What ever happened to Christmas? I mean once Halloween is over it seems as if every merchant, every shopping mall, every airport concourse is decorated with the politically correct “Happy Holidays” message.
And what’s with the demise of Christmas Trees? Now they’re called Holiday Trees. My brother lives in a small Massachusetts town where public Commons go way back to the time of the British Occupation of Boston and its suburbs. Last year he phoned me, ready to gas up a chain saw and march down to the Common to defoliate what, for the first time in the history of that town was called the town’s “holiday tree.” I pursued him to write a letter to the editor in the local paper instead and save his chain saw for something less physically taxing. It worked! The letter provoked a cry from the old timers in town who said: “Enough of this foolishness.” We’ll have a Christmas tree, and a Menorah on the Common and that’s that.” No doubt someone will sue the town if not this year then next about the use of public property for religious purposes, but “come on now, get a life.”
And Santa Claus that veritable survivor of personal attacks on his credibility as in the movie “Miracle On 34th Street” now appears on television shilling Coke Products, hand crafting Mercedes Benz automobiles with his own personal welding torch, and hiding behind a 21st century “Leave it To Beaver” Ward and June Cleaver, as husband gives wife a pair of diamond ear rings from Kaye Jewelers while the kids spy giggling about the whole thing on the stairway.
Santa and his elves still hang out in big department stores like they did when I was a boy, but now son or daughter can get a personalized, digitalized photo with the “big guy” for $5.00. I even heard rumors that the Actors Guild was thinking of unionizing department store and mall Santas.
What ever happened to Christmas? I’d like to try and answer my own question. We have been at war with Iraq and in Afghanistan for too long a time. Some say the total cost will eventually come out to something like over a trillion dollars. Too many of our young service men and women and our older guardsmen have paid the ultimate price of war with their lives, and others will forever wear the scars of their sacrifices for all of us to see.
The cost of living continues to increase with heating oil, gasoline and natural gas prices hitting all time highs. Forty-eight million Americans live on the precipice of disaster each day having no health insurance. Economists debate whether we are in stagflation or inflation. For anyone who travels internationally or trades with world markets, the dollar is tanking faster than a falling barometer before an approaching hurricane. And public confidence in key elements of our American Democracy namely the Congress of the United States and the White House are polling at near all time lows.
The mortgage and foreclosure disaster produced by the unbridled greed of lenders and their proxies and the hope of many to live the American dream of owning their own home has created a massive financial crisis for millions. No one really knows how much of this iceberg is still hidden from view but what is for sure is that lots of good folks have lost their homes and others struggle each month to hang on to the American dream.
The Middle East continues to dominate our world view and beyond Iraq and Afghanistan lays an emerging political crisis in Pakistan, a nuclear armed country. Iran continues to present itself as a potential threat and a Persian puzzle our country has yet to decipher. Syria was recently caught “red handed” in developing a nuclear enrichment facility with the apparent support of North Korean technology. And as we gather on Christmas Eve to sing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" the truth is that Palestinian Christians and other Christian pilgrims are an endangered species in the Holy Land. This Christmas like so many others in the past, they and are not able to enter Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ because of a terribly flawed Israeli/Palestinian policy supported by the United States.
As I think about what ever happened to Christmas, I think I have found one possible answer. For all the commercial hype, the earlier timetable for decorating and the passion to engage in one way or another with that “right jolly old elf,” Santa Claus, all of us know deep inside that regardless of how well we seem to have our life together, we are being buffeted by changes…changes that are huge and come at us from the domestic and global realities of our time. Whether we are looking at the draining of the American treasury because of the war, the falling dollar, stagnation or inflation, foreclosures, the reality of global warming, its impact on the present and future generations yet to be born, or the horribly complex instability of the Middle East, there is, I believe, a question on everyone’s mind about what will the future look like. Will we ever again be what we once were or thought we were as a people and nation? Will our children have a harder time than we had growing up and will they have the resources to survive a rapidly changing world and economy?
I believe this is the trigger for the need of folks to rally around a time of the year when the expectation of giving and receiving gifts becomes something more than just a commercial enterprise. There is the caring for another, the cementing of a relationship, the expression of affection and love, and the hope that what one gives will be received with the spirit and meaning for which it was given.
To be a marginal believer or non-practicing Christian when it comes to the birth of Jesus is somehow overlooked by those who doubt by their need to overcome the fear of rapid change and the unknown to actually embracing the possibility that miracles can happen. And an unexpected miracle could in fact touch the core of their own life and change it for the better.
I think we are jumping so much faster into getting our Christmas decorations up, our department stores stocked with Christmas “must haves” our willingness to almost eclipse Halloween and Thanksgiving with candy and pumpkin-spiced Lattes because we are in greater need now, more than ever of seeking the hopeful in what seems to be the almost hopeless times of massive, overwhelming and disruptive change. Fear and the loss of what used to be have rapidly bred a deep human yearning for security and the assurance of the known.
At the very heart of the Christmas story is the annual retelling of a miracle, the birth of Jesus, the incarnation of God living and breathing among us in human form. And Jesus taught that no one has to be held captive by the unknown or imprisoned by fear. Christmas is the promise that through the miracle of Jesus birth, all things can be made new. And right now more than ever, the world and each one of us needs to be reminded of this great truth.
And so, “Whatever happened to Christmas?” Nothing, other than we desperately want to be reminded of the power of its message and that we want it to become a greater part of our lives, more so than just on December 25th, or the preceding four weeks of Advent, or the 12 days of Christmas. We want to be reminded that miracles do happen, that the powerful message of Christmas needs to become a much larger part of our lives and that with God, all things are possible. Who knows, maybe decorations will go up after Labor Day next year!
Please e-mail On Faith if you'd like to receive an email notification when On Faith sends out a new question.
Email Me | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
