---

Christmas Day, 1997

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

"Whence and whither Christmas in these dotage days of the 20th century? What was it? What should it be? And what in the world is it becoming?

A sense of something that was once intimate and precious now turned common yet obliquely alien prevails amid the twinkling white lights and jazz-lubed, denatured carols. Nearly everyone agrees that Christmas should be something special­p;just as long as it doesn't become TOO special, TOO particular, TOO exclusive.

Christmas has metamorphosed before our weary eyes into a multi-secular exchange of insipid sentiments daintily scented with essence of synthetic evergreen. It's a time to feel good­p;but not TOO good, lest you run afoul of the alcohol cops or be scolded by professional empatharios for third-world privations brought on by capitalistic greed and industrial development.

Christmas is as soon forgotten as named, unless you find yourself in circles where the very name is proscribed. There, I suppose, you just beam and coo something sweet about "the holidays."

"In the beginning was the Word."

The word­p;and holiday­p;in question is Christmas. Christmas is the commemoration of Christ's nativity, the celebration of the Creator's entrance into creation for the sake of men's salvation. The Bible­p;like most good histories and biographies­p; does not dwell on the details of its protagonist's childhood. After all, childhood is but an awkward, dimly lit stairwell, not the tastefully furnished living room or conservatory of human life.

We are told mercifully little about the vicissitudes of the Lord's acclimation to this vale of tears; however, we are distinctly taught that the birth of Jesus was an occasion of great joy. That very joy that has echoed through the centuries in the liturgy and music of Christian churches, Catholic as well as Protestant. "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" we are occasionally reminded even today. The Season, however, reflects less and less of Jesus and Reason each year.

C.S. Lewis once wrote a brief essay on what he considered the three aspects of Christmas. I find his analysis a helpful point of departure. Mr Lewis noted that no one but a Christian would observe Christmas in its fundamental sense.

He went on to explain that from this holy foundation two other "Christmases" had sprung. One is the round of hospitality and secular merrymaking, which naturally grew out of the joyful celebrations of believing Christians. Although quite worldly in its manifestation throughout the ages, this "second Christmas" has often exhibited the unmistakable earmarks of its origins. After all, a good part of secular Christmas observations has always been the exercise of charity by the wealthier towards those less well off.

The marks on the third side of Christmas, identified by the great apologist as the gift exchange, are a bit fainter. Although related to the first two Christmases, this one has taken on a tenacious life of its own.

It is the obligatory shopathon that has given many moderns the perfect excuse to chuck the whole idea of Christmas. The drive to buy does generate its share of bad news for modern man: numbingly inane advertisements, week-end traffic jams, over-extended credit, a superficial materialism. Another problem with this side of Christmas, however, was also remarked upon by Mr Lewis: competitive gift giving.

Now don't misunderstand. As an ardent capitalist and a casual sports fan I'm all for competition in business, athletics and countless other fields, such as education. Nevertheless, to introduce competition into the exchange of gifts at Christmas is to turn what should be a simple act of love or kindness into an exhibition of one-up-manship.

Too often, Christmas gift giving becomes a vehicle for "impressing" people with one's own purchasing power. The silliness of this sort of gamesmanship is exceeded only by the ill will generated among family and friends who seek to outdo one another in conspicuous donation.

Lewis also cited the unearned obligation often felt by those who receive an unexpected gift. The spectacle of people dashing out of the house and racing to the store in panic upon receipt of a gift calls the way we "celebrate" Christmas into serious question.

It became routine in my circles during the 1980s and early 1990s to spend much of the Christmas season lamenting and lampooning the idiocies of the season. That is not the purpose of this week's letter. I should like rather to offer a few humble reflections on Christmas as I recall it from days gone by and take a brief glance at the contemporary observation of Christmas.

I'm reminded of an article written in the 1940s about Christmas . I remember little of what the author said. What struck me was his remark that he so enjoyed the sight of newly hung Christmas decorations around the 20th of the month. That's the 20th of December folks­p;not October. In this day of decaffeinated coffee, no-alcohol wine and smoke "free" workplaces, even the celebration of Christmas gets a bit diluted.

In my day, we gave Christmas about a month. The Yuletide season began at approximately noon on Thanksgiving Day, when Santa Claus made his appearance bringing up the rear of whichever televised Thanksgiving parade I happened to be viewing. Thanksgiving was also the day that my mother broke out the Christmas records. Lest the reader imagine that we spent the next four weeks in non-stop festival and fun, I should emphasize that the symbolic trappings of Thanksgiving as the "Gateway to Christmas" faded fast. It wasn't until, maybe, mid-December that we started decorating or putting up a Christmas tree and playing the Yuletide records regularly. To everything there is a season.

Because we had relatives and friends scattered over a good portion of Pennsylvania, we sometimes broke Christmas up into a few sessions. I thought this was grand, but I don't (know) how my parents put up with it. Like most children I knew, my attentions became unduly focused on toys and other such junk as the calendar crept towards Christmas. I was, to quote Mr Eliot, "distracted from distraction by distraction."

For this I blame no one but myself. Not even the idiocy of the 1960s was obligatory or incumbent on the children thereof. I consider myself quite fortunate, however, to have harbored such suspicions as I had and to have imbibed as much of the true sense of Christmas as I did.

I thank God that I not only learned the rudiments of arithmetic and letters from my mother at home but that I also had five years of Catholic school to my credit before beginning my sometimes aimless odyssey through the labyrinth of the public education (sic) system. And that's on academic and cultural grounds alone! The religious (in the sense of theological) training I received from the nuns and lay teachers paled beside the rigorous and rational academic curriculum.

