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December 26, 2003
Greeting the Season
Sorry I didn't post yesterday; No, I was not left in some post-solstice haze of drunken revelryI had a more important celebration to get to...
My family is a bit odd in certain respects. Chief among them is that no two of us have the same religion. Though I think it may be from simple inertia on the part of the rest of my family, I celebrate Christmas for the same reason the Japanese do: Santa Clause.
Jolly old Saint Nick represents to me what is among the noblest impulses Humanity has to display: Charity. While some may believe-- some take it as an article of their faiththat Charity can be found only among those to scared to do otherwise, one viewing of A Christmas Carol ought to dispel that nasty notion. We give for the same reasons Scrooge did at the end of the story: We all truly hate to see made worse those we could make better...
Some decry the over commercialization of Christmas. Such an accusation is groundless. Christmas is no more commercialized than the rest of our society. We buy Christmas Presents for the same reason we buy our shoes: we no longer produce anything directly. Sure, there are a lot of commercials for Christmas: just as there are many commercials rest of the year for anniversaries. Yet I have heard nary a complaint about the over commercialization of spending 25 years married...
And Ultimately buying the gifts is only a small portion of the idea. For the rest no commercial can touch. The Holiday, the reason the day is a Holy Day, is so we can gather together and exchange those gifts. The party, the revelry, and the shear joy of being with those we love are the reason for the season...
And as for Santa Clause, well, I couldn't improve upon the Original
Posted by Andrew at December 26, 2003 10:46 AM
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