For as long as I can remember (which, sadly is getting to be quite a long time indeed) there has been controversy about "putting the "Christ" back in Christmas." When I was in grade school, it seemed to focus on the appearance of "X-mas" as somehow "x-ing" out the religious element of the day, but as time went by, the notion that the "X" actually was the Greek letter "Chi," which took that form in the Greek alphabet gained currency. Thus reassured that this symbol, familiar from altar paraments and other liturgical locales, was not, in fact, a subversive attempt at erasing our heritage, we moved on.
As years went by, however, it became clear that there was, in fact, a concerted effort to relegate Christmas from its place of pride as the preeminent public holiday, to a private effort, celebrated discreetly, if not furtively, in the fast-emptying catacombs of the mainstream churches of my youth. Of course this banishment took place in the courts, since it would never meet with the approval of the masses (ok, pun intended) were it to be put to a vote. And thus the familiar symbols of public Christmas celebration, the mangers and trees at City Hall, the Christmas carols sung at school programs, the overtly Christmas-themed parties at work, all had to be scrubbed of any significance lest they entangle the state in the evils of religious establishment. While Christians struggled and harumphed at this effort, they have been unsuccessful in stemming the tide of secularism that has swept away the significance of their symbols, if not their actual form.
Now, the assault (and the
pushback) has moved on to a new forum: The public wishing of a "Merry Christmas," once considered a festive, polite and jolly practice, is now considered rude, culturally insensitive and "not the done thing." This reflects the second prong of the anti-Christian/Christmas effort (the first being the separation of Church and State argument): the politically correct prong. The notion that celebrating our Christian holiday is offensive to others, or even anti-Semitic, has become deeply embedded in elite culture. When discussing a campaign to encourage stores to include the words "Merry Christmas," in their decorations, one Episcopal priest fumed: ‘Why not simply require stores owned by Jews to put a gold star in their ads and on their storefronts?'' (From a letter to the editor of the Raleigh N.C. News & Observer by the Rev. Jim Melnyk, associate rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Raleigh). The phrase "Happy Holidays," of course, is the preferred alternative, potentially encompassing as it does, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Ramadan (long since past), Hannukah (ditto), the Birth of the Bab (strike 3 on long since past in the actual calendar, falling as it does at the end of November),and of course the ultimately secular holiday (there's an oxymoron for you) New Year's day.
While pausing only briefly to sigh at the loss of another cherished and comforting ritual of my childhood, I'd like to reflect briefly on the irony with which this situation is rife.
The celebration of Christmas on December 25 was not an occasion marked by the early Church or certainly, the disciples. The Biblical accounts would suggest, if anything, that Christ was born in early Spring, when shepards would spend the nights in the fields with their lambing ewes, and Clement of Alexandria speculated in the third century, on that basis, that the most likely date of Christ's birth was May 20. It wasn't until the 4th century, the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church tells us, that the birth of Christ was associated with December 25. I've often heard it said that this was intended to co-opt, as it were, the Roman Saturnalia festival, but the ODCC suggests it was in fact chosen to oppose the Roman festival of that date. In any event, the notion that the seasonal celebration of Christmas is biblically mandated or otherwise intrinsic to the faith, is not really compelling. This is reflected by the recollection that the
Puritans strictly forbade the observation of the Christmas holiday, and indeed, made it
illegal in the State of Massachusetts until the middle of the 19th century.
So the notion that Christmas is exclusively religious, or that a public observation of its festivities is "establishing" a religion, or should be offensive to other faith traditions, is quite simply ahistorical, at best.
Another irony, although perhaps it's obvious, is the replacement of "Merry Christmas," with "Happy Holidays," since etymologically the word "Holiday," being simply a contraction of "Holy Day," in fact makes a much more explicit reference to the sacred nature of the referenced day than does use of the term "Christmas," given the history of the celebration of the day.
Finally, I'd like to observe with respect to the AP article mentioned above, "
Conservatives work to put religion back in Christmas," that it is a classic example of the liberal mindset. After some 40 years of unrelenting assault on a holiday that we have celebrated in America for some two hundred years, the writer seems both astonished and "troubled" that cultural and religious conservatives are attempting, however feebly, to respond with private intiatives of rescue.
UPDATE: Of course,
Mark Steyn says it so much better than I ever could. Check it out.
