Giving Thanks

Ah, Thanksgiving Day. My favorite of all the holidays. My wife and daughters prefer Christmas. My son's kind of a fence-sitter. He understands why I prefer Thanksgiving and he agrees with my rationale, but I sense he generally likes one as much as the other, and that's OK. He's only 17. I do get a little rankled, though, when the girls address me as Scrooge!


I have a cynical Irish streak that I get from my mother, God rest her soul, and over time, I've come to view Christmas as more of a hassle than a holiday. (Ironically, my mom loved Christmas!) It would be convenient, and probably lazy, to chalk up my Yuletide cynicism to "the commercialization of Christmas." After all, there's nothing new about that. Most of us know Christmas was commercialized over a century ago. While I admit the commercial aspect of Christmas does play an important role in my general dislike of the holiday, there is more to it than that. I blame the religious right! Yep, it's those bible-toting conservatives again, this time messing up Christmas for me and God knows how many other people. My evidence? Read on.


(-Reprinted from To Celebrate: Reshaping Holidays and Rites of Passage, 1987): While the Gospel of Luke links the date of Jesus' birth to a census in Palestine decreed by Caesar Augustus, nothing is known of the time of year of his birth. The date of Christmas, like other Christian holy days, likely was established to provide an alternative to popular pagan festivals. It's known that December 25th was originally the date of the feast to the sun god, Mithras. After spreading from Persia into the Roman world during the first century, the cult of Mithras had become Christianity's leading rival by the third century. Although Christmas was intended as an alternative to pagan festivals, many of the practices of those festivals were simply incorporated into the Christian celebration and as Christianity spread through central and northern Europe, incorporation of the practices of local religions continued.


By the Reformation of the 16th century, many reformers wanted Christmas dropped as a Christian celebration. They viewed the popular practices of Christmas too similar to the old pagan festivals, and they emphasized the fact that there was no biblical sanction for Christmas. In 17th-century England, for a few years the feast of Christmas was even outlawed by the Puritan-dominated parliament. At the same time, Puritans in Massachusetts passed similar legislation. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the widespread position taken against Christmas as a holy day by Puritans, Quakers, Baptists and Presbyterians ended up having consequences those religious groups could not have imagined.


Resistance to attaching religious significance to Christmas encouraged it's growth as a secular holiday. Through the 20th century (and now into the 21st) in Europe and North America, the popular celebration of Christmas remains an amalgam of Christian and non-Christian traditions. The lack of clarity about the celebration's purpose has remained, accentuating a new factor that arose in the 20th century - the commercialization of Christmas. The commercialization of Christmas did not take place in a social vacuum. It is part of our society, in which consumption for its own sake - regardless of need - is legitimized and encouraged. Without reluctance, comsumerism exploits religious beliefs and deep emotions to persuade people to buy.


Commercial Christmas, its underpinnings of Santa Claus firmly in place, continues its spiraling growth. It seems evident that its cultural pervasiveness makes future change little less than a distant dream. It is also true that many Christians and congregations accept the distortion of their holy day without challenge. The reason, one suspects, is not so much an insensitivity to the issues, but rather a feeling of impotence – not knowing what to do or how to do it. Aware that slogans such as "putting Christ back in Christmas," and ideas about "Christmas basket charity" are simplistic, many Christians opt to do nothing. The commercialization of Christmas is something everybody talks about, but nobody does anything about.



The previous four-paragraph passage was written 22 years ago, folks. It is still germane today, and will remain so as long as consumerism is at the heart of the celebration of Christmas. And who were the catalysts for that - you betcha, Sarah P. - religious conservatives. Of course, at the time, they had no way of knowing the consequences of turning their backs on Christmas would ultimately be Black Friday, but then, that's usually the case with the religious right. It's all about their interpretation of what Jesus would do and imposing that on the rest of us. Turning their backs on Christmas for nearly 200 years essentially guaranteed a more secular evolution. By the 19th century when those formerly-resistant Protestant groups (I suppose they saw the error in their ways) began to celebrate the birth of Christ again, it was not only a religious holy day, but a well-established secular holiday, for which Santa Claus, the North Pole and a sleigh with reindeer also represented the meaning of Christmas.


I guess what it comes down to is this: I resent the expectations that come with Christmas more than anything else. And I resent those in the religious community preaching about how we've lost the true meaning of Chritmas, while they queue up at Wal-Mart before dawn to get a shot at the new-and-improved Talking Elmo. Every year that passed as my children got older, I watched with regret as it became all about the presents, who got what, and making sure exactly the same amount of money was spent on each person. (Of course we couldn't have anyone feeling short-changed, now could we!) Getting dressed up and attending Christmas services was a mere sidebar to the bigger celebration back at the house - the celebration of consumpton. It's not "good little boys and girls" who get presents, it's the sons and daughters of prosperity, regardless of whether they are "good." And it's certainly not the poor, for whom the consequence of being "good" is generally getting nothing at all, because their families lack the resources to buy breakfast, let alone presents. Christmas is a cruel hoax to them.


Ironically, as the economy has taken its toll on my family, I may actually enjoy Christmas a little more this year. We can't afford presents. Our three children, now young adults, understand the situation, and we have shifted the focus to simply being together for Christmas. You know, sort of like Thanksgiving, where we give thanks for the good things in our lives, like the food on our table, the family surrounding us and the blessing of good health. And you wonder why I like Thanksgiving better than Christmas? It ain't just about the football, the turkey and the pumpkin pie! (But make no mistake, drumstick in hand, I'll be watching those Cowboys and Lions on Thursday. Hey, it's tradition!) Happy Holidays!



. . . Wishin' I Was Fishin'