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2007-12-18 issue:

Throwing out the tree

Families discover new ways of gift-giving to more fully experience Christ’s coming.

by Anna Groff

Print Article

Ten years ago, Patty and Tim Peebles of Living Water Community Church in Chicago threw out their Christmas tree and haven’t used one since.



Tim, Patty and Nicholas Peebles. Photo provided.

When their son Nicholas, who is now 13, was 2 years old, they were concerned about how he would experience consumerism in the holiday season. As a family, they decided not to exchange gifts with their family or decorate a tree but wanted to replace those traditions with more than “just not doing anything,” Patty says.

So for his second Christmas, Patty and Tim constructed a large, rustic stable—about 7 feet high—out of driftwood from nearby Lake Michigan.

Patty and Tim told Nicholas they were waiting for something special and added new elements to the stable during Advent, and they did Advent readings and prayers as a family.

After the Christmas Eve service at their church, they put Nicholas to bed and added a baby doll to the manger to represent Jesus. When Nicholas discovered the baby in the morning, he was “absolutely blown away,” says Patty. He picked up the baby and kissed it and gathered his dinosaur toys to greet the baby Jesus.

They wanted Nicholas to experience this kind of Christmas joy without new toys. They had become increasingly discontented with consumer culture, especially around Christmas, Tim says.

“Instead of a quiet, reflective season, we were spending time in traffic and crowded malls,” he says.

They grew tired of trading things with people who already have everything they need, Tim says. For example, one year he gave a CD to someone who also gave him a CD.

“We appreciated the desires of our families to be generous and we wanted that as well, but the sense of generosity was overwhelmed by the money and energy it took to purchase these things,” Tim says.

By the time Christmas rolled around they would be too tired and weren’t as emotionally and spiritually ready as they wanted to be, Patty says.

Celebrating Epiphany: They also learned more about the Christian calendar and realized importance of the days after Dec. 25 and of Three Kings Day, or Epiphany (Jan. 6), the high point of the holidays, Patty says. Epiphany is the Christian feast commemorating the revelation of Jesus to the world through the visit of the Magi.

For the past decade, the Peebles have used Advent as a time to reflect and Christmas Day as a time to support those around them who don’t have family, and they wait until Epiphany to feast with friends. On Epiphany day they host a fancy vegetarian dinner and invite their friends to bring artistic gifts, poems and prayers to share.

Tim admits that their Epiphany celebration is on a smaller scale than consumer Christmas and may not have the same impact.

He says he felt tempted to replicate those same feelings and sentiments but over time realized “the lower-scale approach to the holidays … has a more indirect benefit [and it] teaches that these occasions aren’t just about me.” In fact, it’s OK to feel sad during this time of the year, he says.

Reaching out to others: Since they stay home in Chicago on Christmas Day, they’ve been able to open their lives and homes to people in their church and community that don’t have family to celebrate with.

People at church sometimes dread holidays because they are single or separated from their family, but at the Peebles’ house on Dec. 25 “forced happiness” is not expected, Tim says. He now has a strong understanding of Jesus’ instructions to leave our families to follow him and to cry with those who cry.

Patty says their practice has felt empty and lonely and difficult at times, but it’s helped her realize there are many other lonely people in the world and remind her of political implications of Jesus’ coming—things she didn’t hear while growing up in her Methodist church.

“Turning over the power structure are things we are supposed to be enacting now,” she says.

At first, Patty says, she wondered if no gift giving would feel weird to Nicholas, but since it’s all he’s known, it’s now his Christmas culture.

She hopes they are equipping him to have more resources and to question practices around him. She remembers looking through the Sears catalog as a child, but this isn’t his understanding of Christmas, she says.

Church and family responds: When they proposed the no-gift policy to their families, they liked the idea of spending less money but weren’t interested in eliminating the trees and gifts entirely.

Patty and Tim’s families support their choice but still celebrate in the traditional way with gifts, so the Peebles no longer attend their extended family Christmases.

They still make an effort to visit their family in December and January and encourage relatives to redirect gift-giving energies to Nicholas for his birthday or make a donation to their church or another organization in their name.

Tim says no one at Living Water has followed suit. People admire the Nativity scene and their low-cost tradition but seem attached to trees and presents, he says.

He encourages people to experiment with scaling back the consumer aspect of Christmas each year, although he acknowledges that breaking customs and relationships with family is difficult.

“Take as big a step as you can, then step back and ask if it’s better or not,” he says. “I am a large advocate of experimenting.”

Anna Groff is assistant editor of The Mennonite.

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