I know, a day late and a dollar short.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t get back in to make the proclamation last night, so here it is.\u00a0 Contrary to popular belief, the war on Christmas didn\u2019t start a few years ago when merchants foolishly decided to censor their employees from speaking the \u201cC-word\u201d in public during that shopping season formerly known as\u00a0 ______mass.\u00a0 Rather, it began hundreds of years ago as successive generations of Protestants tossed out more and more of the traditional garb of a practicing Christian.\u00a0 This was typically under the auspices of it being \u2018too Catholic.\u2019\u00a0 Sometimes, as Protestant denominations are wont to do, they did it\u00a0in order to separate themselves from all the other denominations that they concluded were doing it wrong.\u00a0 Nevertheless, by the time Christmas began to reemerge in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was picked up only on the actual Feast day \u2013 the 25th \u2013 and from there a mountain of traditions, mostly secular and commercial, were added to the pile.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Still, there are some, and a growing number at that, who are starting to yearn for a less commercialized, \u2018we hate religion but love money\u2019 approach to the frenzied orgy of consumerism and self centered greed, who are beginning to discover what Christians for centuries knew \u2013 this should be a period of celebration and festivities that rejoiced in the birth of God our Savior, and looked for the eventual consummation of our salvation in his gracious and loving arms.\u00a0 And that it shouldn\u2019t end in one day when stores stop running ads for the latest sales.<\/p>\n
So Merry 12th day of Christmas, belated.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I know, a day late and a dollar short.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t get back in to make the proclamation last night, so here it is.\u00a0 Contrary to popular belief, the war on Christmas didn\u2019t start a few years ago when merchants foolishly decided to censor their employees from speaking the \u201cC-word\u201d in public during that shopping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n