First, thanks to (O)ct(o)pus for inviting me to participate at The Swash Zone.
It's barely a week to Christmas, and the holiday spirit is upon us. I haven't heard of any Wal-Mart tramplings yet, but I have heard of two separate incidents of police being called to deal with customers fighting over robot hamsters. I had no idea that there is even such a thing as robot hamsters. What on Earth do people use them for? (Actually, considering those rumors about Richard Gere and the gerbil, I'm not sure I want to know.)
This is also the time for a certain type of Christian to whine endlessly about the secularization of Christmas, usually by complaining that they can't say "merry Christmas" any more because somebody might object to it. Now, curiously enough, I've never heard anyone actually object to this. I've never objected to it myself. What I have heard, pretty much every Christmas, is Christians objecting to people saying "happy holidays" -- including, a few years ago, a woman I know to be quite religious yelling very rudely at a younger woman who had uttered the offending words to a decidedly mixed group of people.
The legitimacy of Christian possessiveness about the holiday is in any case tenuous. Christmas is an adaptation of Saturnalia, the pagan Roman festival of gift-giving and revelry celebrated in late December, which early Christian leaders co-opted to make Christianity more palatable to the pagans by merely changing the pretext for their most popular holiday rather than abolishing it. Other associated customs such as the Christmas tree originate from other pagan traditions. No element of modern Christmas -- not even the claimed association of December 25 with the birth of Jesus -- has any basis in the New Testament. I rather doubt there's a Biblical passage in which Jesus instructs his followers to get snotty with people who say something as innocuous as "happy holidays", either.
Nevertheless, I am more than willing to concede that Christmas today, regardless of its history, should indeed be regarded as a Christian holiday. After all, considering what it has become -- all the crass consumerism, mob scenes, greed, squabbling, stress, and those godawful "carols"* -- who would want it back from them? They broke it, they own it.
I just wish they'd refrain from taking out their understandable frustration with all those shopping-mall lines on people who use greetings they disapprove of.
Afterword: If you want to express "Christmas spirit" in a positive sense, please see (O)ct(o)pus's posting just below this one.
*The only Christmas music I like is "Winter Wonderland", which someone once told me isn't even a "carol", and the Mannheim Steamroller version of "Good King Wenceslas", which I'm sure would never be played in any church. The versions of carols played over store Muzak systems every December ought to be used instead on the captured terrorists in Guantanamo to extract information -- I'm sure they'd be more effective than waterboarding.
They've been caroling around here since the day after Halloween. I'm ready to confess already.
ReplyDeleteI've always celebrated Christmas, although without any religious content. It was always a time where people were a bit nicer, especially to children, a bit more charitable and besides, who doesn't like colored lights?
Since moving to Florida, where people wear their religion on their shoulder and dare you to knock it off, it's been different -- and then there's Bill O'Reilly.
There's something odd about those 20 kilowatt displays of Nordic iconography spread out on Florida lawns that makes the whole thing a bit ridiculous. It's about 78 and raining like hell this morning and my neighbor's electric caribou look pretty sad and soggy under a coconut tree -- and don't go too near Santa or you'll get electrocuted.
Good post Infidel753. And welcome to the Zoners.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, I took a temporary job at Christmas time at a TJMaxx in Orange County, CA. The most dispiriting part of the job was my having to listen every day, 7 hours a day, to the Christmas music that was played over and over and over.
One song has stayed with me--I had never heard it until that time--that was sung by a Latino guy who mercilessly repeated the refrain "Aiy, yi yi it's Christmas and I don't know what to do! Aiy, yi, yi it's Christmas and I don't know what to do!"
Each year, as the Christmas season approaches--it has now crept up to after Labor Day--I cringe at the thought of that refrain looping on an endless tape in my head as I am forced to listen to more cheesy music ( singing chipmunks? Oy!) when I shop at my local stores and cannot escape the plastic pastel displays of snowmen, magi, and reindeer on suburban lawns.
I was raised a Catholic, but have not followed any religion since my 20s. Christmas is a great way to get through the darkest time of the year by spending time with those we love and helping those who don't have as much as we have.
Happy Holidays to all.
And Festivus for the rest of us.
Excuse me now while I look for my pad of paper to write my list for the "Airing of Grievances."
Welcome to the beach, Infidel! I'm sure if we just all scootch over, we can make a space for you. :)
ReplyDeleteI like to call this the burgeoning religiosity of America; the largest congregation seeming to be those from the Church of the Offended.
This is not to be confused with spirituality like that demonstrated by Mother Teresa and her tireless work among a largely Hindu population or the protestants of Europe who risked their own lives to hide Jews during the Nazi occupation.
(Although there were a few who broke with the crowd, by and large, the Catholic Church did little to prevent the Jewish massacre).
I did all my shopping on line and thus avoided the Great Annual Jolly Christmas Stampede and the equally exciting, Let Go Of My Hamster! contest.
Happy Holidays!
Wilkommen, Herr Infidel.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies for the late reply ... getting ready to leave for the holidays. I hope you will find the Swash Zone to be a stimulating community and more than that ... a fun place to be.
Hey, Infidel, I've always known it was just a matter of time before you became a Zoner. :)
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of god-awful Christmas music, this song (scroll down to Point 1) really takes my cake (or rather, sticks in my craw).
But you knew this already. :)
Capt. Fogg: That should be a new Christmas Carol -- "Grandma got electrocuted by a shorted-out reindeer".....
ReplyDeleteIt's even more absurd in Australia where Christmas comes in the middle of the summer. If they have the snow decoration motif down there it must be really incongruous.
Shaw: I think store employees should be allowed one ax murder per four hours of Muzak carols. It probably happens anyway.
Congratulations on detoxing from religion.
RockyNC: There are certainly good people who are religious, but I think those people would be good anyway, with or without religion.
Fun fact: Most of the top Nazi leaders (including Hitler) were Catholics, but only one of them was ever excommunicated -- Goebbels (I think it was him), for marrying a Protestant.
In a few years the Christmas barrage will be starting in July and we'll all be shopping online to avoid it.
(O)ct(o)pus: Vielen Dank wieder für die Einladung. Bestes Glück beim Urlaub.
Elizabeth: I remember that post! The festive butchered reindeer is actually the worst. It looks like another Nazi thing. I hope it shorted out and electrocuted whoever put it up.
Welcome to Infidel! Have enjoyed your comments and now this post. And of course 'appy 'olidays. But do you mean you missed the passage in Luke where Jesus saith, "As for them that say happy holidays, truly it were better for them on the Last Day that a millstone be cast around their neck...."
ReplyDeleteEvidently I did -- that must be in the same verse where Jesus tells everyone to vote Republican.....:-)
ReplyDelete