Church, for me, was the place for serious theology. I was one of those Catholics who loved the Mass primarily for the liturgy of the Word­p;not to mention the chance to start learning Latin­p;and found the yearly succession of Introits, Graduals, Collects, Epistles and Gospels more appealing than all the incense, statues and May processions this side of Mt Carmel.

It has often been conceded that Roman Catholicism "puts on a good show." What we may call the literary, or in a broader sense, aesthetic aspects of Christmas were also high on the agenda in the sisters' school. Here was no compunction about singing CHRISTMAS Carols and meaning every word of them. Crèches and Santas, Madonna with Child and Rudolph aglow, tales of Eastern European faith and schoolroom parties all made up in their proper degree the panoply of Christmas.

The highlight of the aesthetic liturgy was the annual Christmas pageant. This production was put on in the church basement before assembled parents and relatives seated on folding wooden chairs on the wide, checkered linoleum floor. When the lights went out, the twinkle of the obligatory Christmas tree bathed the place in a preternaturally soothing glow.

These pageants were my introduction to the stage. Rehearsals would begin, as I recall, during the long Thanksgiving week-end and wind through what seemed an interminable schedule of long Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. (I don't believe they made us rehearse on Sundays!) For the few years I participated (it being primarily a vehicle for the very youngest students), I wore the shepherd's weeds. I don't recall ever being asked to play one of the wise men or Saint Joseph. That was fine with me. Any speech I may have been given was mercifully brief. Although I'm no actor, I've had my bouts with the stage and the curtains. The silent roles in those distant Pennsylvania days are among my most cherished theatrical memories.

The Santa Claus side of Christmas, thought harmless enough, was still just a footnote­p;albeit a rather involved one­p;for us. We truly looked on Christmas as the birthday of Christ, knowing fully well that His actual date of birth was unknown. Those who wished to celebrate his birthday had to pick some date, and December the 25th was quite as good as any other.

I always considered it pleasantly fortuitous that the early Church grafted the feast of the Nativity onto the pagan Winter festivals, Saturnalia and the birthday of Mithras. In our Northern temperate climes, the bracing and austere beauty of a landscape coated with fresh white snow is itself a dazzling backdrop to the Christmas season.

Over the years, my Christmas spirit has waxed and waned, but my love for Winter has been constant as the northern star.

Yet I never made the error of trying to use Winter (or its solstice!) as a substitute for Christmas. No no. They are two separate things: one a manifestation of the naturally given and the other a manmade festival in honour of man's creator.

Oh, I did seek other detours along the way. There were years that I thought Lewis's second Christmas ­p; dispensed in 80 proof liquors ­p; was the perfect modern compromise. Like all modern compromises, this one failed to satisfy and left me with a dry mouth to boot. I still enjoy the conviviality and the taste of spicy eggnog liberally spiked with Bacardi rum and drunk lustily amid the strains of political or literary arguments. But I realized long ago that these outward signs are meaningful only if they've something to back them up. If Christmas is "just another day," then the cheer we tipple is just another drink. Who cares about "just another" anything? Even another Christmas.

That brings us to the ghost, or shall I say ­p; quoting Mr Eliot again ­p; "patient etherized upon a table" of Christmas present. Many people will tell you that the main thing wrong with Christmas is its "commercialization." Nonsense, balderdash­p;nay heresy! Sheer Marxism, if you will. The people who make and sell the sundry goods that others buy for Christmas presents are engaged in honourable trade. To suggest that their bread and butter is somehow the root of our Yuletide malaise is the most colossal and condescending arrogance. No wonder the public schools lead the nation's anti-Christmas brigade!

The charge of "commercialism" is also a slur on the people who wish to buy things. It suggests that they don't know enough to handle their own money. Some of them don't, you say? Then let them learn the hard way. Do some of them also make a mockery of the season and indulge in the compulsive purchasing I spoke of earlier? Yes. You may scorn them, you may pity them ­p; but you don't have to emulate them. Eating and drinking are necessary to human life and can also be sources of great pleasure. So can commerce. Drunkenness and gluttony are destructive vices. So is mindless, robotic, reflexive economic activity that shuts out and stifles other necessities and joys. Leave them alone. You're not their keeper.

Each person is an individual. This is a fact that only much maligned Capitalism, among political systems, acknowledges and upholds. What has this to do with Christmas? If Christmas has become a meaningless rote jingle and hyped up round of television commercials it's because we chose to let it. Some of us even seem quite proud of the fact that we've done so. For many of us, Lewis's third Christmas is about all that's left of it. Taking refuge in the second Christmas may satisfy and amuse for a spell, but that way lie the remnants of many a broken cistern.

Perhaps you say, "But I'm not religious." Then you're the perfect candidate this year to start contemplating what Christmas is.

Christmas condemns us to examine the claims of the man whose birth it commemorates. "To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray." Thus goes the ancient Yuletide carol. The Joy of which we speak so blithely is the joy of gratitude for the debt paid on the Cross of Calvary.

That debt was for man's sin. It's all too easy to dismiss religion as mediaeval superstition, but an honest look at this old world today should make one reluctant to boast that anyone has come all that long a way.

To quote Mr Eliot again, "History has many cunning passages." Are we so sure that we've found our way round them all?

I read in a newsletter I receive an anecdote about a girl who had returned from a day of Christmas shopping. As she wearily recites the Our Father she intones, "Forgive us our Christmases as we forgive those who Christmas against us." There's a thought there. Forgive us our Christmases past. And let's see what we can do about the present and the future. "

Thought for the Day:

"If we could surround ourselves with forms of beauty, the evil things in life would disappear."

(Calvin Coolidge)