Stock Photo
Just a few weeks before writing this, I was on leave in the UK. It was half term, as they call it, so the kids were out of school and looking forward to Hallowe’en – not quite as mutant a monster as it’s become here, but popular nonetheless (I wanted to know what happened to Bonfire Night, the Guy, and “Gunpowder, treason and plot!” – but I digress).
Padre (Major) Howard Rittenhouse – File Photo
Imagine my chagrin, nay, shock, no, horror when I saw Christmas ads and heard Christmas music everywhere we went! What kind of bizzarro island is this?! It’s not even the end of October, and Remembrance Sunday (as they observe it) is still weeks away. So why is every shop, every stately home, and every tourist trap bursting with holly, elves, and more jingle-jangle than a bad Hallmark film?! (And yes, that’s redundant – every Hallmark movie is bad – but I digress)
Well, call it excitement for a beloved holiday, call it getting a leap on things, but some would call it crass commercialization. There I said it! Call me a Grinch, call me Scrooge. Bah! Humbug!
Charlie Brown was right in asking, voice quivering with barely restrained emotion (Academy Aware stuff, this), “Doesn’t anyone know what Christmas is really all about?!”
Well, don’t kid yourself. The “commercialization” of Christmas has been the subject of criticism since before Santa Claus climbed down his first chimney and crammed leftover cookies down his gullet. In 1725, an Anglican minister, aghast at “dancing, public drunkenness and feasting to excess” (sounds like some at-home’s and subbie caroling I recall) lamented that the way most people behaved at Christmas “was a scandal to religion and a celebration of wickedness.”
It seems that Charlie Brown’s question has been asked for some time: “Doesn’t anyone know what Christmas is really all about?”
At the risk of being “religious” (No! Don’t stop reading!), seventeen centuries ago, the chief of clergy in Alexandria, Egypt summed up what he believed to be God’s attitude toward humanity as revealed in Christmas: “He became what we are that he might make us what he is.”
That’s what Christians like myself (Grinch though I am) celebrate at Christmas (and before you hasten to correct my calendrical calculations, I know Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th, but that’s for another time). And despite Charlie Brown and that Anglican’s lament, I’m not one of those Scrooges who harrumph that Christmas has been hijacked.
It’s not a bad thing that people celebrate, gather with family, give gifts, and take time out to rest and pause. Oh sure, it can go overboard (what can’t?), but it gives us a reason to gather, pause, and (perhaps) reflect. And regardless of your religious bent (or none), that’s a good thing.
So whether or not you’re a Scrooge who laments the commercialization of this time of year; or someone who just loves the brightness and sparkle, the parties and warmth; or someone who, though not religiously observant or of another faith, still respects that Christians (like me) celebrate the birth of Jesus; I hope we can all agree that “Santa Baby,” and McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time” should be banned from the airwaves forever.
There! I said it! Bah! Humbug! (Have a restful and meaningful holiday!)