"War" On Christmas

It's kind of hard to imagine a more idiotic idea.

I'm willing to bet that if you drive or walk through any area in and around your home, you will see windows ablaze with candles, trees festooned with lights, inflatable Santas, candy cane decorations attached to light poles, and a massive panoply of other signs that it is Christmastime. I'm certain if you tune to your favorite radio station, you will hear at least a handful of Christmas carols, in every genre of music imaginable. Every store will be swathed in exhortations to come inside and fulfill your holiday shopping list.

So to anyone ringing the klaxon to rouse the troops to do battle for the soul of Christmas, I have two words for you:

Bah! Humbug!

I hasten to believe that most people who shriek affirmations about the death of Christmas are simply parrots, squawking out timeworn phrases and a liturgy of offenses toward the holiday which is meant to signify the birth of Jesus Christ. I say signify, because we have no idea when Christ was born. Even our whole means of numbering years is based on the false assumption that would could know exactly what year the Christian Savior was born in.

The holiday, Christmas, is a fabrication, built by the early Roman Catholic Church to coincide with the pagan rituals of the Winter Solstice, to imbue the season with more of God's power. It was a not-so-subtle attempt to nullify the strength of other belief systems, and make it seem like it was God's will all along that there be a celebration at this time of year. As centuries passed and Catholicism spread, the trappings of other belief systems and other societies became enfolded within the aegis of Christmas, leading to the holiday we see today.

Except the holiday we see today is a bastardization of the true spirit and intent of the original holiday. And no, it is not the secular, First Amendment rights waving crowd that has done this, but the ordinary person, by losing contact with the ideas behind Christmas. It is ironic that in 1965, one of the most beloved Christmas TV specials, "A Charlie Brown Christmas," bemoaned the commercialization of the holiday and the loss of focus on its meaning. Almost 50 years later, and the same special rings as true now as it did then.

If there's truly a "War" on Christmas, it is fought by those who use it to their own ends, to settle political scores, to weaken the separation of Church & State, to promote Christianity over any other religious belief system. It is the proselytizers and profiteers who have declared war on the holiday, not those of us who would see each and every one of us celebrate -- or not -- it in their own way. Christmas has become an economic engine, a religious meat-grinder, a political cause célèbre, for those who are less interested in its meaning and more interested in the leverage it can afford them.

Nowhere is that more self-evident than with the subset of the season's political propaganda, the "Keep Christ in Christmas" movement, engineered to be the modern version of the bony finger of Dickens' Ghost of Future Yet to Come. This popular screed may be seen on the bumpers of cars in the parking lots of big box retail stores the day after Thanksgiving, as people swarm and surge forward to secure the consumer goods which are the "reason for the season." It is seen in popular media, as we are told that by forbearing Christ on his sacred day we are somehow bad people; right after, we are told that the President, the poor, the Liberals, and the immigrants are responsible for our pitiful lot in life, and they should be shunned and smacked down.

The fact is: Christ is not part of the Christmas we know it now. The Christ born in Bethlehem eschewed wealth, spoke of peace and justice, and most importantly, implored us to help those less fortunate than themselves. While many find Christmas an excuse to perform the charity that they cannot be bothered with the other 364 days a year, the whole lesson of Christ's birth and eventual death is lost to them. They see Christmas and its trappings as meaning, in and of itself, never stepping too far away from the comfort of their preconceived notions. Anyone who does not share their view is branded a traitor.

The other fact of import, which those who holler so maddeningly about the "War" on Christmas often ignore, is that Christmas is only one small facet of Christ's life. Christ should not be confined to Christmas, anymore than to Easter. The idea the young Jewish rabbi promoted was that we must do good work among the people every day, not just when it is convenient or useful. The stories of the New Testament tell us of a man who preached the gospel of love and compassion, and expected his followers not to preach, but to do. There is no better way to honor the birth of Christ, his life, or his death, than to follow in his footsteps, spreading love and charity wherever we go. Christ must not be kept in Christmas, but in our hearts.

So when the phrase "War on Christmas" passes someones lips, assume they are confused, show them compassion, and turn their rhetorical swords into charitable plowshares. If we show them, by example, the true meaning of Christmas, perhaps they will tire of the fight.

