Today is Black Friday, on my shortlist of candidates for the stupidest day of the year. Over the past few weeks I have needed on occasion to visit our local Lowe’s for bird food, leaf and lawn bags, and other autumn-related items. Since before Halloween, autumn leaf-control tools and accessories have been competing with mass quantities of the worst that commercial Christmas has to offer. Fake trees, gaudy and tasteless lawn decorations and tree ornaments have taken over the right front quadrant of the store, supported by the ever-offensive strains of Xmas muzak in the background. WTF!!!??? I thought the first time I saw this, as I do every year when I am smacked in the face by the Ghost of Capitalist Christmas two months early. Thanks for making me hate Christmas all over again, Lowe’s!
This experience brought an email exchange with a colleague from a few years ago to mind. I was the director of a large interdisciplinary academic program at the time; as such, I was often forced to remind various colleagues who reported to me that deadlines are not suggestions or optional.
Me: Are you going to be able to get your reviews up on the website by the end of the week? Please say yes—that’s the deadline, you know.
Colleague: I know, Vance, I know . . . I was in Maine for a funeral over the weekend. I will definitely get everything in by Friday, if not earlier. When I got back I read your reminder email to everyone from last week and felt very guilty and ashamed that I hadn’t even started my reviews.
Me: Good. Part of my job is to indiscriminately spread shame and guilt everywhere like some evil Santa Claus.
Colleague: Get thee behind me, Santa!
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not aligning myself with the forces resisting the supposed “War on Christmas” that certain folks annually claim is being fought by political liberals and social progressives such as I as part of a continuing effort to make atheism the religion of the land. One salvo in the war against the war on Christmas a few years ago was Sarah Palin’s Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas. I never read the book, but I’m quite confident that I know the general thrust of her argument, if she bothers to have one. Liberal atheist grinches are out there trying to steal our crèches, monitor our language so that we will be embarrassed to say “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays” or “How are you doing during this lovely Holiday season,” and make it a thought-crime to think about the baby Jesus.
I find this paranoia amusing, sad, or maddening depending on my mood. If one’s faith is rattled by such matters, one has larger issues to confront than the possibility that not everyone shares one’s faith. The Incarnation that I celebrate at Christmas is at the center of what I believe concerning God—whether an oversized fake baby with a halo and pious expression gets to lay in a manger while observed by other pious statues and animals on the front lawn of city hall doesn’t have much effect on that belief.
No, my WTF? annual response to Christmas crap in early November is not about protecting Christmas from the evil, liberal atheist hordes with whom I probably share a great deal more in common than with those resisting the imaginary war on Christmas. My interest is in pushing back against the evil designs of Santa. This is a scary guy who continually finds ways to invade my physical and mental space uninvited. Think about it:
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you are awake
Big Brother? The NSA? CIA? IRS? No—this is Santa, the most persistent stalker ever. According to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” the jolly fat elf has even appropriated moral authority over us: “He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake!” Who gave him that authority? For that matter, who gave him permission to monitor my sleeping habits? As a kid I was entirely in favor of Santa Claus’ generosity with presents once per year and was in awe of his amazing ability to almost be omnipresent, visiting every abode on the planet in one short night. But I found his interest in my bedtime routine and my moral behavior to be disconcerting and creepy.
The Christmas tune aside, I no longer think that Santa Claus is my moral judge, nor do I believe that he monitors my sleeping habits—for many those concerns have simply been transferred to the cosmic Santa Claus called God. I have had continuous confirmation from various classes this semester that in the minds of many persons, Santa Claus and God have become indistinguishable. And what more insidious undermining of an adult, vigorous, intelligent faith could there be—the divine turned into a fat guy with a beard who can be bribed by good behavior into fulfilling even the most trivial desires? A jolly elf who effectively seduces millions of people every year into believing that and behaving as if the best place to celebrate Christmas is in one of our contemporary cathedrals of worship—the shopping mall, virtual or in person. Get thee behind me, Santa, indeed.
The war on Christmas has been underway for a long time, waged not by liberal, politically correct atheists seeking to undermine traditional values, but rather by the insidious and inexorable pressure to trivialize and commodify everything. The heart of Christmas is no more present in lawn ornaments, “Put Christ Back Into Christmas” slogans, and “Merry Christmas” lapel buttons than it is in the extravaganza of holiday paraphernalia that screams at me every time I drive down the street or walk into a store between Halloween and New Year’s Day. The heart of Christmas is in the silent mystery of the Incarnation, in the strange and beautiful ways in which the divine chooses to enter our world in human form on a daily basis. There are many ways to connect and resonate with the heart of Christmas—Santa is not one of them.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In