Have a Merry Christmas

I have always been of two minds about Christmas. On the one hand, I harbor a wistful nostalgia that I think comes from when I was a young enough child to have no social concerns, and thus was free to anticipate what Santa was going to bring me. I lived in the north then, so there was also the imminent onset of winter, which was not a hardship for a kid with enough clothes and a warm house to live in. On the other hand, I have long harbored a resentment of the worldly commercial sensual goading that goes on supposedly in the name of celebrating God's greatest gift to us.

As I got older and found out there was no Santa Claus, the responsibility of buying presents for my family and friends weighed on me; I wanted to get everybody just what they wanted, fulfilling the promise of Santa's magic. Of course I seldom succeeded to my satisfaction, nor did anyone else. And of course I also absorbed the popular complaint that Christmas was becoming too commercial.

When I became a Christian, it added a great deal to my appreciation of the season, taking the time to meditate about the significance of Christ's coming to live among us; but it did not diminish that social responsibility of present-buying, nor the tension it creates regarding the budget and the time it takes out of a busy mid-life career. I also began to resent Christmas as being tainted by the pagan winter festival, the part so many unbelievers seemed to enjoy so much. It made me more and more Scrougey. Humbug! I esteem all days alike.

Now I'm getting older and I have been thinking of that holiday in slightly different terms. It appears that many Christmas traditions do have roots in pagan celebration, but rather than seeing it as tainted by them, I see that the early Christians tried to redeem the festival and apply it to celebrating the birth of the Christ Child, not a bad recyling job. The pagans are the ones that should feel tainted, as now they are beginning to express. Oh well, like a marriage ceremony, Christmas is a thorough melding of spiritual and carnal aspects of this life. Being older helps a little bit with a sense of perspective for present-buying too. I know I can't fulfill Santa's magical gift of giving people exactly what they wanted, don't even want to now, but I can show them I love them by getting something I at least think they will like. In this life, that will have to do.