Ho Ho Ho, Hosanna and Humbug
Let’s be honest. The biggest impact of Christmas in America is economic. The Santa man, “Santa Closet” to my two year old grandson, takes the credit but he doesn’t pay the credit card bill. Christmas sales account for about 20% of annual retail sales in the USA. The holiday season is the time advertisers dust off those once a year commercials for everything from diamonds to my favorite - Chia pets.
Much of what we think of as the Christmas story of the Bible is in fact later acquired tradition with little or no basis in the books of the New Testament. The essence of the celebration, that the Redeemer comes to earth in humble circumstances to live among us, teach us and ultimately save us for eternity is so inherently powerful one wonders why people ever started confusing the story with irrelevant embellishments. I suspect some people do not want to accept the truth of what Jesus taught, and they have throughout history encouraged appropriation of the story to distort and undermine its simple message.
Critics point out the hypocrisies of Christmas in practice, the rampant commercialism and gifts given out of obligation instead of love. Dickens probably did the best job of capturing the legitimate power of Christmas on a personal level when he wrote,”A Christmas Carol”. Ebenezer Scrooge came by his own route to understand what Christ taught, that loving others as you love yourself is essential.
The best part of Christmas is being with those you love.
posted by Tom Blake | 9:06 AM
1 Comments:
Traditions can be beautiful, or, like other symbols of civilization, become corrupted. Feasts have been with us since the earliest historical recordings. Whether the feasts were provided by the people setting aside a little through the year (a pot luck), or provided by the rich rulers to pacify the people beholden to them, they were a blessing. Such a wonderful break from the humdrum food they ate day in and day out. But today the food is a burden, leading us to obsesity and other health problems, yet we still give it to our friends and co-workers, and, worse yet, we still eat it. I manange a retirement community and the people in the community have showered me with candy and cookies. Today a very nice person and friend gave me a 5 lb box of chocolates. What would that do to my health and fitness if I ate it? In the prosperity of the US and other western nations we have not come up with a replacement for the feast to signify friendship, solidarity, a token that I care about you and want you to be happy. At the same time, a real need for feasts is slowly dying: the homeless fed by the bell ringing Salvation Army. So many stores have shut them down. I make a point of giving a few bucks everytime I see a person I now consider heroic ringing that bell.
When my family gets together to open our Christmas presents I cannot help but cringe. We all have so much. It used to be that it was impossible to buy for grandpa because he had everything. Now even the grandkids have everything, and it is hard to buy for them. A few brave people have stopped the tradition of gift giving in their families, but I could never do that. It's not worth it. I spend a few hundred dollars every year, and that is much easier and cheaper than trying to break such a strong tradition.
It doesn't bother me in the slightest that Christmas is good for business. As I indicated above, I'll do some binge buying even though that behavior is very much contrary to my nature.
I just wish, and I know this is a pipe dream, that people would really believe in the Christmas spirit to help the insane people on the street, the women and children fleeing from crazy and abusive husbands and boyfriends, the breadwinners finding themselves out of a job with few reserves, the deeply depressed people that have no direction, and people that are just down on their luck and have no family. We don't talk about them, and we silence the Salvation Army bell ringers.
John from Phoenix
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