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Happy Holidays! |
Yes, I acknowledge that there are holidays occurring! There quite a few, actually, including the celebration of the winter solstice, Kwanzaa, Samhain, Hanukkah, and yes, Christmas. You’d be surprised how many winter holidays there actually are. You might also be surprised how many of the individual traditions of these diverse holidays were hijacked by Christmas. It seems to me that Christmas is really a hybrid holiday. It could be viewed as the culmination of many, many culture’s traditions merging into one winter holiday. Of course, it’s never quite seen that way due to the over-emphasis on the “birthday” of the historical figure of Jesus Christ. You do realize that no-one really knows when Jesus Christ was actually born, right? Births were not particularly noted in the region and culture in which this historical figure is said to have lived…on the contrary, deaths were much more noted. But I’m getting off subject (a bit). If we break down the traditions of Christmas we find very little associated directly with the “birthday” of Jesus Christ. The short list of directly related traditions and symbols would be the manger scenes and the Three Wise Men and perhaps that cool planet alignment story (the guiding star). After that, it’s world culture potpourri time. All manner of cultural winter holidays have been systematically and historically swallowed up whole, refined, changed, cleansed and “Christianized” by the Catholic Church. Yule logs, Mistletoe, Wreaths, Trees, Bells, Lights, and just about everything else you can think of were used by some other culture long before becoming associated with present day Christmas tradition. Even though Christmas stole the whole winter show, its reign as the major winter holiday seems to be in trouble. Lately, it has become politically correct to say something like “Happy Holidays” as opposed to “Merry Christmas.” Hmn, could the Christians actually be losing ground in this particular arena? And is so, why? How could they manage to make politics about religion but fail to keep religion politically correct? I’m totally stumped by this. It is reasonable to assume that one reason Christmas might be downplayed in our culture would be the fact that there are OTHER religions and cultural influences within our country. Of course, I don’t think any of them have the power or ability to change the huge financial “Holiday Season” economic frenzy that has become integral to our fiscal health as a nation. Christmas is big business, I mean REALLY BIG BUSINESS. It’s very unlikely that Christmas will cease to be a gift-giving time of year anytime soon. There are historical references we could look to see how you can keep something going but change its name and therefore it’s social interpretation. No wait! That’s how we got Christmas in the first place! The fundamentalist Christians can’t see the benefit of allowing the winter holidays to merge and meld into “Happy Holidays.” For their own reasons, Christmas needs to be the only winter holiday accepted by the majority. It’s a shame, though. There’s such diversity out there and each culture has rich traditions that might have more meaning to people if not diluted to conform to a populist religion’s needs. Creating a narrow view of such universal concepts as light, love and peace on earth is far too limiting to do the concepts justice. And, if we all are the same, how will we tell each other apart? So, Happy Holidays to you. In whatever way you choose to celebrate the winter. I personally enjoy gift-giving and spending time with family and friends. But of course, I enjoy that throughout the year!