The end of Christmas?
Memo: To people worried about the banishment of Christmas—
It seemed there for awhile people were afraid this year that Christmas was going to go missing. Or be purged. Or get ignored. Or something else pretty dastardly.
Well, guess what? They were wrong. Christmas will happen, just you wait. (In fact, by the time you read this, Christmas may even have happened.)
Commentators have bellowed and whined this year because some stores instructed their clerks to wish customers “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” As though exiling Christmas from Wal-Mart and other retailers would somehow dump this most Christian of holidays.
Yes, Christmas trees are becoming “holiday trees” or “giving trees.” School Christmas programs (public, surely not Catholic!) have become “Winterfests” or similar. And some fear that if schools, government agencies and media dare replace the word “Christmas” with “holiday” it will erase the reality of Jesus and our society will collapse.
Not to worry. If Christmas is ever abandoned, it won’t be their fault. Neither government nor media nor big business have that power.
Only you do. And I’m trusting you’re better than that, and that you don’t need some store clerk to remind you when Christmas is.
Here’s a newsflash. Christmas hasn’t been really Christmas—at least commercially—for a long time.
It’s true that as our multicultural society continues to diversify, government, retailers and other businesses are increasingly replacing signs of Christmas with more secular symbols. But then, there never really was very much of a faith connection to Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus or even to “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” Except it had That Word in it. But let’s face it, Bing Crosby really crooned a secular song.
I know I’m taking a chance on being misunderstood here, and being criticized by the “Keep Christmas in Society” crowd.
But here’s my point: if you need a store clerk wishing you Merry Christmas to remind you of the birth of Christ, then you have a bigger problem than just finding the right gift to put under the tree for Uncle Joe.
We don’t have to like it, but neither is it the end of the world. Or Christmas. Despite its long-rampant commercialism, Christmas is not a secular event. It’s a celebration of a deep Christian faith, an acknowledgment that God touched humanity in a very special way. We call it the Incarnation.
That’s not to say that we Christians don’t have a right to proclaim our holidays in public, and no one is saying we shouldn’t. The church has a right to a public life. But neither should we expect government and commercial interests to do it for us. That’s our job.
Christianity didn’t always flourish in a hospitable climate. It can be argued that faith is more meaningful when we have to swim against the current to practice it.
Does that mean that we shouldn’t want to have this holy day (words which we’ve allowed to be morphed into “holiday”) acknowledged by everyone, believing Christians or not? Of course we should. But maybe we need to do a better job of owning it ourselves first. Christmas should first exist in our hearts and homes and families before it comes to store shelves. Let’s start there before picketing Wal-Mart.
What’s important this season of joy that we are able to see in the birth of Jesus a connection to the larger story of faith, a story in which the child Jesus grows to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God. If that’s not happening, we should look at ourselves, not whining commentators.
From our homes to yours, the staff of The Catholic New World wishes you a Merry Christmas. And no one can take that away.
Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager
