The chaos of Christmas

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
The Chaos of Christmas				December 10, 2005

The good thing about December is that the hurricane season is finally over. The bad thing is that this whole holiday smorgasbord has gotten completely out of hand. If comments in the Last Word are any indication of the flaps that we’re in for this holiday season, we all might all be looking back at hurricane season with fond memories of a more peaceful time.

It would seem that some people around here are itching to don their Onward Christian Soldiers garb and have at it with Wal-Mart and Target for telling their employees to wish customers “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” The crux of the issue for these neo-crusaders seems to be that references to happy holidays and holiday trees are the ruminations of an atheist-Jewish-black cabal that is out to kidnap Christ from Christmas.

Adding to their frustration is the fact that the upside-down Christmas tree seems to be catching on. With its base hung from the ceiling and the pointy part on the floor, this tree is reminiscent of the upside-down postage stamps that anti-war protesters in the ‘60s and ‘70s used to stick on envelopes.

Well, let’s be honest about this. The fact is that all these December holidays are about as questionable as those missing WMD in Iraq.

With its winter solstice and the gloomy stuff that it foreshadows, December is too, too depressing. In order to spruce it up and get everyone out of the doldrums we have created one grandiose stretch of holidays that begins the day after Thanksgiving and takes us well into January. To make sure that we know that there will eventually be a light at the end of this winterized tunnel, we truck out buckets of candles for every one of these ersatz holidays.

Much of this started with the Romans and other ancient intelligences who noticed that it was in December that the sun seemed to disappear. To deal with this, they dreamed up all kinds of rowdy bring-back-the-sun festivals at which they got quite snockered on wine and began to think that December wasn’t such a bad month after all.

Appropriating the traditions of the rollicking Romans, Pope Liberius in 354 decided that he could lure the sun god’s worshippers to the ways of Christianity if he proclaimed to the world that Christ was born on December 25^th. Never mind that there is no evidence anywhere, including in the Bible or early Christian writers, to substantiate such a claim.

The Christian apologist, Clement of Alexandria (150-215), had already set the birth date of Christ on May 20. In addition, the Bible references to the birth of Christ would indicate that December is out of the question. Shepherds in Palestine were simply not out freezing in the fields with their sheep in December. Nor would the Romans and their henchmen, including King Herod, be so stupid as to order that people slog off through snow and ice to census centers in the middle of winter. In all probability, then, Christ was born sometime between April and October.

Hence it’s hard to take Christ out of Christmas, since he probably was never in it. At least in December.

Another holiday that’s worked its way into December is the Jewish festival of lights, called Hanukkah. Celebrating the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem and a miraculous supply of oil for menorah lighting, this festival may have wound up in December as a result of a legend in the book of Second Macabees. There we’re told that Nehemiah was able to rekindle the altar fire due to a miracle that occurred – guess when? – on the 25^th of Kislev, or December. Is this coincidence or what?

In 1966, a professor of black studies at the University of California in Long Beach thought that it would be an excellent idea to co-opt the Hanukkah candle tradition, conjoin it with the Christmas celebration and come up with a whole new holiday to celebrate the principles of African culture. Thus we add Kwanzaa to the already extensive December holiday list and light seven candles, one each day, of different colors to represent the goals of black culture. Just to make sure we all know that our founding professor was serious about his new holiday, he changed his name from Ron Everett to Maulana Ron Karenga.

Now we have three holidays, all zeroing in on the end of December, and creating havoc for weeks before. They all involve gift giving, spending lots of dough and generally rekindling our drowsy spirits by lighting up cozy capitalistic cornucopias of candles and mesmerizing ourselves with myriads of other celebratory doodads and upside-down holiday trees.

As for me, I think we’d do ourselves a big favor if we minimalized all these holidays and took Jesus up on his admonition to give what we have to the poor. Forget the iPods, the Xboxes and all the other electronic gizmos we charge around like Pamplonian bulls to purchase. Give your money to the poor and then celebrate Seinfeld’s Festivus. All you need for that is an undecorated aluminum pole and a bunch of people sitting around a table eating meatloaf and airing grievances about each other.

Or we could just go back to our roots and give the Romans and their sun god another shot.

With a nod to Paula Abdul and her nifty neologism, I wish you all a happy Christmahanukkwanzaakah.