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The
End of Christmas
As You Know it Today
We might be made to
unconsciously absorb the suggestion that it is always Christmas and normal to
be flat broke.
George Dixon,
Newspaper Columnist
On the subliminal
advertising scare of the 1950’s
Father on Christmas
Past
Subliminal
advertising eventually did fall in disfavor, but there is no doubt the strong
influence of marketing messages by powerful commercial interests have been
remarkably successful in the last sixty years in shaping the public’s
conception of Christmas. In the face
of multi-billion dollar campaigns, churches are almost mute in defending the
old traditions.
Even when pastors
or priests do speak about the difference between the season of the Mass of
Christ and the season of corporate-driven sales and shopping, few hear the
words. On one occasion, around
Thanksgiving, I attended a service where an old priest, surely in his
eighties, spoke about the way Christmas used to be observed when he was a
child (Perhaps the 1940’s). The frail
old man spoke wistfully about his memories, and pleadingly to the
congregation, of when ringing bells and rising evergreens decked in lights
and beautifully blown glass heralded, on Christmas Eve, the arrival of a
Christmas that lasted twelve nights, and closed with special traditions on
the Day of the Epiphany.
It was a time when
the secular and religious Christmas Season were still one, and the days after
December 25 were celebrated without sales and shopping trips, but only with
feasts and gatherings in communion. It
was a time when just as Churches of all stripes lit their Christmas trees for
the first time on Christmas Eve, so was the secular tree of the nation (until
1953, the National Christmas Tree was always lit on Christmas Eve).
His remarks done,
the old priest, slightly hunched, shuffled of quietly, and rather sadly, back
into the past.
When the service
was over, a good and kind friend who had also attended the service caught up
with me, and the first thing he asked me on this mid-November day was “have
you put up your Christmas Tree yet?” I
realized then that the Christmas of the old man was not ever coming back, at
least not in my lifetime, and certainly not in his. More than that, I have slowly come to the
realization that the Christmas most people recognize today will also be gone
in another thirty years.
The Slow, Yet
Relentless Steamroller
In an earlier
publication, back in 1995, I predicted then that the “Christmas” season would
eventually be understood to start in September, right after Labor Day (by
2045, to quote myself). During those
days, most shopping centers got themselves in holiday décor by mid-November,
and friends of mine scoffed at my prediction.
These days, major retail venues are in Christmas trappings by
mid-October, with stragglers in gear by Halloween. Locally, in 2000, Weingarten Realty put up
its holiday lights up on November 1 in most of its shopping centers, like the
West Gray Shopping Center. This year
it did so on October 5, a date that twenty years ago would have been
considered preposterous, and fifty years ago, insane. Today, most young people are excited that
“it’s Christmas!” in mid-autumn, and don’t question why we have winter motifs
everywhere just a little over a month after the end of summer.
Meanwhile,
businesses now make sure to remove all signs of Christmas as soon as the last
sale is rung. In Macy’s case, they
stopped “believing” on December 18, and all signs of a holiday season were
gone by December 24.
Continued >
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From column 1
As one Starbucks employee said to me in regards
to Starbuck’s own strict policy of having everything gone by close of
business December 25, “they’re doing it backwards.”
“Bah! Humbug!” to
“Ho-Hum”
But, we human
beings, however shallow and pleasure-seeking we may be, are not built to be
in a state of celebration for months on end. We get jaded and bored. Already people tire of Christmas before
December 25 arrives. Trees start showing
up in dumpsters almost as soon as the last gift is opened. I once personally attended a Christmas
Day gathering to find our hostess had already taken the tree down because,
as she said, she had gotten “tired of it.”
Well, of course, my dear.
She was one of
those persons who loved shopping, and always had to get everything done
early. You know the type. They’re the ones who start clearing
plates before everyone is finished eating, or start taking decorations down
from party events 30 minutes before the party is supposed to end. They are always about what’s next, and
can never just be still and enjoy the present.
In the end, as
the holiday season is stretched to cover one third of the year, and the
early birds keep pushing it along while songs that before were only heard
for a precious few days a year blare over speakers for evermore weeks and
weeks, the numbness that has already begun to set in will grow. Soon, the season will come when the young
adults will lose interest. Their
children will in turn not develop the nostalgia of Christmas. The civic
Christmas observances will not come back at all, and even the National
Christmas Tree may be forced to go, under the legal assault of those,
growing in numbers, who find suspect all things Christian or even hinting
of religion.
Celebration
& Meaning in One
Does all this
matter? As much as fixing the broken
windows in our neighborhoods matters (Broken Windows
Theory). Though it may not seem
like much, such things influence how we think about ourselves and our place
in the world. Holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, should be observed
in a way that is true to their history and purpose; in a way that educates
and elevates us in our understanding of who we are
as a people and what we believe we should value most. Holidays are for celebration, but more
importantly for teaching and remembering.
Christmas, in its
broader, earlier American conception, was joy and meaning together that
helped keep us together as a people.
The teachings of Christ, whether one believes in his divinity or
not, have long been at the core of a Judeo-Christian ethic that is the
foundation of our civilization and our laws, and that has kept us in
agreement on what is right and what is wrong. Care for the weak in body, forgiveness
for the weak of mind. Peace and Goodwill to All. That was something we could all
celebrate. This is not to denigrate
or diminish the ethical and moral foundations of other societies. It is merely a recognition of ours.
Continued >
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From column 1
Connected Across Space
& Time
As I said in my
commentary on the Fall
of Thanksgiving, we are all gradually going shopping our separate ways,
and I do see that as a permanent loss for all us, Christian and not. But, I heard you old man, and I am going
with you. As I have gradually learned
that the Christmas I grew up with was already drifting away from its foundations,
I have - gradually - moved in the other direction. Gradually, because I too cannot easily
ignore my own childhood nostalgia.
So, I compromise, and each year form new
memories where I want them to be for the years to come. I bring my family with me, and gently
instruct my nieces and nephews on who we are as a people, and why we
celebrate as we do, today’s fleeting world notwithstanding. I can honestly say that while I no longer
feel the nostalgic ‘magic’ of Christmas as I once did,
these later Christmases have been the most fulfilling.
Yes, the shopping
Christmas will eventually be gone, as will the national Christmas we used
to celebrate together. But, for us
believers in the teachings of one Jesus of Nazareth, we will remain. To
quote from an earlier Ultrapolis essay, “The
Lost Twelve Days of Christmas”:
Long after our Western culture has faded or been
vanquished, Christmas may very well be marked on the Christian calendar as
it has been, for the remainder of humanity’s existence. Across the ages
kings and presidents, languages and cities, empires and republics, even our
noble and beloved United States of America, will all one day pass away into
memory. But, the traditions that
serve as the vessel of the message born two-thousand years ago, though they
may wax and wane through the ages, will bind us. And thusly, as holy people have long
explained, those who observe the same days in similar manner are connected
to those in the past, as well as those of the future: They are, and ever will be, one body of
common belief, connected across space and time.
Dear Esteemed Reader,
Mark, Mike, and I take the opportunity of these
festive days to extend to you, regardless of persuasion, our warmest
expressions of goodwill, and our hope to always join with you in admiration
and celebration of all that is beautiful and good on this earth.
Merry Christmas Season
&
Happy New Year 2013
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