A blessed Christmas to you.
I’m in the process of producing a mediation on the Nativity and have a point I want to make that needs some kind of verification. I have long been convinced that the reason why we usually eat an abundance of sweets at Christmas time is because it signifies that the grace of Christ sweetens our life. That the grace of Christ sweetens our life is obvious. But that being the reason why we eat sweets at Christmas is not so evident to me.
Have you ever heard of this and do you know if this is true?
I’ve never heard this, but I don’t see why you can’t connect the two. With customs such as sweets at Christmas, what you almost invariably find is that the custom arises first and only afterward does the Christian imagination go to work on it to discover connections between the custom and the Tradition. It’s not like a bishop or theologian decrees, “There shall be sweets at Christmas in order to illustrate this theological point about the grace of Christ.” Rather, the custom happens and people naturally intuit the connection (which is a very real one since God is the Creator of all, including sweets). Every Father of the Church who loved allegorical readings of Scripture would be in your court. And, in fact, some of the Fathers do connect honey (the sweetest thing known to the biblical mind) with Christ. From my book Making Senses out of Scripture (Chapter 7 - The Allegorical Sense of Scripture):
In similar ways, other great Christians throughout history have mined the Bible for other insightful allegorical connections. Take honey for instance. The Torah repeatedly describes the Promised Land as a land “flowing with milk and honey” (see Exodus 3:17, Leviticus 20:24, Numbers 13:27, Deuteronomy 27:3, among many other instances). Honey is the yummiest, most scrumptious thing in the entire biblical lexicon. Not surprisingly then, it becomes one of the central biblical images for exquisite luxury, delight, and bounty—a sweetness that can only point to the even greater sweetness of its Creator. It is, therefore, an entirely natural thing for the Psalmist to write: “The ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold… Sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:9-10). To Israelite families, this was more than metaphor. When parents taught a child to read, they would have him recite the law of Moses. As he finished, they would give junior a spoonful of honey. This rite of passage sealed in the child, in both body and memory, the exquisite sweetness of God’s word.
Thus, not a New Testament writer, but Hippolytus of Rome (in the third century) sees in the scriptural use of honey a figure, “meaning divine doctrine, which restores the spiritual knowledge of the soul.” And Clement of Alexandria (also in the third century) builds on this insight, identifying honey not just with doctrine, but with the Divine Teacher himself. Honey, wrote Clement, “seems to have been spoken of the Word, who is honey. Prophecy often extols him above honey and the honeycomb.” Then, going back to Scripture in light of this train of thought we notice something: the manna in the desert (which, as we have already seen, is an image of Eucharist) was compared to “wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31). And so we find an image in Scripture which reflects reality: The Eucharist both sustains and delights us.
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When teaching our kids about Christmas traditions we use the word, “X should remind us of when…” For example, we told the kids that the travel we do to be together as a large, extended family should remind us of the travel that Mary and Joseph did to go back to the place where they came from. It isn’t that we travel because Mary and Joseph did, it’s that because we have to, we try to connect it to something significant.
So, with the sweets, I know that sugar was a very pricy and special-occasion commodity even just 150 years ago, and that is why the sweets were saved for the “big” holidays. But that it can also remind us of something significant in our celebration can and should be used to help us grow in faith.
The page was giving me trouble, I’m sorry if this is a duplicate comment!!
When teaching our kids about Christmas traditions we use the word, “X should remind us of when…” For example, we told the kids that the travel we do to be together as a large, extended family should remind us of the travel that Mary and Joseph did to go back to the place where they came from. It isn’t that we travel because Mary and Joseph did, it’s that because we have to, we try to connect it to something significant.
So, with the sweets, I know that sugar was a very pricy and special-occasion commodity even just 150 years ago, and that is why the sweets were saved for the “big” holidays. But that it can also remind us of something significant in our celebration can and should be used to help us grow in faith.
Beautiful! And a tough topic indeed for those of us (ahem!) who have to work hard at being mindful about our sweets intake all year around.
The traditional observance of both Christmas and Easter on the secular side have from time immemorial very much featured sweets - the giving of gifts of sweet confections, the serving of sweet desserts, as well as of rich foods of all sorts. Perhaps this emphasis on sweet and rich foods grew up as a result of the Christian discipline, nowadays much attenuated, if observed at all, of serious fasting and abstaining for some weeks leading up to each of these two feasts. The Advent fast was less strict than the Lenten one, but in medieval times, both would have involved a signigficant number of days of abstention from meat, including poultry, from eggs, from dairy products such as milk, cream, and butter, and no sweets.
Little in this world, then, could have been more welcome among Christian families, as well as in convents and monasteries throughout Europe in olden times, than the traditional holiday meal - often served at the stroke of midnight - of hot, creamed soups, of a fat roasted goose or a ham or sausage, with their accompaniments of vegetables and breads served with fresh butter, and creamy, honeyed desserts.
Let’s not forget the honey that John the Baptist lived on in the dessert. It is said in the bible that he lived on locusts and honey. A friend who visited the Holy Land told me that “locusts” was actually a fruit,not the bugs we assume is meant. Her guide showed her the “locust” fruit on a tour.
Also, wasn’t there someone in the bible who was given a scroll that tasted like honey but became bitter in his stomach?
Sorry, but I think I got off-subject thinking about sweets.
Our family tries hard to practice the fasting and abstinence, good works and conversion of traditional Advent. So for us it is normal to eat sweets and meats and all sorts of festive foods during the Christmas season, which has traditionally been a time of feasting.
It is difficult to do this well and still be able to enjoy Christmas, since these days the season of feasting seems to start on the day after Thanksgiving and end the second day of Christmas. So, we generally put up our tree on Gaudete Sunday, and relax a little foodwise then, as well. I am writing this on Jan. 4, and at our house, we are keeping the feast; but all around me are folks on diets and making resolutions. We no longer have a culture formed and informed by Christianity.
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