Ghosts Of Christmas Present

These gaily wrapped boxes
Stand guard 'neath the tree
Silent sentinels of joy
Some for you, some for me

Those, right near the corner
Seem to glitter much less
Colors and ribbons now dour
And darker, I confess

For my heart was not in it
As the paper I did fold
Knowing they were frozen
Truly never to grow old

Christmas presents they are
But present are not
The small hands whose presence
Would occupy that spot

Rending the paper
Flaying it away
To bubble and chuckle
On another Christmas Day

Life does go on
That can't be in doubt
But it's vitality is dimmed
By one less happy shout

So now and on forward
The day will be less pleasant
As our minds do ring hollow
For the ghosts of Christmas present.

Messenger

It will soon be Christmas Day, and the months of hoopla surrounding the season, starting with the first sign of decorations in the stores in September, then Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and the ringing of the bells and stringing of lights, and the constant media bombardment telling you how your kids won't love you unless you buy them this, or that Christmas is "under attack," will finally end. Peace will reign... until New Year's Eve.

While Christmas is a Christian holiday, it has more to do with the season that it has to do with the birth of Jesus. He, Son of God, and Savior of Mankind, was born, lived, and died, and the Biblical accounts give us no firm dates as to when this all transpired. December 25th was picked arbitrarily, to co-opt the pagan solstice celebrations, and to unify the disparate celebrations of the time into a coherent message that promoted Christian value, to give the Roman Catholic church strength in the eyes of the world. So, from its very beginning, the day has been less about the man it celebrates, and more about the people who celebrate it. That the trend should continue to this very day, and widen and expand to turn an otherwise "holy" day into a glorified shopping spree, is a sign that the message got confused with the messenger.

What I'm Wishing For

It's the holiday season again, though with retail creep, the rush toward Christmas is taking on the stature of the latest Presidential campaign, starting way too early and wearing everyone down. Combine this with the recession (which authorities just got around to realizing, started last December), and the job cuts going on, and this promises to be a difficult month to get through for many. For some of us though, we can't help but take the essence of the holiday and make use of it to place some well-intentioned wishes:

1] Here's wishing President-Elect Obama smooth sailing in the first months of his administration. He's going to need help, because the economy is dying a lingering death, the world is still a pretty dangerous place, and there are plenty of people who, unable to deny him his place in history, are rooting for him to fail.

2] Here's wishing the Detroit auto industry does not get its bailout. Oh, I know, there will be economic devastation, even longer unemployment lines, and a general failure of Western civilization. But the hand-writing was on the wall in the mid-1970s, when OPEC made it quite clear that they ran our country, and since then, the Big Three and the UAW have done very little to create cheap, economical transportation, even as the Japanese continue their excellence in that arena. It's time for the old to be swept away.

3] Here's wishing the government would pull the plug on this $700 billion bailout of the financial industry. See 2] for the same basic destruction of our way of life, but do the phrases "Savings and Loan Crisis," "Tech Bubble," and "Enron" ring a bell? If we're not going to bail out Detroit, then Wall Street doesn't deserve it either. Let those firms fail, as any business that is mis-managed should. I don't think my pocket, or the pockets of my children and grandchildren, need to be picked so some CEO can continue to get rich running his corporation into the ground. Take the money and fund everyone's unemployment benefits for a year, spend money on retraining workers, rebuilding our infrastructure, and invest in industries that will take us into the future (renewable energy, fusion research, clean transportation, recycling).

4] A wish for peace in Iraq. May it come in the form of a cloud of dust being raised as columns of Humvees and M-1A1s head for the ports and the airports, carrying our weary soldiers home for the rest and the accolades they so richly deserve.

5] A wish for Osama Bin-Laden to wake up one morning to find a gun muzzle pressed against the side of his head by a United States Marine.

6] Here's wishing an end to intolerance, in all its forms (racism, sexism, religious zealotry, etc.). We are all humans; we are all together in this, like it or not. We need not like each other, but we must learn to tolerate each other and to work together to ensure that our world is safe from destruction at our own hands.

7] A special wish: that in this season of caring and giving, that each of us digs a little deeper into our pockets, our closets, our pantries, to ensure that no one has to be cold and hungry. It should not take the devastation of a hurricane or an earthquake or a tsunami for us to do what we can to eliminate want from this world.

8] A wish that everyone, no matter their circumstance, no matter what hard times they face, no matter what pains they have endured, have some peace as this year comes to a close.

These are just some of the things I am wishing for.