token christmas blog (bleh)

what can i say? i'm trapped in my retail reality this christmas eve. the shoppers are sprinting about from store to bright-lit store in search of gifts for each other. not all the shoppers, i guess. some people are playing it cool. still, a lot of people are worried about making sure that everyone else gets more things.

 i'm awash in disillusionment - with hyper-commercialism and marketable sentiment, with opportunistic ideological conflict and rhetorically charged bitterness. i'm disappointed that this holiday brings occasion for obligatory family time and guilt giving.

some people i've talked to have used the time of festivity for the advancement of their beliefs. i'm told that christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus. i've had the nativity version of christmas crammed down my throat repeatedly by people who tell me that political correct-ness is taking the Christ out of christmas. that may be true, but i'm not so sure it's a bad thing.

does God really need christmas?

culture is kinda like a sandbox. (photo by janez novak)

i'm of the opinion that culture is dynamic. i try not to think of it like a solid rock that was dropped to earth by God to endure forever. culture might be more like a sandbox. everyone makes their mark, but those contirbutions are soon rearranged by others. from this perspective, the fact that less people like to associate late december with the birth of Jesus is not a moral crisis but simply a shift in culture.

sure, we can sell you nativity scenes instead of snow globes, but that doesn't mean you respect God any more. you can read luke 2 aloud together on christmas morning before tearing into a bunch of festively wrapped tokens of impulsively acquired temporal gratification. maybe culture is largely abitrary

some people celebrate the birth of Jesus, some being with family, and some buying and selling; most people under ten simply celebrate receiving presents. is there some inherent good we can do by reverting back to older traditions? getting back to the roots of the season would entail examining lots of different intertwining traditions - both "pagan" and "christian." but honestly, is getting back to the roots of christmas really necessary?

as ever,

joel

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