Four Kinds of Christmas

Alison Bolton | December 2015 - Highfields Book of the Month

By Glen Scrivener - (2015) Leyland: 10Publishing

There are four different ways to approach Christmas – Scrooge, Shopper, Santa and Stable. In fact, they are not just approaches to Christmas, but to life in general. They are all ways of handling the darkness and brokenness we are faced with in our world and in ourselves, but which are especially prominent at Christmas.

It's that time of year again – time to start thinking about Christmas! Well, we've probably been thinking about Christmas for a while already actually, especially if we've been near any shops (I actually spotted my first Christmas tree of the season in October this year)! But hopefully it's not too late to add something else to the mix as you prepare for Christmas.

Glen Scrivener's short, affordable book, 'Four Kinds of Christmas', is a wonderful way to get our thinking straight as we approach the Christmas season. When I say 'short', I really mean it. I just read it through it one sitting and it took no more than 20 minutes – that's less than half the time it takes to sit down and watch The Apprentice!

I won't summarise the book in too much detail because I really want you to read it for yourself – I just want to give you a bit of a taste for the flavour of the book, an idea of what to expect.  [Continue reading below video]

Glen Scrivener expertly, humorously and beautifully takes us through four different ways to approach Christmas – Scrooge, Shopper, Santa and Stable.

In fact, they are not just approaches to Christmas, but to life in general. They are all ways of handling the darkness and brokenness we are faced with in our world and in ourselves, but which are especially prominent at Christmas. The first three approaches all have some echoes of truth, but ultimately fall short and lead us in the wrong direction.

The fourth approach, 'stable', is the only one that really deals with the reality of darkness and brokenness because it is in Bethlehem's stable that we are introduced to the one who enters our darkness but is himself an eternal, brilliant source of light. Glen says, “When Christians talk about God, we're not talking about wish-fulfilment. We're not talking about a light we hope exists beyond the darkness. We're talking about a Light that showed up in the darkness.”

I don't know about you, but I find I can often approach this time of year feeling a bit dry and despondent about the Christmas message – as if I've heard it so many times before that I can't possibly glean something new from it! And yet I expect to be able to just 'summon up' excitement to share this message with others. This is a book that would undoubtedly be ideal to give away to those who don't yet know Jesus, but let's not limit it to that – reading it warmed and challenged my own heart, my own approach to Christmas, and I pray that it would do the same for all of us before we seek to give it away.

Glen Scrivener is a true word-smith and really knows how to make words into beautiful sentences. The one down-side of this is that, although this book is an excellent introduction to the Christian message, it might be better suited to someone with a good grasp of the English language, or with a basic familiarity with the Christmas story (i.e. maybe not the book to give away to the Chinese students who have just arrived in the country or to the bloke down the street who has only ever heard of Jesus as a swear word!)

That said, I think the majority of people will warm to Glen's stories, humour and compelling picture of Jesus, the Light in our darkness. Why not buy several copies, read, reflect, and prayerfully give to friends and family? Go on! What are you waiting for?