In his essay, “Xmas and Christmas,” C.S. Lewis impersonates a Roman historian analyzing British culture, and he describes two distinct winter festivals that occur at the same time, yet which have two different themes that are not related to one another at all. One is pagan and the other is Christian. One involves a mad rush in which people exhaust themselves in the marketplace, and the other involves reverent worship.
Lewis writes:
But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, It is not lawful, O Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left. And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, It is, O Stranger, a racket; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).
“Looking for baby Jesus under the trash” – U2.
This morning, Rush Limbaugh made fun of Maureen Dowd for saying, “If I hear ‘Frosty the Snowman’ one more time, I’ll rip his frozen face off!” Rush called her a joyless liberal. But he neglected to mention that Maureen’s grievances have nothing to do with the Reason for the season. I can’t stand Frosty or Rudolph or Santa either! We should, in fact, grieve the overcommercialization of Christmas and mourn the terrible loss of perspective our nation has suffered.
I first found out about this Fox News story at Relevant, but then my dad forwarded a link to me as well. As the writer reports, “A December parade in Denver will feature everyone from Chinese lion dancers to gay and lesbian shamans, but not Christians who want to sing yuletide hymns or carry a Merry Christmas message.” Ladies and gentlemen, it’s getting worse…