I wandered over to Union Station to check out a retail battlefield. Inside and out, the station was festooned with giant You Know What wreaths. A huge You Know What tree, with presents wrapped in red and green underneath, stood in the main hall, near a placard announcing "Norwegian Christmas at Union Station." A high-tech player piano was playing "Go Tell It on the Mountain," proclaiming the birth of You Know Who; the next selection was You Know Who Else Is Coming to Town. The most generic element was a small sign reading "Happy Holidays," but even then the words were bracketed by reindeer -- and let's just say, they weren't eating latkes. It was beginning to look a lot like You Know What.
If the anti-Christmas forces are winning, then the war in Iraq is nothing short of total victory.
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I've experienced this especially acutely since my children started to look longingly at shopping mall Santas (Santa's a nice guy, honey, but he's not for us) and ask why there are so few menorahs or dreidels among the reindeer and Christmas trees. (How to break this gently? Their team has a lot more players.)
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It's this sense of aggrieved victimhood that confuses me: What, exactly, is so threatening about calling the school holiday a winter break rather than Christmas vacation?
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Falwell, as he desires his flock to know, wants Americans to do their shopping at stores that greet you with "Merry Christmas" and that celebrate the birthday of Jesus in carols, religious decorations and marketing displays. In my old neighborhood, that used to be called "church."
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Falwell's fellow traveler Pat Buchanan wrote in a column titled "Christianophobia" a year ago that "it needs to be said. What we are witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity -- the manifestations, the symptoms of a sickness of the soul . . . the fear and loathing of all things Christian, coupled with a fanatic will to expunge from the public life of the West all reminders that ours was once a Christian civilization and America once a Christian country."
News Flash, Pat: Stores sell stuff. To everyone. That's what they do. They're not churches. They are stores.
I confess to being confused. Why is it that, as a lifelong Christian, I am not the least bit offended if a store clerk or a newsroom colleague greets me with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"? And if my employer chooses to go without Christmas displays in the workplace, why should I really care? (The Post has a huge Christmas tree in its lobby.) What's more, suppose a store's advertising is stingy with the mentions of "Christmas," or President Bush decides to send out 1.4 million Christmas cards with the word "Christmas" missing? (Bush did. We got one, too.) The Christian faith, I fervently believe, will somehow manage.
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I'd just as soon keep Christmas as far away as possible from stores and the commercialization that has taken over our religious holiday. Spending and making loads of money in a crowded store with "Silent Night" floating in the background hardly strikes me as the way to celebrate what happened in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago.
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One surefire way religion can get marginalized in this country is by religious forces marginalizing themselves. That is what happens to figures such as Falwell when they puff themselves up and undertake such a nonsensical campaign against a manufactured bogeyman.
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Why do some Christians object to the term "holiday tree"?
Because it hides the ancient link between the tree and Christianity, found in an original Christmas gospel: And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon shepherds abiding in the field, and the angel said unto them: "I bring you tidings of great joy. On this Christmas go forth and smite a mighty tree, a Norway spruce with pleasing boughs, and place it in your home, and adorn it with candles and red balls and strands of silver."
And the shepherds were sore afraid and said unto the angel: "What is this spruce you speak of? What is Norway? Wouldst thou allow a small palm tree?"
And the angel said: "Whatever."
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The pagans in northern Europe must have complained about their traditional Yule solstice festival. Christians not only co-opted customs like burning a Yule log, but also turned Yule into a synonym for Christmas.
They took the Yule out of Yule?
And put it into Christmas. For all we know, some Norse lumber merchants tried appeasing both pagans and Christians by marketing "holiday logs," but the term didn't stick.
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Does the moral fable of Narnia offer any way to resolve these religious differences over Christmas?
Yes. The pro-Christmas side forms an army and destroys the opposition.
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timeasmymeasure
