How to Read and Enjoy the Classics

Tag: Christmas Carol

Christmas Poems: Seeking Meaning in a Material World

Christmas trees in my living room.

It’s the time of year at my house to get ready for our Christmas celebrations, so I have been working like mad to deck my halls, trim two big trees, and set out multiple Christmas knick-knacks. Finally I began to set up the manger scene, a miniature wooden shed with figures depicting a traditional version of the birth of Christ.

Unwrapping the figures I had packed away last January, I saw that Mother Mary was there, and Joseph, and the cow, the donkey and the sheep. I finished hanging the angel above the manger on its peg, and set up the three wisemen, then unwrapped the manger and put it in position.

But where was the baby?

Somehow, between last Christmas and this one, I had lost the Baby Jesus!

Tabletop Nativity Scene is missing the Baby!

Nativity Scene: But where’s the Baby?

The thought crossed my mind that this whole Christmas panoply–the trees, the lights, the Nativity scene–all was for naught without my central reason for celebrating Christmas: honoring the birth of Christ.

Christian faith may or may not be at the heart of Christmas for you, but if you celebrate Christmas at all, the time surely comes in every season when you stop and ask what all this fuss is for. What is the real meaning of it all?

Christmastime seems to hold out a promise of bringing deeper meaning to our lives. And yet for years, even centuries, many have criticized some Christmas customs for excessive materialism and shallowness, all long before Kris Kringle’s friend Alfred famously bemoaned the modern focus on “commercialism” and “make-a-buck” in the 1947 film “Miracle on 34th Street.”

Whence among presents and tinsel, partying and overeating, not to mention struggling too much as usual with the ordinary chores and problems of daily life, is real meaning and transcendence to be found in the winter holiday season?

Here are five poems by poets who asked that very question, ending up with interesting meditations on varied answers. If you are seeking meaning among the material, whether from the Christian or another faith tradition, perhaps one of these Christmas poems can direct you to a small spot of the numinous this season.  Click “Continue Reading” to find out what they are.

Other Posts About Christmas Literature:

Vintage Christmas Poems: Ringing in Hopes for Peace

Happy Christ-tide: Milton’s Nativity  Ode

The Virtues of a Quiet Christmas: What Vintage Writers Tell Us

Continue reading

Vintage Christmas Poems: Ringing In Hopes for Peace

Photo shows more than a dozen small brass bells on gold cords with red bows above them.

Christmas Bells: longing to ring in the new!

It’s Christmas season for many folk who practice Western classic traditions, a time that used to inspire many a sentimental poet’s pen. Therefore, it’s the perfect time to dip into this sampler of formerly famous poems about Christmas, written in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Currently popular seasonal songs often focus on jollity, mistletoe, and “ho, ho, ho,” but poets who have written about Christmas are far from naïve about the state of the world. Often they struggle to affirm their faith that the birth of Jesus indeed portends ultimate redemption for a troubled globe.

Though the style of these partially forgotten poems may seem vintage, some of the sentiments may surprise you by their modernity. Even if Christmas is not part of your tradition, you may still find these poems of interest for the sentiments that apply to all humans, not just Christians alone.

Other Posts About Christmas Literature:

Christmas Poems: Seeking Meaning in a Material World

Happy Christ-tide: Milton’s Nativity Ode

The Virtues of a Quiet Christmas: What Vintage Writers Tell Us

Continue reading

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An open book lying on the grass, surrounded by fallen leaves, brings to mind the widespread focus on nature in the works of many writers during the American Romantic era.

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