Victim of Holiday Subversion
Okay so this is the first weekend of Christmas shopping.
Christmas was once a holy day set aside by Christians to remember the birth of Christ. Born in abject poverty Himself, Jesus’ birth day was once honored by early Christians with solemn church services and worship. Today it is celebrated around the world with festivities and gift giving on a scale that even includes non-Christians. Even atheists and non-religionists have taken the opportunity to move into some of its unoccupied corners to be co-celebrants harkening back to its more pagan roots.
Christmas, according to the traditionalists and the ancient pagans, is a time set aside for drawing together, sharing, and renewing hope in the darkest cruelest part of winter. Not excluding the folks south of the equator, don’t expect to find any of that among the hordes descending on the shopping malls.
From the cutthroat tactics of beating everyone else to that last parking space near the store entrance to the zombie-like oblivion to anyone around them, the holiday shopper exudes none of those early Christian characteristics. Instead there is a general fierce competitiveness in the holiday shopper that hasn’t been seen since the burning days of Attila the Hun’s pillaging hordes.
It’s the onset of the holidays where cheerfulness is supposed to be on the rise. Yet hardly a smile is to be seen on any but the shopping-dazed (similar to battle fatigue) or on the faces of little children whose eyes are bright and shining with expectation.
But even among some of these little children the attitude increasingly seems to be, “Mommy, Mommy, buy me that for Christmas!”
‘Buy me that’? What ever happened to Santa Claus and his magical midnight delivery of gifts? Oh yeah, I forgot. Atheist Political Correctness demands that the jolly old elf (AKA Saint Nicholas) be purged from the “Winter Celebration.” ‘Winter Celebration’, we mustn’t call it Christmas. It must be cut free from its religious moorings.
But without that jolly target of childhood idolatry, his homey admonition, “you better be good you better not pout” sounds just like another of the handed-down parental threats rather than a real moral incentive to receiving a reward from someone who really cares. Mom’s supposed to care because that’s what you’re supposed to do to become a Mom so it really doesn’t count. But being good because there is someone who lives in a wonderful magical land and thinking of you really means something.
Of course we grown-ups must disabuse our children, and everyone else’s children while we are at it, of even the possibility of such a land existing. A land where everyone is treated equally by someone who does not give out rewards based on a child’s race, religion, or age, social status, but merely on whether they have been good or bad. Better to tell them flat out that because of their race, or religion, their age, or whether their parents are wealthy or poor is the only way they'll be rewarded. “If you don’t get anything for the Winter Holiday, kid, then that’s just the way Life is. Learn to live with it.” Or perhaps the more insidious, “It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been good or bad, because everyone gets rewarded.”
I suppose that last is more in the line of the on-going campaign promises currently being given out by U.S. presidential candidates. But that’s another journal entry. :)
“But Christmas. It only comes once a year,” said Bob Cratchett. Only once a year. Of course. Christmas is too magical thing to be handed out on a daily basis like packaged snacks from a vending machine. Christmas is an illusion. A pretend thing.
And above all else Christmas is about hope. Because hope is an illusionary pretend thing at this time of the year. It’s about being acknowledged as a good person and deserving of a reward -- just because you are good, no matter what race you are or what religion you belong to. Even if that reward is nothing more than a cheerily exchanged greeting of “Merry Christmas!”
But can we afford to have children growing up believing that? After all, imagine what it would be like for a whole planet of adults to be believing in that. Why they are likely to go off and try to make that illusionary and pretend world real. I mean actually go out and starting setting the thing up. I mean actually start building it as if it could be achievable.
If children are allowed to grow up believing in Santa Claus and hope for better things, why there’s no telling as adults what they’ll be about. What next? Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men?
File under: Ho Ho Ho! ;)
Christmas was once a holy day set aside by Christians to remember the birth of Christ. Born in abject poverty Himself, Jesus’ birth day was once honored by early Christians with solemn church services and worship. Today it is celebrated around the world with festivities and gift giving on a scale that even includes non-Christians. Even atheists and non-religionists have taken the opportunity to move into some of its unoccupied corners to be co-celebrants harkening back to its more pagan roots.
Christmas, according to the traditionalists and the ancient pagans, is a time set aside for drawing together, sharing, and renewing hope in the darkest cruelest part of winter. Not excluding the folks south of the equator, don’t expect to find any of that among the hordes descending on the shopping malls.
From the cutthroat tactics of beating everyone else to that last parking space near the store entrance to the zombie-like oblivion to anyone around them, the holiday shopper exudes none of those early Christian characteristics. Instead there is a general fierce competitiveness in the holiday shopper that hasn’t been seen since the burning days of Attila the Hun’s pillaging hordes.
It’s the onset of the holidays where cheerfulness is supposed to be on the rise. Yet hardly a smile is to be seen on any but the shopping-dazed (similar to battle fatigue) or on the faces of little children whose eyes are bright and shining with expectation.
But even among some of these little children the attitude increasingly seems to be, “Mommy, Mommy, buy me that for Christmas!”
‘Buy me that’? What ever happened to Santa Claus and his magical midnight delivery of gifts? Oh yeah, I forgot. Atheist Political Correctness demands that the jolly old elf (AKA Saint Nicholas) be purged from the “Winter Celebration.” ‘Winter Celebration’, we mustn’t call it Christmas. It must be cut free from its religious moorings.
But without that jolly target of childhood idolatry, his homey admonition, “you better be good you better not pout” sounds just like another of the handed-down parental threats rather than a real moral incentive to receiving a reward from someone who really cares. Mom’s supposed to care because that’s what you’re supposed to do to become a Mom so it really doesn’t count. But being good because there is someone who lives in a wonderful magical land and thinking of you really means something.
Of course we grown-ups must disabuse our children, and everyone else’s children while we are at it, of even the possibility of such a land existing. A land where everyone is treated equally by someone who does not give out rewards based on a child’s race, religion, or age, social status, but merely on whether they have been good or bad. Better to tell them flat out that because of their race, or religion, their age, or whether their parents are wealthy or poor is the only way they'll be rewarded. “If you don’t get anything for the Winter Holiday, kid, then that’s just the way Life is. Learn to live with it.” Or perhaps the more insidious, “It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been good or bad, because everyone gets rewarded.”
I suppose that last is more in the line of the on-going campaign promises currently being given out by U.S. presidential candidates. But that’s another journal entry. :)
“But Christmas. It only comes once a year,” said Bob Cratchett. Only once a year. Of course. Christmas is too magical thing to be handed out on a daily basis like packaged snacks from a vending machine. Christmas is an illusion. A pretend thing.
And above all else Christmas is about hope. Because hope is an illusionary pretend thing at this time of the year. It’s about being acknowledged as a good person and deserving of a reward -- just because you are good, no matter what race you are or what religion you belong to. Even if that reward is nothing more than a cheerily exchanged greeting of “Merry Christmas!”
But can we afford to have children growing up believing that? After all, imagine what it would be like for a whole planet of adults to be believing in that. Why they are likely to go off and try to make that illusionary and pretend world real. I mean actually go out and starting setting the thing up. I mean actually start building it as if it could be achievable.
If children are allowed to grow up believing in Santa Claus and hope for better things, why there’s no telling as adults what they’ll be about. What next? Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men?
File under: Ho Ho Ho! ;)