Let’s Put the Christmas Back in Christmas

Once upon a time, all Christmas songs were strictly forbidden. Even the very celebration of Christmas was deemed a punishable offense! Year after year, the people of the land were subject to a bleak midwinter with no great light to bring them hope. It’s hard to imagine who would do such a thing. A white witch? A wicked overlord? An oppressive foreign army? No, in fact, Christmas was canceled by Christians. True story.

In the mid-1600s, Christians around the United Kingdom had become convinced that Christmas had become so idolatrous and profane that it was better not to have it at all. The reasons varied — Presbyterians banned yuletide celebrations after they had become a drunken spectacle; Puritans banned them for not being scriptural; others banned them for being too Catholic — but the bottom line was this: Christmas wasn’t what it used to be. Where it once was pure, it had become sullied and, therefore, unredeemable. It was not restored as a holiday for another twenty years and not popularized again until the Victorian age, much later. Dark times, indeed.

I can only wonder how Puritans would respond to a Target Christmas commercial or the history-making “All I Want for Christmas is You.” Would their heads explode? Would they set sail for another distant land to seek religious freedom all over again? Would they try to burn Mariah Carey at the stake? It’s hard to say. But something tells me today’s Christmas culture is no holier than it was 350 years ago. And we are still hellbent on returning it to what it once was.

Since the 1950s, one of the mainstay Christmas crusades has been “Put Christ Back in Christmas.” It is a stark refusal of the secularized greeting, “Happy Holidays.” The notion is that the world has erred and strayed like lost sheep and that we, as God’s people, need to get everyone back to the true reason for the season. The thought is not only well intentioned but well founded. Of course the true meaning of Christmas should be honored! At the same time, feeling like we are sole protectors and defenders of Christmas — that it is our job to put Christ anywhere — is not only a fool’s errand, but, in some way, unchristian. The true meaning of Christmas need not exclude the false meanings so completely. During his adult life, Jesus would show us that he’s quite at home among the riffraff of the world.

If anything, the world could use a little more “holly, jolly” — not less. It could use a whole lot more gift giving and gratitude and year-end bonuses and ugly sweaters that bring a smile to a stranger’s face. It needs the temporary amnesty from bickering, for time off from work, and family and work gatherings filled with small talk and unexpected friendships. A world without all the trappings of Christmas is far less merciful, less generous, less hospitable. It is a place that resembles a bleak midwinter rather than the great light that has come into the world.

Advent enthusiasts and Twelve Days of Christmas purists may be faithful in their pursuit of a holy Christmas, but their zeal can be just as damaging as the commercialism they wage war against. KFC’s “Kentucky for Christmas” might desecrate the reason for the season, but so does the finger-wagging of “You’re not celebrating Christmas right.” Obsessing about keeping Christmas pure is like trying to moderate your kids’ candy consumption on Halloween. Like a wedding where the bride and groom ask everyone to thank them for the open bar. Or like a youth soccer coach obsessed with winning. If we focus too much on the purity, we miss out on the thing itself.

After all, banning secularism has its limits. Should we shun all materialism? By doing so, we will forget that the magi presented material gifts (ones that they presumably purchased). Should we adhere only to the biblical story of Christmas? Then we will never see our children delight in The Grinch or Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree. Should we only stick to Jesus-centered carols? Then we will needlessly deprive ourselves of Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s electrifying version of “Carol of the Bells.” Even amid secular Christmas, Jesus is not expunged. If you find yourself shopping in a mall with Christmas music playing, you will certainly hear Mariah Carey and A-Ha and the Beatles, but you will also hear a version of “O Holy Night.” Jesus may be the one true Lord of the universe, but he humbled himself to the point of being all in the mix with the other Christmas riffraff.

The good news of Christmas is not so much that we will get it right. It’s that — someway, somehow — God will work his way into our getting it wrong. We will inevitably turn Jesus’ birthday into a drunken celebration of money and entitlement. We will distract ourselves from the newborn baby with the latest gizmos and gadgets. We will exhaust ourselves in the holiday rush of children’s recitals and cocktail parties.

Trying to purify Jesus’ birthday misses the point that he was born in a stable of all places, not a temple. Therefore, we need not struggle to revert to whatever Christmas used to be. It has always been sullied because it is the story of a holy and pure God entering into all that is unholy and impure. That is, after all, how he redeemed the world.

One of the longstanding Christmas campaigns of my childhood was to forbid any reference to “Xmas.” Anyone attempting to remove Christ from Christmas was surely of the devil. And yet, Xmas comes from the Greek letter chi (X) which happens to be the first letter of Christos (Χριστός), meaning “Christ.” It turns out that Xmas is a way of honoring Jesus, not extracting him. Furthermore, doesn’t the letter “X” resemble something else? What if it’s a cross? Even if by accident, all signs point to Jesus.