I have hesitated to write about the whole phony "War on Christmas" because I earlier made an unwarranted, unethical personal attack on someone who firmly believes such is actually taking place. I didn't want to visit a place that reminded me that I was capable of being as shallow and nasty as the right. I also didn't want to get into an "argument" over this nonsense because, to put it bluntly, it is a bit like arguing with Holocaust Deniers. You don't argue with them; you ignore them. I feel the same way about those who carry on about the War on Christmas. It simply isn't true, and no amount of arguing will convince anyone who refuses to be convinced. When an ideological article of faith becomes "true", it is impervious to factual argument - free markets are the answer to all our ills, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, George Bush is a great President, liberal secularists are waging a War on Christmas. All of them are demonstrably false and easily refuted. All of them, however are also still discussed as if they had some inherent truth value.
Having said all that, it is hard to ignore the fact is is less than a week before Christmas, except maybe for the fact that, after an earlier batch of winter weather, we hear in the northern prairie are enjoying late-October/early-November weather. The daylight lasts about 4 hours, the kids are getting restless and eager, and my wife is dreading this weekend, with 5 services between Saturday evening at 6 pm and Sunday night at 11 pm. And, as always, there are still presents and cards to buy, wrapping to get done, meal planning, and the inevitable head slap as something gets missed.
I have great memories of Christmas from my childhood. The youngest of five children, my earliest Christmas memories are of a huge, out-of-control day with lots of noise and things going on. I have a picture from one of those Christmas mornings. It must have been 1967, because I was about 2 years old. My mother must have taken the photograph, because my father's leg is visible (but that's about all). The five of us are spread across the floor of the living room and one can almost hear the cacophony of the room.
Some other Christmas memories include the year my oldest sister was freshman, or perhaps sophomore in college. There is nearly eleven years difference in our ages, so while she was enjoying wild times in care-free early adulthood, I was in third or fourth grade. This was the last year of "Santa", and I was up at 5 am to get my stocking (my parents had gone to bed about an hour before). I immediately went in to my sisters' bedroom (my two oldest sisters shared a bedroom, and this was the last year my older sister was home for Christmas for several years) to open my stocking. My sister was all smiles and "oohed" and "aahed" over everything. She had returned from a party about the same time my parents had gone to bed, yet she indulged me in my childhood Christmas joy.
I remember many evenings spent sitting in our living room, listening to RCA records released through the old Grants' store chain - Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet will always be linked with Christmas in my mind. Incidentally, if anyone knows where CD copies of those old records are available, let me know; there is a recording of Johnny Cash singing "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" and the Andre Kostelanitz Orchestra performing "Angels we Have Heard on High" that still takes my breath away. Christmas Eve service, carol singing, my father reading the Christmas story from Luke from his old KJV Bible, the huge trees in the bay window - all of it reminds me of Christmas and good, warm feelings.
I also remember horrible fights over tree decorating and putting the lights on; one year my mother threatened me with a yardstick and my sister broke in to hysterics. My brother and I have always had a difficult relationship - it is difficult to define the source, and many of the details are either irrelevant or too horrible to go into any detail - and one year he sucker-punched me so hard I spent ten minutes in a heap on the floor. There were the years money was tight and presents were scarce. Of course, the worst was the year the Jehovah's Witness came to our house, with six of us spread across the living room (my oldest sister was married and enjoying Christmas with her family), and the woman had brought her daughter along. The child's eyes goggled, and my mother only made things worse by trying to foist a gift upon her, insulting the woman and her beliefs.
So, yes, I suffer from Christmas nostalgia as much as anyone, emphasizing the good and ignoring the bad. Yet the bad memories are as much a part of my Christmases past as the good ones, and part and parcel of what "Christmas" means to me. I sometimes think, in contemplating the whole "War on Christmas" thing, that too may suffer from some kind of nostalgia bereft of real memory to leaven the rose-colored, snow-filled glasses of those who would insist that Christmas be observed in only one way, preferably the way they remember from childhood. This is a danger because it prevvents us from thinking clearly and honestly about what the holiday is and how we should celebrate it. We must not separate Christmas from memory, nor indeed any of our life from memory, because it threatens our equilibrium. It would be nice if all Christmases included big snows, laughter, gaggles of children enjoying little but fun and excitement, and quiet moments of contemplation of the birth of the Christ child. They don't and to pretened they either have or should to be real is to engage in nostalgia, which is a servant of ideology (the idea is not original with me; I stole it from Christopher Lasch). Once we start insisting that reality conform to our preconceptions rather than that we follow the ebb and flow of real events, even those difficult to contemplate or integrate into our lives, we are entering the fantasy realm of ideology.
None of this means that I am either joyless or not planning to have a wonderful Christmas with my two small children. I still enjoy listening to Christmas music, although I no longer listen to Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet; my speed is more classical and even baroque Christmas music, including great choral peices by Bach. I still am eager to peek in my stocking (my wife and I exchange stockings), but I usually wait a bit later to awaken than I did thirty years ago. Although we have toned down the decorations this year, and have also seriously toned down the whole Santa thing - this is a parsonage after all, and there is a reason the day is called Christmas - we still try to keep a festive house and exchange gifts, even ones with "Santa" on the tag. I refuse to buy into the current, near-insane commercial stampede that is the "Holiday Season", an affront to the real meaning of the day, and prefer quiet to noise. If that makes me a "threat" to Christmas, so be it.
Virtual Tin Cup
