Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays ... Whatever

My Christmas Tree

This morning I received yet another e-mail from a friend that encouraged me to forward a “Merry Christmas” email to my email buddies. The purpose, according to this and the other viral messages, would be to tell others that I was celebrating the true meaning of Christmas as the birth of Jesus. The secondary and underlying purpose of the message I was asked to e-mail would be to save another American tradition from being lost to those who would be “politically correct.” Sigh.

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, whatever. Let’s put a halt to this in-your-face “I’m celebrating the TRUE meaning of Christmas. Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. My Merry Christmas is better that your heathen Happy Holidays” thing.

Look. I have no political agenda (as do the purported saviors of the Merry Christmas slogan who send the viral Merry Christmas e-mails to me?). I simply have broader views. Christmas is a religious holiday and a lot more. It is a worldwide phenomenon that incorporates a variety of cultural traditions today. It is powered by contrived and unsustainable commercial traditions.

The American tradition is one that has evolved from historic winter season and pagan winter solstice celebrations. In Northern Europe, Yule was the celebration of life and rebirth, when greenery was dragged inside as proof that life goes on. In ancient Rome, Saturn and Mythra, gods of agriculture and the sun, were celebrated. It was end-of-year celebrations such as these that set the stage for the modern Christmas.

When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, leaders probably decided to absorb the ancient tradition into a new celebration that honored the birth of Christ, the feast day of the Nativity, since no one really knew when Jesus was born. But the rowdy and more pagan or secular end-of-year celebrations continued as part of the new Christmas tradition. It wasn’t until the 17th century that Puritans put the kibosh on the revelry.

In early America, the Puritans banned Christmas, but in the Southern colonies like Virginia, the celebration became more middle class and homebound. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Virginia, where there were no large cities and plantations were remote from one another, Christmas provided an occasion for families to gather. At that time, when the weather was cold and crops were in and there wasn’t much outdoor work to be done, they celebrated the end of another year and the birth of Christ while toasting the New Year ahead. It was low key.

In 1822, Clement Clark Moore wrote A Visit from Saint Nicolas, and that changed the celebration of Christmas forever. He created the modern American version of the Santa Clause myth. Forty-some years later, Thomas Nast provided new illustrations of Santa and surrounded him with additional traditions to fill out the mythology of the “jolly old elf.” In the 1920s, Santa was colorized in Coca-Cola advertisements. Macy’s is often credited with creating store Santas and Christmas Parade Santas as a marketing ploy to enhance the gift-giving tradition.

Here in Virginia at Colonial Williamsburg, della Robbia wreaths were fashioned by early program managers to entice more people to celebrate a “colonial” Christmas. Grand Illumination was created by Colonial Williamsburg to coop the tradition of a fireworks celebration on the King of England’s birth night into a celebration of the birth night of the King of Kings, thus encouraging more celebrants to visit.

Of course, Colonial Williamsburg wasn't alone. Christmas exploded in the last quarter of the 20th century as a retail event to boost the bottom line at the end of the year. By the 1980s, the term “Christmas creep” was being used to describe the U.S. retail phenomena of extending the celebration of Christmas to increase profits.

Some may see the Christian defense of the Merry Christmas slogan as a reaction to the changes in American life that threaten them and the status quo. Additionally, I see the defense of the Merry Christmas slogan as all wrapped up in the unsustainable celebration of Christmas with stuff, stuff, and more stuff. I worry that Christians who push this Merry Christmas statement-making thing are, to an extent and unknowingly, being used by business and those on the political right to stop people from questioning what this holiday experience really is all about. To question the American Christmas tradition is verboten!

So, while my friends worry about the loss of an American tradition, I worry about the unsustainable and politicized American tradition that Christmas has become. It’s time to challenge Christmas. Do the gifts and festivities make us any happier? Do we need things to stay they way they are in order to celebrate the Nativity? When we push the “American tradition of Christmas” are we being close-minded and unwelcoming to those around us who choose to -- or have to -- celebrate this end-of-year season differently?

I really don’t care too much about politics and positioning or formal expressions of religion, for that matter. What I do care about is that more people begin to search for deeper meaning and awareness during this holiday season. When we separate ourselves out as “better than you are” Merry Christmas celebrators, we are being parochial and short-circuiting the deep thinking we need to do about the heavily commercialized foundation of this American tradition.

Let’s question why. Let’s all acknowledge our oneness of ownership in this man-made holiday ... our oneness in ownership of all things. We are interconnected and our actions affect everything and everyone else. Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, who cares. In the end, it doesn't really matter.

Open your mind. Celebrate Christmas and allow others to celebrate whatever. Or to not celebrate. Or to dial back on the festivities and gift-giving.

Peace on Earth. However you find it, may it be so.