatly into a shopping bag. It is not about God watching humanity from a safe heavenly distance, offering moral advice from above. It is about God stepping down into dust, into pain, into uncertainty. It is about the Creator becoming created. About infinity choosing limitation. About power choosing vulnerability.
The first Christmas did not happen in a palace. There were no trumpets announcing royal arrival. No chandeliers. No silk robes. No press conference. It happened in a cattle stall, among animals, smells, discomfort and poverty. The King of kings arrived not as a ruler to be feared but as a baby to be held. A baby who cried, needed feeding, and depended entirely on ordinary human hands.
That is Christmas cheer.
It is deeply unsettling when you think about it. God did not arrive with answers first. He arrived with presence. He did not explain suffering away. He stepped into it. He did not remove uncertainty. He embraced it. The incarnation tells us that God did not consider our brokenness beneath Him. He did not send instructions. He sent Himself.
God came down as a man so that He could understand what it means to be tired, misunderstood, rejected, hungry, lonely and broken. He lived among us. He walked our streets. He felt our grief. He listened to our cries. He experienced injustice. He knew betrayal. And because He lived as we do, He has compassion when we struggle as we do.
Christmas cheer is knowing that when you hurt, God understands. When you are afraid, He has been afraid. When you feel abandoned, He knows that pain. When you are overwhelmed by expectations you cannot meet, He understands that weight. And when you fail, He does not look away.
This is not sentimental comfort. It is radical hope. The incarnation says you are not facing life alone. It says heaven has stepped into your ordinary, your messy, your unfinished story. It says your tears are not ignored and your prayers do not echo into emptiness.
But Christmas does not stop at the manger. It moves deliberately toward the cross. That same baby grew up and chose to carry punishment that was not His, so that we could walk freely with God. Forgiven. Restored. Reconnected. The wood of the manger points quietly toward the wood of the cross. The vulnerability of the infant leads to the sacrifice of the man.
That too is Christmas cheer.
Not a shallow cheer that evaporates when the music stops or the lights come down. Not the fragile happiness that depends on circumstances behaving themselves. This is cheer that holds even when the year has been unkind. When relationships have strained. When losses have piled up. When prayers seem unanswered.
It is not momentary excitement but eternal hope. Not artificial happiness but deep joy. Not laughter fuelled by alcohol but peace rooted in forgiveness. It is the joy of fellowship with our Creator. The joy of knowing we are not alone. The joy of being loved without condition and without performance.
This kind of cheer does not deny pain. It walks through it. It does not demand constant smiles. It offers quiet strength. It does not insist everything is fine. It whispers that everything is held.
That He did not wait for us to improve before loving us. He entered the story precisely because we could not fix it ourselves.
So yes, sing your carols. Decorate your homes. Share meals with family. Laugh loudly. Give generously. Celebrate freely. All of that has its place. Joy is not the enemy of faith. But do not mistake the wrapping for the gift. Do not confuse noise with meaning or busyness with joy.
And perhaps before telling children to be good because Santa is watching, we should remind ourselves of a deeper truth. God came down at Christmas not because we were good, but because we were not. He came because we needed Him. He came because love always moves toward need.
That is Christmas cheer.
Not something you buy. Not something you drink. Not something you perform.
It is something you receive. And once received, something you are meant to give.
That is Christmas cheer! So, here’s cheers to the right Christmas Cheer..!
