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Are We Celebrating Christmas Wrong?
Well, yes, we are.
That is, if we believe the generations of Miz Grundys yapping forth on the InterGossip and in the news and in the advertisements.
‘Tis the season when almost every posting tells us how we have been doing Christmas all wrong and how some newly-invented-old-timey-tradition-dating-back-to-last-week will make it all better if we will only obey.
Hey, it’s on the InterGossip; it must be right.
But there is nothing new in this conceptual shifting. In the 17th century the Puritans in no-longer-merry England and thus in the colonies banned Christmas as popish and pagan. Grumpy Scotland had outlawed Christmas a hundred years before and for the same reasons. Christmas was slowly restored in England with, well, the Restoration, but Scotland did not recognize the holiday again until 1958.
Imagine 400 years without Christmas. It’s as if C. S. Lewis’ White Witch were in charge all that time.
Evergreen decorations were common, but Christmas trees were little known in England and the U.S.A. until Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (turn left at the next road; it’s out back behind the second dairy barn), who missed the German tradition. Victoria and Albert had a tree imported from Germany and decorated it themselves. 1848 is usually given as the year when having a Christmas tree became a fashion in the English-speaking world since the royals were totally cool.
Only in 1870 was Christmas recognized as a national holiday in the U.S.A., and that was through a decree by President Grant.
Still, in many places influenced by the Puritans Christmas was honored only reluctantly.
Certain television producers, probably not Puritans but for reasons of their own, insisted in 1965 that Linus not read St. Luke’s Infancy narrative in A Charlie Brown Christmas, but in the event that center of the story – because it is the center of Creation – was finally allowed by The Suits, and we are the richer for it.
Shifting fashions continue to change our perceptions of Christmas. Many consider the Christmases of our childhood as the norm, but our children don’t see it that way. And, really, neither did our parents or grandparents, who sometimes grumbled that having electric lights on the tree somehow didn’t seem right, and that a kid ought to be happy with some oranges and a few little toys stuffed into a sock. But then they bought us lots of toys (and socks and underwear – too thrilling) anyway, so hooray!
And if in this season we get off the metaphorical trail a bit, well, we have Linus and his familiarity with Saint Luke to remind us of the way.
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