On keeping the "Christ" in Christmas:
The media has made much recently over people voiciferously opposed to the fact that the majority of retail establishments have removed all religious connotations from Christmas. Some people are upset that "Merry Christmas" has been replaced with "Happy Holidays."
Until this year, I counted myself among those who grumbled when "Seasons Greetings" was bandied about. Why celebrate a holiday when you refuse to acknowledge that it is Christian in origin? Why the need to strip all reference of the birth of Jesus?
This year, I've taken the opposite tack - please, by all means, have your "sparkle season" and leave me to my Christmas.
Bemoaning the commercialization of Christmas is nothing new - Charlie Brown was doing it forty years ago, and little has changed in that respect. Merchants use the miraculous virgin birth of the Savior as a means to push materialism on the masses and uplift their bottom lines. Nothing will change this. As long as there are "must have" gifts and "super sale Saturdays" there will be people rushing out to buy buy buy. It seems that every year Christmas moves further away from Giftmas. Great! Let people keep their December 25th by running lemming-like around the mall, maxing out their credit cards! That doesn't stop me from attending midnight mass. The constant barage of "wish big" commercials doesn't stop me from singing "O, Holy Night" and setting up a nativity scene in my dining room. I don't need WalMart to wish me a Merry Christmas for me to remember why we are celbrating. I don't care if Macy's doesn't remember the reason for the season. I remember it just fine myself.
What I wonder about is all the loudly protesting people - what have they decorated their homes with? Do they have inflatable Santa snowglobes on their lawn, or a creche? What is on their Christmas cards - a picture of the holy family, or penguins in festive hats? More importantly, while it's great to keep Christ in Christmas, where are people keeping Him the rest of the year? Do they pack up the baby Jesus in January with the rest of the tinsel? What about keeping the Christ in June? October?
There is more than one double standard in play.
Until this year, I counted myself among those who grumbled when "Seasons Greetings" was bandied about. Why celebrate a holiday when you refuse to acknowledge that it is Christian in origin? Why the need to strip all reference of the birth of Jesus?
This year, I've taken the opposite tack - please, by all means, have your "sparkle season" and leave me to my Christmas.
Bemoaning the commercialization of Christmas is nothing new - Charlie Brown was doing it forty years ago, and little has changed in that respect. Merchants use the miraculous virgin birth of the Savior as a means to push materialism on the masses and uplift their bottom lines. Nothing will change this. As long as there are "must have" gifts and "super sale Saturdays" there will be people rushing out to buy buy buy. It seems that every year Christmas moves further away from Giftmas. Great! Let people keep their December 25th by running lemming-like around the mall, maxing out their credit cards! That doesn't stop me from attending midnight mass. The constant barage of "wish big" commercials doesn't stop me from singing "O, Holy Night" and setting up a nativity scene in my dining room. I don't need WalMart to wish me a Merry Christmas for me to remember why we are celbrating. I don't care if Macy's doesn't remember the reason for the season. I remember it just fine myself.
What I wonder about is all the loudly protesting people - what have they decorated their homes with? Do they have inflatable Santa snowglobes on their lawn, or a creche? What is on their Christmas cards - a picture of the holy family, or penguins in festive hats? More importantly, while it's great to keep Christ in Christmas, where are people keeping Him the rest of the year? Do they pack up the baby Jesus in January with the rest of the tinsel? What about keeping the Christ in June? October?
There is more than one double standard in play.
