The Two Christmases

Posting Location: Family Home, Parma, OH.

So from my previous post expounding on Christmas and the surrounding traditions, one might assume that I'm a practicing Christian. That's not entirely accurate, but I'd like to focus on something that not many people like to openly admit: The fact that Christmas is no longer a strictly religious holiday. Actually, I'd like to take things one step further. I'd like to make the claim, here and now, that Christmas is no longer a single holiday.

I'm not talking about the trivial distinction between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I'm more talking about the subtle difference between Religious Christmas and Secular Christmas. I've personally taken to distinguishing the two as (respectively) Christmas and X-mas.

I'm sure some people can see where I'm going with this already. Christmas is the holiday of Jesus Christ, while X-mas is the holiday of Santa Claus. Christmas is the holiday with songs like Joy to the World, Silent Night, The First Noel, and O Little Town of Bethlehem. X-mas is the holiday with songs like Jingle Bells, Deck The Halls, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

One point in favor of this interpretation is that both government and commerce enhance the distinction. For example, think about the songs I mentioned above; which ones are more likely to create complaints if they were included in a public school holiday pageant? If they can slip a holiday song under the Separation of Church and State filter, then it's probably a X-mas song rather than a Christmas one. It's hard to picture anyone getting away with a nativity scene in a store like, say, Krogers --- but who would seriously object to a scene with Santa and Frosty?

My biggest proof of this, however, can be found in the nation of Japan. Simply put, Japan celebrates Chrismas, despite the fact that only 1-2% of the Japanese population is actually Christian. To me, that says that Christmas is no longer strictly a religious holiday.

Due to this opinion, I tend to get annoyed at two different groups of people around the holidays. The first are the people who feel that all mention of "Christmas" specifically, or anything even remotely associated (like Santa, ect.) has to be avoided in order to preserve Separation of Church and State. The second are the people who feel that any attempt to "take the Christ out of Christmas" is a crime against their religion and an attempt to suppress their faith. Both groups associate Christmas as inextricably tied with the religion of Christianity, which I really don't see as the case. I'm the kind of person who objects just as strongly to the concept of putting a nativity scene in front of City Hall as I do at the concept of removing Santa Claus from the mall (both hypotheticals where I live).

And on that note, I'll sign off for now. With the holidays coming up, I have no idea when I'll next have a chance to really post here. I'll probably get at least one more entry before New Years. Speaking of which, I've also got a few plans for the blog for the coming year, that I may go into detail on later.

Until then, Happy Holidays and Merry X-mas!

So Many Distractions, So Little Time

Posting Location: Family Home, Parma, OH.

There's a very good excuse for the dropoff in blog entries lately. Unfortunately, it involves admitting how behind-the-times I am currently.

You see, it's mostly been because I've been reading the fifth Harry Potter book.

That's right, I have not yet read the fifth Harry Potter book all the way through; what's more, I only just started Saturday. I meant to read it the summer it came out, but then work hit, and one thing came after another...suddenly it's two and a half years later. Needless to say, I've not read the sixth book yet either. My shame knows no bounds.

Other than that it's been the usual rush that so many of us find ourselves in towards the end of December. I still haven't got all my Chrismas shopping done yet, although admittedly I haven't had to do much. I've already gone halfsies on gifts for every other immediate family member, all by request by other family members who'd already bought expensive gifts and were looking for someone to get half-reimbursement from. Whatever, saves me the trouble.

Went down to Tower City Center with the family on Saturday as part of this not-shopping I've been doing. We'd split up and planned to meet at the Warner Brother's Store, which was my suggestion, as the storefront was pretty easy to distinguish. This didn't exactly work, since I was working off of memories of being there that were at least two years old --- as it turns out that store no longer exists in Tower City (luckily we all had cell phones). What they had in it's place was a games store, which was decent enough. I also noted that they now apparently have the whole place set up with WiFi, which I felt was interesting.

Best part of the trip, though? Waiting for the bus to take us back to Parma, we noticed all these signs clustered around each other saying "Happy Diwali," "Happy Kwanzaa," "Happy Channuka," etc. My sister had pointed out that there was no "Merry Christmas" among those signs, which I had noticed, too. Then I noticed why; these well-wishing signs were all clustered around a light up nativity scene. Even though I've never heard any word of this, I can quite clearly picture the chain of events leading up to this:

*City puts up nativity scene.
*Enough people complain that nativity scene is endorsement of Christianity over other religions, in violation of Separation of Church and State.
*City hastily puts up signs for holidays in other religions so it's not just Christianity and no one can say they're playing favorites.

Which, you know, still misses the point, but at least they're trying.

Speaking of the second most important holiday in Christianity, I can't believe that it's managed to sneak up on me like this. Not that I'm the only one; my family put up our tree and decorations just yesterday. We have a real tree this year, which is the first time we've had one in a while; so long in fact that we had to buy a new base for the tree, as the previous one was shot. It was a little too big when we brought it in, we had to cut the top off; the angel is actually nestled between branches at the top rather than sitting at the highest point.

Unfortunately, a few years of working with a fake tree have apparently made me soft as far as hanging ornaments are concerned. My fingers seem to have forgotten what it's like to work with needles that can actually hurt if you press down on them, and my creativity seems to have forgotten what it's like to work with branches that you can't bend into positions that better suit you. At any rate, the tree looks fine, and I'm almost done with shopping, so I guess it's all good.