A Christmas for Everyone

Christmas
is too cool a holiday to confine it to Christians. We ought to reformulate it as a secular two-day holiday, Dec. 24-25. On the 24th, we’d
all decorate our homes with lights, reflect on peace, get together with the family, exchange presents, drink
eggnog, kiss strangers under mistletoe, etc.,
just because those are fun things to do near the Solstice. It’d have nothing to do with Jesus, mangers or myrhhhhh. Then, on the 25th, the Christians could
celebrate Christ’s birth by going to church,
praying, and engaging in activities more spiritual than whining about misfired gifts before heading out to an afternoon movie. The rest of us would have a second day off.

So, I guess my new party platform is: “Let’s get the
Christ out of Christmas.” In fact, let’s call the
new two day federal holiday “Mas.” Got the Spanish
connection and everything.

.. I urge you to take heart as I did from
a recent (yesterday or the day before I think) feature on Marketplace
(the NPR business show). It casually stated
that many more Japanese celebrate Christmas than are Christian and moved
on to the main point which is that many more Japanese than should (my
spin) eat Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas because they believe that
is what Americans do…

It’s like seeing your own unconscious habits reflected in your children’s behavior. Embarrassing.

Categories: Uncategorized dw