War Of Christmas
I've been locked in this War on Santa for going on half a decade now.
In all these years, what was I fighting for?
The real spirit of Christmas, I suppose.
This year, I haven't felt "the real spirit of Christmas."
In fact, I've come to believe that Christmas resembles little of what those who lament its American plasticity wish it to be.
There weren't three wise men. There were wise men - and three gifts were brought.
It's no revelation that Christmas coincides generally with the winter solstice, and that solstice had long been the celebrations - the lights, the debauchery, the friendship - of long-held pagan traditions.
Christianity assumed the solstice. If you can't make them stop all the wickedness, make it yours.
And here we are.
Celebrating togetherness. Everybody agrees that everybody is supposed to be home. Lots of lights. Lots of great beer.
Fun times.
"The war on Christmas," they've said. "You can't say Merry Christmas anywhere."
What I have to say to that is, "Who cares? Your Merry Christmas means little more than enjoy the solstice."
The birth of Jesus? It's not his birthday. It's a time of incarnation - but a birthday?
Let them eat cake.
"Why do we do this," I asked a priest, "if it doesn't really mean what we think it means?"
He answered me with a question, "Why do you do what you do at Christmas?"
"Because it's what I've always done," I said.
Sound familiar?
That's why we do Santa ... because we don't want our kids to be the weird ones.
I tell you, I have lost the war.
The war that this Christmas is waging on my soul, my spiritual understanding.
I can no longer give a gift because I want to show how much I love a loved one.
I have to explain why I couldn't do more.
Every advertisement has a general "Christmas Spirit" it pushes. Just a spirit of emptiness - well-marketed emptiness, born of cynical opportunism.
Santa hasn't stolen Christmas. Nobody's fighting a war on Christmas. There's no true Christmas to be won - only the amalgam of a holiday of lights and festivity with the truth that it's just too popular not to Christianize it.
Believe in Jesus and marvel in the incarnation of the beginning of a new age.
But Santa didn't steal Christmas. We stole it from what his myth represents.
And the fat man can have it.
I will not abandon Christmas traditions, if only for what they mean for togetherness and beauty.
But I've come to believe - through a nagging emptiness that only lifts the day after Christmas is over - that there's not a whole lot there to have.
So, fly on Santa, into that dark night, spread your message of economic inequality and judgment. I don't have the spirit to fight a battle that doesn't exist.
