![\"Top-Gear-British-Baking-Show\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/524\/2016\/11\/Top-Gear-British-Baking-Show.jpg\")
<\/a>A lot of folks today think that, just because you call something by a certain name, that means it\u2019s actually the thing in question.<\/p>\nBut reality is stubborn. Some things just ARE, and they can\u2019t be reimagined, remade, redone, reassembled, renamed or reconstituted. Either you get the real thing, or it\u2019s nothing at all.<\/p>\n
For example, take the case of \u201cTop Gear.\u201d<\/p>\n
In early 2015, the BBC sacked Jeremy Clarkson, one of the hosts of the British network\u2019s long-running car (and comedy and crazy stunt) show, \u201cTop Gear,\u201d over an on-set fracas. Clarkson\u2019s longtime co-stars, Richard \u201cHamster\u201d Hammond and James \u201cCaptain Slow\u201d May, voluntarily exited with him.<\/p>\n
With the three of them left the heart and soul of the U.K. version of \u201cTop Gear.\u201d The BBC has tried a variety of other hosts, but everything they\u2019ve produced is just a pale imitation of the original. Because \u201cTop Gear\u201d is not just about cars and stunts, it\u2019s about the personalities of the hosts and the relationships among them. Subtract those, and you have something called \u201cTop Gear,\u201d but it\u2019s an entirely different show.<\/p>\n
Now the three (and an original \u201cTop Gear\u201d producer) are over on Amazon Prime Video with a rollicking new car-themed <\/a>(and stunt-heavy) show called \u201cThe Grand Tour,\u201d<\/a> which sends the hosts on global adventures. It premiered on Nov. 18, and after seeing two episodes, it\u2019s like coming home to find everything redecorated, but it\u2019s home nonetheless.<\/p>\n People are still watching something called \u201cTop Gear,\u201d but without Clarkson, the Hamster and Captain Slow, it\u2019s just a poser.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, also on the BBC is \u201cThe Great British Bake Off\u201d (shown in America on PBS as \u201cThe Great British Baking Show,\u201d<\/a> and also on Netflix), quite possibly the most delightful cooking-competition show I\u2019ve ever seen. Or, at least it used to be.<\/p>\n Since premiering in 2010, the show pitted multicultural amateur British bakers against each other in a kitchen set underneath a tent on the grounds of a lush English estate. The hosts were the comedy team of Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, and their co-hosts and judges were professional bakers Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry.<\/p>\n Suddenly, in September, the producers announced they were taking the show<\/a> from the BBC to rival commercial network Channel 4. The hosts weren\u2019t consulted and mostly weren\u2019t happy. Perkins and Giedroyc departed, followed by Mary Berry, leaving only Hollywood of the original quartet.<\/p>\n There are two December specials <\/a>left with the first four hosts, then the gang splits up.<\/p>\n So, what has Channel 4 bought? Not much. The charm of the show is as much in the hosts \u2014 especially Berry \u2014 as it is in the format. I\u2019m just not interested in whom Channel 4 rustles up to round out the crew. It won\u2019t ever be \u201cThe Great British Baking Show\u201d I fell in love with.<\/p>\n So what does all this have to do with keeping Christ in Christmas? Everything. You can\u2019t take the core out of something and still claim it\u2019s the same thing.<\/p>\n Christmas, by definition, is the celebration of Christ\u2019s birth. If He\u2019s not there, then you may call it Christmas, but it\u2019s something else. The so-called \u201csecular Christmas\u201d is just a rattly assemblage of random decorations, traditions that, taken out of context, often make very little sense, and various deeply personal memories and attempts at attaching meaning to a day from which the true meaning has been removed.<\/p>\n To be sure, there are things compiled into the Christmas celebration that are adapted from various cultures and have a variety of origins. With a holiday this old and this universal, that\u2019s bound to happen. But you could strip all of those away, and the core of Christmas \u2014 the Mass of the Birth of Christ, or the Nativity \u2014 would remain unchanged. Whether you have a Christmas tree or a pinata or lasagna or turkey or popcorn garlands or inflatable Santas on the lawn, they\u2019re all just after-market add-ons.<\/p>\n Christmas is about love because Christ is Love; it\u2019s about Family because of the Holy Family; it\u2019s about Home, because the Son of God was born far from his parents\u2019 home, in a lowly manger; it\u2019s about Joy because Hope has been born; and it\u2019s about Celebration because Light has come into a dark\u00a0world.<\/p>\n Back before I returned to the Church, I marked the Winter Solstice, and out of respect for a Faith I wasn\u2019t practicing, I kept Christ out of it. My tree had no Christian symbols on it; and my cookies weren\u2019t shaped like angels; and there was no Nativity set. But the decorations were lovely, the food was good, and there was family and fellowship.<\/p>\n It was fun and festive, but it ultimately rang hollow. So, late at night, by myself, I\u2019d still watch Midnight Mass from the Vatican on TV.<\/p>\n All the rest was certainly Christmasy, but it wasn\u2019t Christmas. We\u2019ve let the world take the name of our holiday, water it down, exploit it and profane it. To use the parlance of the politically correct Left, it\u2019s one of the biggest instances of \u201ccultural appropriation,\u201d and it\u2019s committed against all of Christendom. People have all kinds of Christ-free celebrations on and\u00a0about Dec. 25, and many of them are warm and charming and sweet, and they may be called Christmas, but they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n The BBC may call it \u201cTop Gear,\u201d but it\u2019s not. Channel 4 has bought a name, but not the thing itself. And if this is true about something as wordly and ultimately inconsequential as television, then how much more true is it of Truth itself?<\/p>\n Even the virulently secular Starbucks figured it out, and added a Nativity scene<\/a> to its selection of red \u201choliday\u201d cups.<\/p>\n Christmas belongs to Christians. It is the Mass of the Nativity, of the Birth of Christ \u2014 nothing more and nothing less.<\/p>\n Accept no substitutes.<\/p>\n Image:\u00a0Courtesy BBC<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Don\u2019t miss a thing: head over to my other home at\u00a0CatholicVote\u00a0<\/a>and like my\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>; also like the\u00a0Patheos Catholic<\/a>\u00a0FB page to see what my colleagues have to say.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When you remove the core of something, the name may remain, but nothing else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2174,"featured_media":3470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,4,3],"tags":[700,701,699,697,705,703,704,698,702,696],"class_list":["post-3468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith-practice","category-media","category-television","tag-great-british-bake-off","tag-great-british-baking-show","tag-james-may","tag-jeremy-clarkson","tag-mary-berry","tag-mel-giedroyc","tag-paul-hollywood","tag-richard-hammond","tag-sue-perkins","tag-top-gear"],"yoast_head":"\n