There are ten million essays out there helping us understand what Christmas is (and I’ve written about three million of them myself). And it’s no wonder: The event of Christmas is something so huge and so profound, not even the most open mind can fully comprehend it. There’s always something more to say.
Nevertheless, this year I’d like to go in a different direction and talk, instead, about what Christmas isn’t.
It’s not a stick to beat pagans and atheists over the head with. Here in the states, we love to grumble about the “war on Christmas.”
Occasionally this means some local ordinance bans setting up a nativity scene on the town commons; but more often it means you go out to buy some batteries and ornament hooks, and the cashier said “Happy holidays” when they gave you your receipt, so you thundered back, “Merry CHRISTMAS” using your special scary St. Boniface voice.
Don’t do that. You’ll wake up baby Jesus, and he just barely went down for his nap. If Christmas is as great as we say it is, then surely it gives us the room to be decent to each other in its name.
It isn’t the time to be on your high horse in general. … Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
