Safest Place for Christmas

Dec. 18, 2015

We seem to have almost made it to Christmas without those darned liberals trying to kill it. At least they are accused of attempting to do so every year around this time. Since no one is trying to kill it this year, we’ve been mercifully spared any books by anyone claiming to save it.

Some kind of winter celebration has been around for a very long time and it didn’t start as a birthday party.

Pagans were more than a little confused and concerned when they noticed the sun rising later and setting earlier day after day. When the pattern started to reverse it was more than enough reason to celebrate. There were gifts to the gods and greenery to celebrate life.

The Romans continued the tradition with Saturnalia, a festival celebrating the return of the sun that was part barroom brawl, part orgy and nearly all out of control.

By 300 C.E. Christians had begun coopting Saturnalia, turning it into a far more sedate Christian celebration. No one is quite certain when it was decided the winter festival should celebrate the birth of Jesus but the intent was clear; calm down the bawdy winter celebration (ironically, some scholars of historical Jesus believe he was likely born in the early fall while some believe it must have been the spring, but no one seems to believe he was born in the winter).

Contrary to what some would have you believe, Christmas celebrations have not always been a part of our history in the U.S. It was the Puritans, not modern day liberals, who very nearly killed Christmas before it even got started. Finding no scriptural justification for feasts or celebrations, they actually outlawed Christmas in what would become the United States. Keeping Christmas all year long, or even for a day, meant time in the stocks.

We didn’t even get around to making Christmas a federal holiday until 1870. By then we had already taken most of our holiday traditions from other cultures. Gift giving, greenery, lights and all the rest had been around during some kind of winter celebration long before there was any such thing as Christmas.

The commercialization of Christmas so many now decry has a history as long as the holiday. Gifts, to the gods and each other, were a regular part of all the seasonal celebrations. We simply wrapped an old tradition in a new package and claimed it came from the gift-bearing wise men.

Spectacular Christmas spending is a relatively new phenomenon that took root as we were moving from farms and the country to the cities. Practical, homemade gifts were replaced with store-bought merchandise, a one-way trip from which there was no turning back.

It doesn’t matter when all of this started, who started it or why. All the grumbling about commercialism or how secular Christmas has somehow overwhelmed religious Christmas misses the point.

It doesn’t matter that we celebrate differently from our neighbors who celebrate differently from their neighbors. It doesn’t even matter that there are tens of millions of Americans who do not celebrate at all because they have their own religious beliefs and traditions.

Christmas is exactly what we want it to be. Festoon your home with lights and giant Merry Christmas signs or a simple, elegant nativity scene or nothing at all.

You can attend religious services on each of the 12 days of Christmas or make an annual trip to a Christmas Eve service or attend nothing at all. You can turn the holidays into a shopping extravaganza and be first in line in the middle of the night for the sales and bargains. Or you can just stay home.

You can welcome friends and families with food and good wishes or do nothing at all. You can contribute to the various holiday charities or serve Christmas dinner to the homeless or not.

Christian, Druid, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist... people everywhere have traditions cherished by some, ignored by others. It is true enough that history has given us a long list of governments, dictators, churches or well-meaning citizens’ groups intent on trying to banish or outlaw somebody else’s tradition. Christmas has always been such a target, even before we were a country. It didn’t really matter since people just kept celebrating it anyway.

The best news might be there is no wrong way or right way to mark the day. Whatever your tradition, or lack thereof, it’s perfect. Your neighbors who celebrate completely differently or even a different holiday? Also perfect.

And Christmas lovers of all varieties should be of high spirits and good cheer — nobody or group can kill your holiday when millions of different celebrations every year keep it alive. Especially since so many keep Christmas in their hearts, and that’s the safest place of all.