December 12, 2006

Militant Christmas

I do not know if what I am about to talk about is a new phenomenon or has just started lately. So, if this is older than I am and you already know about it, I apologize.

I have noticed lately that the "loving spirit of Christmas" (defined by Hollywood as that time to feel good about yourself and others, e.g. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, ELF, WHITE CHRISTMAS, any CHRISTMAS CAROL, etc.) is only a thin veneer on the surface. People love to put up the trees, spread "good cheer", give presents and do good for (at the most) a month, from Thanksgiving until Boxing Day (the day after Christmas). People dress up in their finest attire to attend church and/or parties, smile at their neighbor, etc. It is viewed at THE holy of holidays, since it celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. Pretty innocuous, eh?

But let's dig a little deeper into this charade. Some of the same individuals that celebrate this "joyous holiday" hold onto their beliefs with a fanatical militancy (How do the phrases "joyous holiday" and "fanatical militancy" go together? It boggles the mind).

Here are two examples:
  1. A rabbi wanted the Seattle-Tacoma (SEA-TAC) airport to display a menorah near their Christmas tree (not an unreasonable request, since Chanukah is around the same time and a large portion of our population is Jewish. Oh, by the way, in case anyone has missed this, Jesus was also Jewish). SEA-TAC chose to remove the trees. Jewish organizations got hate mail (remember this happy holiday? Love? Good cheer? Birth of our saviour?) over this. If Christ were here today, would he be sending hate mail? I don't think so.
  2. I have chosen to display, as my Christmas display, a sign that I created in MS Word that says "Christmas Free Zone" with a display of a "no tree", "no santa" and "no presents" around the words. Nothing obscene, threatening or malicious about it. However, I have had several comments about it. The simplest was that I am a "Grinch" (the person was able to smile and make a friendly joke about it ). Another person called me a Scrooge (less friendly, but still a friendly discussion). The worst one was the person that got snotty about it and told me that I needed to go to church to understand the "spirit of Christmas". This is the attitude of the typical American when they do not understand something. All of this from a simple little sign. Go figure.
Let's not forget the presents. As I stated before in this blog, I don't like presents. But, in this "spirit of Christmas" (whatever defines that), some people insist on giving them to me. The way that it was explained to me by one of the offenders "You must remember the spirit of the person that is giving it to you" (or something along that line). I wonder if that person would try to have a Jewish person eat pork or feed a vegetarian a Big Mac. Someone else expressed the thought "I wonder what is driving that?". There is a strong unwillingness to respect a strong belief structure. I am asked to enable their behaviour by accepting the present and saying nothing. Turns out that this present giving thing seems to be nothing about "it is better to give than to receive" and all about selfishness. If people truly felt a loving spirit, the desire to forego receiving presents would be honored by all parties.

What all of these people fail to realize are several things:

1. The Christmas holiday as it is celebrated today has very little to do with Christ's birth (at least not in this day and age). But your average person doesn't realize that. In order to educate the teeming masses, here are some links about the history of Christmas:

The History Channel - The History of Christmas
Wikipedia - Christmas
History.co.uk - The History of Christmas - Fact or Fiction
Catholic Encyclopedia - Christmas
Worldbook - The History of Christmas
New Life Community Church (Stafford Virginia) - A History of the Celebration of Christmas

2. Part of the Christmas celebration is showing love to everyone. One way to show this love is to understand that not everyone enjoys Christmas. Some people have lost loved ones during this season. Some people don't have family for celebratory parties. Some people suffer from depression. And some people refuse to be brainwashed and sucked into the monetary vortex of inane and nonsensical present buying. This doesn't make them Scrooges or Grinches. This makes them loving and caring people who need to be appreciated, whether you carry the same belief structure or not. And, for the record, this isn't about being politically correct. This is about the true spirit of love.

3. Let me put forth a theoretical supposition: Jesus is still in physical form. How do you think that he would celebrate his own birth? Would he support the ritual that has formed through the years with the browbeating and the militancy regarding this celebration (remember how he admonished the Pharisees for their vacant ritualistic behaviors. The same applies here). Or, is it possible that he would tell us that our celebration/ritual is not the important part, but the condition of our soul (the part that only you and God know about. No one else can possibly know). What good of a superficial celebration for a few days (at the most) if we are headed to hell for eternity because of the condition of our soul? Just something to make you go HMMMMM?!

So, think about adopting a new attitude toward this holiday. Try to show true love to everyone (year around instead of a few days a year) and respect their feelings toward this season (not because of political correctness, as some ignorant people would assert, but because you care).