• NORAD’s “Santa Tracker” allows children to follow Santa’s sleigh tonight on radar. This is, of course, a hoax. Why would the Pentagon cooperate in such a distraction? John McKay offers one theory: “The Men In Black are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. …”
• Watching cartoon voice actors reading “A Visit From St. Nicholas” is fun (via), but if we’re going to re-read something as an annual Christmas tradition, I’d rather go with Hyperbole and a Half’s “The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas.”
• Or we might go with David Sedaris reading his “Santaland Diaries.”
• Another thing I’m happy to read every year: Richard Beck on “Christmas Carols as Resistance Literature.”
Beck looks at the full lyrics to “O Holy Night” — an antislavery hymn written, and sung, in the decades before the Civil War. It’s also a terrific singer’s song, which is why so many amazing singers have performed or recorded goosebump-inducing versions of it. Alas, though, nearly all of those leave out the later verses of the song — the ones Beck celebrates as “resistance literature.” Nine times out of 10 it’s just the first verse, sung twice, big finish, the end. Grrr.
(This is a source of annual irritation for me that ranks up there with the vapid “happy” rewrite of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” That’s a song about hope amid sorrow and the determination to “muddle through somehow.” Hanging a shining star upon the highest bough doesn’t have anything to do with that.)
• The embrace of “O Holy Night” as solely about that first verse (“our dear savior’s birth”) while rejecting the rest of the story (“chains shall he break”) corresponds with what Drew G.I. Hart describes as “the noise of the pseudo Jesus story we have been bamboozled with that focuses on sweet baby Jesus and gives us warm fuzzy feelings”:
Instead of Jesus coming in solidarity with those on the margins (as seen through his birth in Bethlehem surrounded by shepherds), as a threat to the authorities (as was demonstrated by Herod’s attempt to execute him while he was still young), or a leveling of the distribution of power and resources in society (as sung by Mary and proclaimed by John the Baptist), the American/western Jesus that has been handed down to us has watered down or ignored every attempt and effort of scripture being read against our current reality and lives. Radical repentance towards following Jesus and reorienting our lives to the kingdom of God is no longer necessary because the American Christmas promises a Jesus that fits quite comfortably within our current lives as they already are.
The takeaway from the American Christmas is, don’t worry, no significant change is necessary, just “remember the reason for this season.” Fortunately, the Messiah of God has more to offer us than that.
• It wouldn’t be Christmas Eve around here without linking to Anne Lamott’s “Advent Adventure”:
“So three men from the recovery house next door help him to his feet, walk him to the halfway house and put him in the shower. They wash his clothes and shoes and give him their things to wear while he waits. They give him coffee and dinner, and they give him respect. I talked to these other men later, and even though they had very little sobriety, they did not cast this other guy off for not being well enough to be there. Somehow this broken guy was treated like one of them, because they could see that he was one of them. No one was pretending he wasn’t covered with shit, but there was a real sense of kinship. And that is what we mean when we talk about grace. …”
• That story gets at part of why this is one of my favorite Christmas songs:
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